About the Relationship spread
The relationship spread looks at two people and the space between them. Two cards describe each person, two describe what holds you together and what pulls you apart, and the last two give advice and a direction.
It works for any close relationship: a partner, a crush, an ex, a friend, a parent or a colleague. It is most honest when you read the card about yourself as carefully as the card about them.
The positions
- 1You. What are you bringing to this relationship?
- 2The Other Person. What are they bringing to this?
- 3What Joins You. What holds the two of you together?
- 4What Divides You. What pulls the two of you apart?
- 5What You Need to Do. What does the relationship need from you?
- 6Where It Is Heading. Where does this relationship lead if nothing changes?
How to lay it out with your own deck
- Shuffle while thinking of the relationship, not just the other person.
- Lay a card for you on the left and one for the other person on the right, with what joins you between them.
- Below, lay what the relationship needs from you on the left, what divides you in the middle, and where it is heading on the right.
Drew the cards at home? Choose “Enter my own cards” above and get the written reading for the cards you drew.
How to read it
- Read the two people cards side by side. Similar suits suggest you meet on the same ground; opposite elements (Wands and Cups, Swords and Pentacles) suggest you want different things from it.
- The divides card is not a verdict on the relationship. Every bond has something that pulls against it; the question is whether it is named and handled.
- The card for the other person is your reading of them, not their thoughts. Treat it as a description of how they show up for you.
Questions
- Can tarot tell me what someone feels about me?
- A reading can describe how a person shows up in your life and what the relationship is like between you. It cannot read another person's private thoughts, and the clearest answer to that question is usually a conversation.
- Which cards are good signs in a relationship reading?
- The Lovers, the Two of Cups, the Ten of Cups and The Sun are among the warmest. But the most useful reading is often a hard card in the divides position, because it names what needs work.