Question: Why am I struggling to find a long-term relationship?
Card #1 (Yourself Currently): King of Swords
Card #2 (Where You’ve Been): Nine of Swords
Card #3 (Where You’re Headed): Five of Cups
Card #4 (Challenges to Progress): The Sun
Card #5 (Guidance from the Spirit World): Queen of Pentacles
First Impressions
I have to admit, this spread is an exciting one. You might have heard me mention before that I’ve set up these readings the way they are because I like a few days to really allow the different puzzle pieces to fall into place.
However, that was not the case with this reading. The message was loud and clear to me from the moment I had the cards flipped. And, as it frequently goes in tarot readings, the message centers around the major arcana card present–the Sun.
We’ll get into the specifics of the message in just a bit, but in a nutshell, it’s this–your beliefs about and approach towards dating is very likely what’s holding you back, and it’s time to change course before more heartache happens.
The Individual Cards
Before we take a look at the spread as a whole and how the cards relate to one another, I always like to take a moment to examine them individually first. Figuring out how they operate solo can often lead to insights about how the reading as a whole is functioning.
King of Swords (Where You Are Currently)
This is what I like to call a “captain obvious” card. I mean that in the sense that the king of swords is telling us something we absolutely already know.
Frequently, kings in the tarot deck represent a sense of dissatisfaction or antagonism. When you couple this with the fact that the suit of swords often represents our mundane, everyday lives, I see the king of swords as telegraphing loud and clear your dissatisfaction with how your love life is going currently.
Thankfully, the rest of this spread is a bit more insightful–although I’m always grateful for an obvious card that lets me know I’m on the right track!
Nine of Swords (Where You’ve Been)
One glance at the nine of swords tells you that this isn’t an upbeat or happy card. This absolutely reinforces the theme of dissatisfaction we saw in the King of Swords, but it also goes deeper and illuminates more.
It would be enough to say that this card represents your anxiety and fear about finding a long-term relationship and the prospect of growing older as a single person, but the nine of swords goes further than that.
I mentioned just a moment ago that the suit swords often represent the mundane, physical, and everyday world, but the nine of this suit offers a unique exception. If you look at the artwork, it seems reasonable to interpret this scene as a woman who’s just woken up from a bad dream. The nine of swords often acts a linking card between your outer everyday world and your inner psychological or spiritual world.
This issue of long-term relationships is affecting your outer world (i.e. a lack of a partner), but I can see this anxiety and fear is also beginning to reach its way into your inner world as well. Often times this manifests in lines of logic like, “I’m having trouble solving this issue, so the problem must be me.”
Five of Cups (Where You’re Headed)
I’m not going to lie, the first two cards in this spread have been less-than-cheery. Unfortunately, this card is not much more positive. However, a turn is coming in the last two cards if we can just make it through this one.
In contrast with the suits of swords and pentacles, the suits of cups and wands often represent spiritual and emotional concerns. And in particular, the five of cups represents a feeling of emptiness inside. But it also goes deeper than that–if you look at the art work, a figure is surrounded by cups and their contents. This figure has tasted everything the world has to offer and still finds no satisfaction, no cup worth actually bearing.
As the struggle to find a long-term partner continues, I see you becoming more and more disillusioned with the whole process. You’ve dated many potential partners, and they’ve all come up lacking. That understandably is going to take a toll on your mental state, and if left unchecked, could lead to deep despair.
But that does not have to be the future!
How the Cards Relate to One Another
I know I’ve only addressed three of the individual cards at this point, but Cards #4 and #5 really work together to show an alternative path to the one laid out by Cards #1 thru #3. So I’m including their analysis in the section on card connections.
The Sun (Challenges)
The Sun is a major arcana card that frequently represents strongly held beliefs. And, within the context of this reading, I think this is a case where those strong beliefs are holding you back, which is why it has revealed itself as the challenge card in this reading.
Specifically, I think those strongly held beliefs have to do with your expectations for how this whole dating and relationships thing is supposed to go. You’ve entered the dating world with the belief that you’ve got a time limit or an expiration date that you have to beat. I also have a suspicion that you feel like a relationship that doesn’t work out in the way you wanted it to is a waste of your time and not a potential and valuable learning experience.
