Why Do We Keep Fighting? A Real Tarot Reading for Relationship Conflict

Three of Wands

Unrequited love is uncertain. Relationship conflict is something else entirely.

When someone comes to me with a confession question — "should I say something?" — there is still openness in the situation. The story hasn't fully begun yet.

But when someone comes to me and says "we keep fighting about the same things" — the story is already deep into its middle chapters. And what I'm listening for is completely different.

I'm not listening for what might happen. I'm listening for the pattern that's already been established — and what it's going to take to change it.

In Part 2 of this series, we looked at confession readings. Today, in Part 3, I want to walk through two complete readings for a different and more complex situation: an established relationship where conflict has become a recurring pattern.

Same structure — a 3-card spread and a 4-card spread. Different territory entirely.

What Conflict Readings Are Really About

Before I turn a single card in a conflict reading, I want to say something about what I'm actually doing.

I am not trying to determine who is right.

In twenty years of tarot consultations, I have never found that question useful — and I've stopped asking it, in any form. Relationships are not courtrooms. The question of who caused a conflict, or who behaved worse in a particular argument, almost never gets anyone closer to understanding what's actually happening between them.

What I look for instead is the pattern.

When someone tells me "we keep having the same fight," what they're actually telling me is that something between them is trying to surface — something that hasn't been seen clearly yet, or hasn't been addressed at the level it needs to be addressed. The fight is the symptom. The pattern is what the cards are going to show me.

That's the lens I bring to every conflict reading. And it changes everything about how the cards speak.

The 3-Card Reading — "We Keep Fighting About the Same Things. Where Is This Going?"

The three cards drawn for this reading:

Card 1 — Past: Three of Wands

Card 2 — Present: The Devil

Card 3 — Future: The Lovers

Before the Cards — Reading the Question Itself

"We keep fighting about the same things."

I sit with this phrase before I touch the cards.

The word "keep" is doing a lot of work here. It tells me this isn't a single argument — it's a recurring experience. And "the same things" tells me that whatever is at the surface of these fights isn't the real issue. The real issue is what keeps getting triggered underneath.

I also notice what the question ends with: "where is this going?" Not "how do I fix it" — but a request for direction. There's both exhaustion and hope in that question. The exhaustion of repetition. The hope that there's somewhere to go.

I hold all of this as I turn the cards.

Card 1 — Past: Three of Wands

Three of Wands

The Three of Wands in the Past position told me something I've seen many times in conflict readings — and it's always worth naming clearly.

This relationship began with genuine possibility.

The Three of Wands shows a figure standing at the edge of a vista, looking out toward the horizon. Ships on the water. A sense of expansion, of something being set in motion. It's a card of vision and of the early energy of something that felt like it was going somewhere.

"There was a version of this relationship," I said, "that felt genuinely promising. Not just attraction — something more than that. A sense that you were building toward something together."

The Past position here isn't nostalgia. It's context. It's telling me that the conflict the person is experiencing now isn't the whole story — and it isn't the beginning of the story either. What was built in the beginning is still part of the architecture of this relationship. That matters.

Card 2 — Present: The Devil

The Devil

The Devil in the Present position — and I want to read this carefully, because it's a card that's easy to misinterpret in a conflict context.

When The Devil appears in the Present position of a relationship reading, it almost never means the relationship is dark or toxic in a simple sense. What it means is that something has become fixed — a pattern that both people are participating in, often without fully seeing it.

"The same fight keeps happening," I said, "because the same underlying feeling keeps getting triggered. The topic of the argument changes. The emotional experience underneath it doesn't."

This is the structure The Devil reveals in conflict readings: not that something is wrong with the relationship, but that something has become a loop. The chains in this card, as I always note, are loose. The figures wearing them could step out of them. But first they have to see them — and right now, they're too close to the pattern to see it clearly.

"You're both in this loop," I said. "And being inside it makes it very hard to see what it actually is."

Card 3 — Future: The Lovers

The Lovers

The Lovers in the Future position — and I want to be very precise about how I read this card, because it's frequently misunderstood.

The Lovers is not primarily a card about romantic love. It's a card about conscious choice.

