The Three of Swords as Intentions: To Say the Thing That Hurts, or to Leave Because It Did

Written by Chaya the Medium.

The Three of Swords as intentions is a plan that cuts. Here is what I would read in it, upright and reversed, and why it proves the feeling was real.

If you want the short answer, I would read the Three of Swords as intentions that involve hurt. In an intentions position the card suggests the person means to say or do something that will be painful: a hard truth, a separation, an admission, a decision made from grief. The intention is not cruelty. It is honesty that will cost both of you, and the person is often hurting as they plan it.

This is the heart with three swords through it under rain. Somebody intends the blades. They may be intending them at themselves as much as at you.

The Three of Swords upright as intentions

Tina Gong's the Three of Swords guide at Labyrinthos associates the upright card with heartbreak, grief, separation and painful truth. When the card lands in a position that asks what someone intends toward you, I read those meanings as the shape of their plan rather than as a promise about what they will do. Feelings and intentions are different questions; the Three of Swords as feelings covers the first, and this page covers the second. The general card meanings at Biddy Tarot are a useful second reference.

Upright, I read the Three of Swords as a person who intends a painful honesty: to tell you something that will wound, to end something because it has become unbearable, to act on a grief they cannot carry any longer. The intention is clean and it is sore. Hearts that did not care do not plan like this.

What I would not read into it is indifference. The Three of Swords describes someone still attached enough to be hurt, and the intention comes from the hurt rather than from the absence of feeling.

What the card does not tell you

The card does not confirm the painful thing is about you rather than about the person's own grief, that the separation is final, or that the truth, once spoken, will not heal into something. No card lets a reader see another person's plans. What a card can do is describe the kind of intention that fits the person's behaviour, and give you something to check against what they actually do.

The Three of Swords reversed as intentions

Reversed, the Three of Swords as intentions describes a plan to heal or a plan to suppress: a person who intends to forgive, to recover, to draw the swords out, or one who intends to pretend the hurt did not happen and move on without facing it. The first is slow and real. The second is faster and does not hold.

In your own question, ask whether the person seems to be mending, with a softening toward you, or whether they seem brittle and bright in a way that suggests the pain has gone underground. A reversed card as intentions is a prompt to compare what is said with what is done, not a diagnosis of bad faith.

The Three of Swords as an ex's intentions

Asked about an ex, the Three of Swords as intentions can suggest they intend to say something painful, an admission or a final truth, or that they are still in enough pain to intend distance. Hurt people sometimes return and sometimes protect themselves by never returning. The card describes the wound, not the decision. My guide to asking a psychic whether an ex will come back explains what a reading can and cannot say about that question.

The Three of Swords as a new person's intentions

For someone new, this card usually describes someone grieving something that is not you, and whose intentions toward you are shaped by that grief: careful, sad, or not yet possible. Go gently and do not take the rain personally.

What their intentions look like in action

Look for sorrow rather than coldness: they are sad with you rather than angry at you, they flinch at certain subjects, they are honest about being hurt. A Three of Swords intention is visible as grief with a decision inside it.

What to record before drawing again

Keep three short notes: the question you asked, what the person might be grieving, and whether you caused it, shared it or arrived during it. The third note decides what you can do.

For comparison, the Five of Cups as intentions and the Ten of Swords as intentions describe different intentions. The the Three of Swords card meaning page covers the card in full, and the Three of Swords as timing and the Three of Swords as a yes or no cover the other questions people most often ask of it. For a personal interpretation, my guide to a love psychic reading online explains how I work, and the three-card tarot listing and customer reviews are worth reading before deciding whether to order.