Sometimes, the Wife Wins: A Love Triangle Reading
Reading for relationships is by far my favorite fortunetelling activity. And getting to read the dynamics of a love triangle is possibly the nicest cherry on top of the cartomantic sundae. And this has nothing to do with schadenfreude or getting all riled up because of hot tea being spilled. What is genuinely interesting about these readings is the observation of power dynamics and the actors' agency. Which actor dominates the spread? Which one is the victim? And which one is left with no agency whatsoever? These readings tend to be the most sobering of them all. The querent gets a bird's-eye perspective of their own place in the larger scheme. And sometimes, that place turns out to be smaller than they imagined. Once the clarity hits, it is hard to deny what stares you in the face.
A client of mine has been involved in an affair with a married man. So far, their contact has been restricted to casual sexual encounters, so she wanted to know how their relationship will develop in the months to come. For this occasion, I drew a square of nine using the Lenormand deck.
Dutch edition of Jeu Lenormand by Cartamundi
The man decides to show himself first. He is the first card down, and he aptly dominates the mind of the querent, as the first row in this traditional square of nine is representative of the querent's thoughts and concerns. The corner cards, which outline the outer and visible theme of the situation, tell us his story plainly: a man who, when luck strikes him (Man, Clover), gets his tree up and hard, only to return home (Tree, House). The inner diamond, in contrast, hints at what is sensed but not articulated. There is a raw sexual energy that needs to manifest itself (Bear to Lily), and even a seed of deeper feeling, promptly blocked by circumstance (Heart to Mountain). He carries a certain gravitas. There is a potent energy to him, but what the querent gets to experience is rather short-lived and of a fleeting nature (Bear, Clover).
However, if we look at what stares the querent in the face (the middle row), we see that his heart belongs to the Snake, in Lenormand traditionally the rival woman. Period. Mountain ending this row clearly sets the full stop at the end of all the querent's dreams. This obstacle is not easily overcome.
Looking at the ground she stands on (the third row), the only thing the client has going for herself is the reliability of her own sex appeal, and its power to, for lack of better words, keep the trees tall and hard (House, Lily, Tree).
In the past column, we saw that the man had feelings for the querent, but not enough. His heart is also shared with the rival woman (Snake), and the story ends at home. He does have a family, so that is where the ultimate priorities lie.
In the present column, we see that the man's power at this moment is rising exponentially, with the Snake following the Bear, indicating an increase in virility, and ending in the Lily, testifying to his sexual stamina. But we need to be nuanced here. The Snake is a snake, and it still has a very important function to play in this spread, especially when it is so centrally positioned. We need to acknowledge that even this seemingly unbound virility is filtered through the lens of the Snake, the other woman. Whatever reaches the act of sexual congress is still heavily defined by the man's relationship with his wife.
In the future column, we indeed see that the brief encounters remain brief in nature, because the wife remains the real blockage in this dynamic (Clover, Mountain). But to be very blunt, the short encounters remain possible each time he is "rock hard," for lack of a better term (Mountain, Tree).
To sum it up, the quick nature of their congress is heavily constrained by man’s family life (Clover, Snake, House), and with the man blocked effectively by the Snake, we can only see that his relevance for our querent seems to peak only when his sexual energy is up (Man, Snake, Tree).
So what is the key thing we are missing in this reading? The querent! Her significator did not show itself at all. Her own agency in this matter is negligible. It is the man who is calling the shots on his part, and the woman who won't budge. He dominates the spread from one perspective: It is on his terms that their relationship is defined, and the reason for these terms stands dead in the center: the wife.
If this were a contest, one might say that the wife clearly wins. She wins this contest by default, although she is not even aware that there is any contest at all. However, one might ask if such a setup has any winners at all. A man who needs to discharge his energy elsewhere, as his marriage does not provide him with this outlet, may be the only "winner," as he stands rooted in the security of the home and has a sexual outlet outside of it when he needs it. We see that the Heart connects him to his wife, but she seems overwhelmed by his virility and turns somewhat cold (Mountain). The Ring at the bottom of the deck suggests that this setup can go on as it is, but precisely as it is. The querent needs to come to terms with this and decide for herself if playing an episodic role as the destination for the sexual relief of a married man is enough for her.
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