The imagery in this card shows two figures at a point of decision — with a higher perspective hovering above them. It's the moment when two people are asked to choose deliberately — not just to feel, but to decide what they actually want and what they're willing to commit to.

When The Lovers appears as a Future card in a conflict reading, what it's saying is this: the conflict the couple is experiencing is not the end of the story. It's a threshold. If both people are willing to look at what's underneath the pattern — if they're willing to have the harder, more honest conversation — the relationship can become something more deliberately chosen. More real.

"This isn't the card that tells you everything will be fine automatically," I said. "It's the card that tells you there's something worth choosing — if both of you are willing to make that choice consciously."

The Lovers as a future card in conflict is, in my experience, one of the most hopeful things the tarot can say. Not because it promises ease — but because it means the relationship has the depth to become something more than it currently is.

The Integrated Story

Three cards. One story.

This relationship began with genuine shared possibility (Three of Wands). That possibility has become tangled in a recurring pattern that both people are caught in — without fully seeing it yet (The Devil). But the direction this is heading, if both people are willing to look honestly at what's happening, is toward a more conscious and deliberately chosen connection (The Lovers).

The conflict is not the destination. It's the threshold.

The 4-Card Reading — "Can We Actually Get Through This?"

The four cards drawn for this reading:

Card 1 — Situation: The Devil

Card 2 — Obstacle: Five of Swords

Card 3 — Advice: The Hierophant

Card 4 — Outcome: Ten of Cups

Card 1 — Situation: The Devil

The Devil

The Devil in the Situation position — the card that describes the overall energetic field of this relationship right now.

When I see this card in the Situation position, I don't read it as a verdict. I read it as a description of the atmosphere. And the atmosphere this card describes is one that most people in a conflicted relationship will recognize immediately: heavy, circular, stuck.

"There's a weight to this relationship right now," I said. "Something that should feel like connection has started to feel like constraint. Not because the love isn't there — but because something in the dynamic has calcified around it."

The Situation card doesn't tell me where this is going. It tells me where it is right now. And right now, the energy between these two people has become dense with unresolved feeling.

Card 2 — Obstacle: Five of Swords

Five of Swords

The Five of Swords in the Obstacle position — and the moment I turned this card, the structure of the conflict became clear to me.

The Five of Swords is a card about winning at the expense of the relationship. It shows a figure gathering swords — taking more than their share — while others walk away defeated. It's the card of the argument that someone "wins" but that leaves both people feeling worse.

"Every time this conflict surfaces," I said, "it becomes about who's right. Not consciously — neither of you is choosing to make it a competition. But somewhere in the dynamic, the fight shifts from 'let's understand each other' to 'let me make my point.'"

When I read the Five of Swords alongside The Devil in the Situation position, the combination tells me something very specific: the relationship is carrying weight (The Devil), and the way conflict is being handled is adding to that weight rather than releasing it (Five of Swords). Every fight that ends with a winner and a loser leaves a small residue of resentment. Over time, those residues accumulate.

"The obstacle isn't the conflict itself," I said. "It's the way the conflict is being approached."

Card 3 — Advice: The Hierophant

The Hierophant

The Hierophant in the Advice position — and this is where the reading became most practically useful.

The Hierophant is a card of structure, of shared frameworks, of the agreements that allow two people to function in the same space. When it appears as advice in a conflict reading, it is almost always saying the same thing: the conflict needs a container. A structure. A set of agreements that both people have actually made — not assumed, not hoped for, but explicitly created together.

"The fights keep happening," I said, "because there's no shared framework for how to have them. No agreed-upon way to say 'this is getting too heated, let's pause.' No explicit understanding of what each of you actually needs when conflict arises."

The Hierophant as advice is asking for something that feels almost administrative in a love relationship — but that is, in my experience, one of the most loving things two people can do. Having a real conversation about how you fight. What you need. What crosses a line. What helps you come back.

"This might mean couples counseling," I said. "It might mean a long, calm conversation when you're not in conflict. It might mean sitting down and explicitly agreeing on what a repair conversation looks like for both of you. Whatever form it takes — the advice here is to build the structure rather than assume it exists."

Card 4 — Outcome: Ten of Cups

Ten of Cups

The Ten of Cups in the Outcome position — and I want to be clear about the condition attached to this card.