However, by locking yourself into those beliefs, you lock yourself into that sad timeline laid out by the nine of swords, king of swords, and five of cups. That outer path is merely mirroring the inner path paved by those beliefs.
Queen of Pentacles (Spirit Guidance)
And the final card of the spread, the queen of pentacles, shows you a new way out.
In contrast to the king cards, which often represent conflict or antagonism, queen cards typically reflect acceptance and reconciliation. In particular, the queen of pentacles often represents a person who is skilled at accepting life as it is, even when the bad times show up. This queen is stoic and knowledgeable with a wisdom that can only come through experience.
Even when things are swirling and chaotic around her, she knows that accepting trials as a natural part of life, even though they hurt, will lessen their pain and power.
I believe that this card has shown up in the guidance position in this spread as a message from the Universe, Spirit world, deity (or however you want to envision it) that your mental approach to and core beliefs about finding a long-term partner are hindering your efforts and may even be actively harmful to your wellbeing.
In order to avoid that future in the five of cups where you’re burnt out on dating and find it utterly hopeless, you’ve got to find ways to “edit” the story you’re telling yourself about your love life.
Now, I won’t deny that there are some people out there who truly need an entire personality makeover before they’re fit for the dating world, but I do not think that is the case here. I genuinely believe that the core of the issue is that you’ve got some self-limiting beliefs rattling around in your head that you might not even be actively aware of.
And why do I think this? It all comes back to the king of swords crossed by The Sun, with the queen of pentacles overhead.
The King, The Queen, The Sun–How Do They Relate?
If you were truly just a rotten, undateable person, something a bit more damning would have come up in the Card #1 position (your current self). The king isn’t awful–just unhappy. And we see as clear as day what’s making him unhappy in the Card #4 position (challenges), as reflected by The Sun–the way he thinks things should be happening is not lining up with the reality of the situation.
However, the queen of pentacles offers a way out, because she has an emphasis on acceptance and wisdom.
It’s important to accept that dating is an awkward game, and it’s one that takes time to play. And it’s also important to realize that any failed relationships in your past were not a waste of time–whether you realized it or not at the time, those experiences were teaching you about yourself and what you want and need from a romantic relationship.
Those times weren’t losses because you broke up; they were wins because you didn’t stick around in a relationship that wasn’t giving you what you needed. And now you have those experiences to draw on and help better navigate your way through the world in the future.
Being single right now understandably feels rough, but the queen of pentacles is not one to give up when things are bad or when there’s not a quick, easy fix. She knows that it’s just the nature of life (or the dating world) to have low points. I’m absolutely sure that you have that strength within yourself, just waiting to be used.
To Wrap Things Up
I truly hope this reading has been illuminating for you and has given you some things to consider, as well as some potential courses of action. Before we say goodbye, here’s a summary of what I saw in your reading:
- Things aren’t going great in the dating world right now–but you didn’t need me to tell you that.
- What originally starts as anxiety, fear, or negativity surrounding the prospect of a long-term relationship can easily seep into other aspects of your life if you’re not careful. The dating game is hard, and it absolutely can start to wear on a person.
- Your ideas about how this whole love and relationship thing should go are deeply held, to the point where you might not have even been consciously aware of them. In this scenario, these beliefs are holding you back from finding what you want.
- Those beliefs probably revolve around the idea of finding a long-term partner quickly and without too much trouble (i.e. breakups).
- You can subtly but actively challenge and alter those beliefs by identifying with the queen of pentacles and her emphasis on acceptance and wisdom through experience.
- Finding a life-affirming, wonderful long-term relationship takes time, and denying this and trying to cut corners is only going to lead to relationships that don’t provide you with what you need. Adjusting your timeline (or throwing it out the window, if you’re comfortable) will relieve a ton of the stress and anxiety surrounding finding a partner.
- Your past relationships are not mistakes or failures–they are learning opportunities. Every time you identify something you don’t want, what you DO want comes a little bit more into focus.
Once again, I truly hope I’ve given you some important things consider, and I hope you come away from this reading with a feeling of hopefulness about the future and your ability meaningfully impact it. I know there is an amazing partner out there waiting for you–it’s just a matter of being patient and having the wisdom to spot them when they finally arrive on the scene.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to, in some small and unusual way, share in your life and its inevitable victories and disappointments. I wish you the best in the future–however it unfolds!
Blessed Be,
Didi Clarke