Man, I got into this practice deep because I had to prove a point to myself and, honestly, to a friend who was driving me nuts. The little booklets and all the online noise about the Three of Wands always say the same thing when you ask if someone is coming back: “Patience, they are working on their return.” Or “Look to the future, not the past.” But people who are heartbroken only hear the first part: “Patience.” They think the card means a guaranteed package delivery of their ex.
My buddy, let’s call her Jane, was totally wrecked after this guy bailed. She was doing the full-time heartbroken routine. I kept telling her, “Jane, you gotta move on, get your head right.” She wouldn’t listen. She was obsessed with this specific card because some random reader on YouTube had pulled it and said it meant her dude was definitely just taking a little trip before sailing back into her life. I decided right there I had to stop the theory and start the hard-core logging to shut her up, or at least to document the truth, whatever it was.
The Practice: Setting Up the Brutal Reality Check
I grabbed an old notebook, the kind with the cheap spiral binding, and I established the ground rules. This wasn’t going to be about my psychic powers; it was a straight-up data log. I committed to pulling a simple three-card spread—Past, Present, Future—every two weeks for her, focusing only on the energy flow between her and the ex, and most importantly, watching for that damn Three of Wands.
I dated every entry. I wrote down Jane’s mood—from “optimistically waiting” to “sobbing in the fetal position.” And I recorded any external contact, which, spoiler alert, was zero. Total silence for months. When I pulled the cards, I took photos of them. I didn’t just write “Three of Wands,” I described the feeling I got—was it a hopeful waiting, or a stubborn refusal to look away from the dock? I was documenting the nuance.
- First Month Log: Pulled Two of Swords (Past), Queen of Cups reversed (Present), and… yep, the Three of Wands (Future). Jane instantly jumped up. “See! I knew it! He’s just looking at his options!” I physically wrote down in capital letters: “JANE IS FIXATED ON WAITING. CARD FEELS LIKE STUCKNESS, NOT PROMISE.”
- Second Month Log: The Three of Wands showed up in the Present position. It felt like a punch. Why? It was still there, but nothing had changed. No contact. Her mood was sinking. I noted that the surrounding cards (like the Ten of Swords reversed) suggested a long, painful ending she was refusing to acknowledge.
- Third Month Log: The card was gone. Phew. But then I pulled the Eight of Swords. She was now completely immobilized by anxiety and the belief that if she stopped waiting, she’d miss him when he finally did come back. That Three of Wands had basically trapped her.
I repeated this process. I kept logging all the changes. I watched her life stall. Every time I looked back at the Three of Wands logs, the pattern was shouting at me.
The Realization: What the Card Actually Taught Me
I finally slammed the notebook down after about four months of this nonsense. I flipped back through the pages, every single entry, every single time the Three of Wands turned up. And the damn thing never, not once, ever predicted the ex actually coming back. Ever.
What it did predict was this: Jane’s breakthrough.
The Three of Wands wasn’t about the traveler’s return. It was always, in every single reading I did for her during that crisis, about the person waiting finally turning their damn back on the empty horizon and seeing their own future. When I looked close at the log, the Three of Wands always preceded one of her own big decisions.
I confronted her with the full record. I showed her how the card only shifted when she made a move. When she finally deleted his number, the Three of Wands was followed by a beautiful World card in the next reading. Not because he came back, but because her cycle of waiting finally finished.
That practice totally rewired the meaning for me. I learned that in a love reading, especially that “Is he coming back?” question, the Three of Wands is the cosmic kick in the pants. It forces you to ask: Are you waiting for a ship that sailed, or are you finally looking at your own three wands planted firmly in your own damn ground, ready to build your next adventure? I stopped worrying about the textbook meaning and just started reading the energy of the person holding the notebook. The card is about your successful future, not his delayed arrival. That’s the real tea I got from all that logging.