The Ten of Cups is one of the most genuinely beautiful relationship cards in the tarot. It shows two figures beneath a rainbow arc of cups — a symbol of emotional fulfillment, of a connection that has become something lasting and real. It's the card of a relationship that has gone through something and arrived somewhere good.

"This outcome is real," I said. "But it's conditional — and I want to be honest about that."

The Ten of Cups in the Outcome position tells me that this relationship has the potential for something deeply fulfilling. But that potential is not automatic. It arrives when the advice of The Hierophant is followed — when both people are willing to build the structure that allows them to navigate conflict without it becoming a competition.

"If you both do the work that this reading is pointing to," I said, "the destination is genuinely good. Not just 'we survived' — but 'we built something real together.'"

The Integrated Story

Four cards. One story.

The relationship is carrying weight right now — something has become heavy and circular between you (The Devil). The pattern of conflict is making it worse: fights become about winning rather than understanding, and each one adds to the residue (Five of Swords). The cards are asking you to stop fighting and start building — to create the shared structure and explicit agreements that allow conflict to become connection rather than competition (The Hierophant). If you do, the destination is real emotional fulfillment — a relationship that has gone through the fire and become something lasting (Ten of Cups).

The path is clear. It requires both of you.

Why The Devil Appeared Again — And What It's Really Saying

If you've been reading this series from the beginning, you've noticed something.

The Devil has appeared in every reading.

In Part 2 (the confession reading), it appeared twice — once in the Present position and once in the Obstacle position. In today's reading, it appeared twice again — once in the Present position of the 3-Card Spread, and once in the Situation position of the 4-Card Spread.

I don't think this is coincidence. And I don't think it's because The Devil is a "common" card that appears everywhere.

I think it's because The Devil is the card that most precisely describes the internal experience of being stuck — and being stuck is what both of today's questions have in common. The person navigating a confession is stuck between feeling and expression. The couple navigating conflict is stuck in a loop that keeps repeating.

The Devil appears when something real is present — a genuine connection, a real feeling, a relationship worth fighting for — and something is preventing it from moving freely. In every case, the chains are loose. In every case, the way out is through awareness — seeing the loop clearly enough to step outside of it.

That is what The Devil is always saying, wherever it sits.

Not "this is dark." But: "look at what's keeping you here — and notice that you can choose differently."

The Most Important Thing I've Learned About Conflict Readings

I want to close with something I've come to understand clearly after twenty years of sitting with couples in conflict.

The question "will we be okay?" is almost never the most useful question to bring to a conflict reading.

The most useful question is: "what is this conflict trying to show us?"

Every recurring argument is pointing at something. A need that hasn't been expressed clearly. A fear that hasn't been named. An expectation that both people assumed was shared but never actually discussed. The conflict is not the problem — it's the signal. And tarot, at its best, helps people read that signal.

The Devil in today's reading wasn't telling this couple that their relationship is broken. It was telling them that something has become fixed — and that what's fixed can be loosened, if both people are willing to look at it honestly.

The Hierophant wasn't telling them to be formal or rigid. It was telling them that love without structure eventually strains under its own weight — and that building the structure together is one of the most intimate things two people can do.

The Ten of Cups wasn't a promise. It was a direction.

In twenty years, I've seen couples come through conflicts far more entrenched than this one — and arrive somewhere genuinely good. Not because the conflict disappeared, but because they learned to use it differently.

That's what the cards were pointing toward today.

Have you ever done a tarot reading in the middle of a relationship conflict?

Tell me in the comments what came up — or what part of today's reading resonated most. I read every single one. 🌙

🌙 Luna ✨

📖 Coming Up Next

In the next post, we take this same structure into the most emotionally complex territory of all — breakups and the possibility of reunion.

Three months after a breakup. A message out of nowhere. The question everyone is afraid to ask out loud: is there still something here?

Stay tuned. 🌙

📚 More from Tarot & Soul

💔 Should I Confess My Feelings? A Real Tarot Reading with 3 and 4 Cards

🃏 3-Card and 4-Card Tarot Spreads: The Method I've Used for 20 Years

💑 Two of Cups and The Lovers: When the Feeling Is Mutual and Real