Love tarot reading

More questions come to tarot about love than about everything else combined, and most of them are a version of the same one: what is going on, and where does it leave me.

That is a question a card can genuinely help with. A few of the others are not.

The ones that read well

• Is this relationship going anywhere?
• What am I not seeing about this?
• Should I say what I actually want?
• What would I need to let go of for this to work?

They have something in common: you are in them. The card lands on your side of the situation, which is the only side any reading can illuminate.

The ones that read badly

• Does he miss me?
• Is she seeing someone else?
• Will they text this week?

These ask a picture to report on another person's private mind or diary. Tarot has no access to either, and a reading that answers confidently is inventing. What it can do is turn the question round: what would change for me if they did, or did not. That version has an answer you can use.

The cards that turn up

Cups is the suit of feeling, so a love question that comes back with pentacles or swords is already telling you something about where the situation actually sits.

• The Lovers — less romance than a real choice, made with your eyes open.
• Two of Cups — mutual, level, both parties present.
• Three of Swords — the plain one. Grief, and usually grief you already know about.
• The Moon — you are not being told everything, possibly including by yourself.
• Ten of Cups — the settled version of what you want, which is worth checking against what you would actually choose.

The full card meanings are here, both orientations.

Ask once, and read the rest

Ask in one sentence, about your own position, and then read past the verdict — the interpretation is where the card says what it is pointing at. If you ask the same question tomorrow because you did not like today's answer, you already know what the answer was.