Man, sometimes life just gets a bit… routine, you know? Not bad, just, same old, same old. My relationship, it was like that. Comfortable, yeah, but that spark, that real oomph, felt a little dim. We weren’t fighting, we weren’t miserable, but we just sort of glided along. I guess I was looking for something, anything, to shake things up a little, to get us really seeing each other again.
I remembered I had this old tarot deck tucked away in a drawer. Got it years ago, probably on a whim. Never really used it much. Always thought it was a bit, well, airy-fairy. Crystals, incense, all that jazz. But hey, what did I have to lose? Things weren’t broken, but they sure as hell weren’t booming. So, I figured, why not give it a shot, specifically for the romance department?
Diving Headfirst into the Unknown
First thing I did was pull that dusty deck out. Felt a bit silly, to be honest. Stared at those pictures, all full of symbols and whatnot. Didn’t have a clue where to start. So I did what anyone does these days: I poked around online. Not for some deep, mystical training, just for a plain old, simple “how to do a relationship tarot spread” search. I didn’t want anything complicated, just a basic layout to get my feet wet.
I found a super straightforward one. Three cards. Easy peasy. The first card would be “me,” the second “them,” and the third “us.” Sounded simple enough. I shuffled those cards, trying to focus my thoughts on my girlfriend and our connection. Laid them out on my coffee table, palms sweating a bit, I’m not gonna lie. It felt a bit like opening a mysterious letter you weren’t sure you wanted to read.
The first few times, I just stared at the cards. Like, what was I even supposed to see? A sword here, a cup there, a dude riding a horse. It felt random. I’d read the little blurbs in the accompanying book, and then try to twist it to fit. It felt forced, like I was trying too hard to find meaning where there wasn’t any. I almost gave up, thinking, “See, told ya this was hogwash.”
Learning to Listen to the Cards (and Myself)
But something made me stick with it. Maybe it was just the act of doing something, anything, different. I kept shuffling, kept laying them out. I started looking at other spreads. A five-card one for “communication issues.” A seven-card one for “overcoming challenges.” I wasn’t after predictions, not really. I just wanted to see if these pictures could spark something in my head, some new way of looking at things.
And slowly, without me even realizing it at first, it started to shift. I remember one time, I pulled a spread about our communication. For my side, I got a card that made me think about being overly analytical, always needing to be “right.” And damn, if that didn’t hit me square in the gut. I do do that. I argue with logic, even when it’s an emotional discussion. It wasn’t the card telling me something I didn’t know, it was the card forcing me to confront something I usually ignored.
Another time, a card came up about “emotional baggage” for my partner’s position. My first thought was, “Oh, they’re dragging stuff in from old relationships.” But then I paused. Could it be my emotional baggage affecting them? Or even just stress from work that I wasn’t really acknowledging in our daily talks? It made me think about what they might be carrying, and how I could be more supportive, instead of just assuming everything was fine if they didn’t explicitly say it wasn’t.
I started keeping a crappy little notebook. Just jotting down the cards I pulled, and then three or four lines about what I thought they meant for us, and how I felt about it. It wasn’t about getting it “right,” it was about the act of reflecting. It was about actively engaging with the idea of our relationship, instead of just passively living in it.
The Unexpected Boost to My Romance
What happened next wasn’t some big, dramatic Hollywood romance movie scene. It was way more subtle, way more real. Because I was spending time thinking about our relationship, really looking at its parts, I started talking about it more. Not like, “Hey, the cards say this,” but more like, “You know, I was thinking about how we handle arguments, and maybe I could try to listen more instead of always trying to fix things.”
And because I was thinking about my partner’s perspective, prompted by those damn cards, I started listening better too. When they’d talk about a tough day, I wasn’t just nodding and waiting for my turn to talk. I was actually hearing them, trying to understand what they might be feeling, because those cards had already pushed me to consider deeper emotions.
Our conversations got richer. We started sharing things we hadn’t in ages. It wasn’t that the cards were magic love potions. It was that they became this weird, unexpected tool for introspection. They pushed me to look at things I usually skimmed over, or outright avoided. They made me consider my own habits, my partner’s needs, and the dynamic between us with fresh eyes.
The “romance improvement” wasn’t about some grand gesture. It was about feeling more connected, more understood, and more, well, present in our relationship. We laughed more easily, resolved little squabbles quicker, and just felt like we were really on the same team again, facing the world together. All because I decided to pull some weird picture cards out of a dusty old drawer. Go figure.
