Five of Cups

Meaning

This card means that you have to take emotional responsibility and strengthen your heart alone.

Tarot Reading

Under a dim sky, a man in a black cloak hangs his head and mourns the three poured cups before him. There is a bridge over the river in front of him, leading to a distant village, which indicates that he has a chance to choose another life style. The three cups in front of him fall off, while there are two cups standing behind him. If he does not turn around, he will never find them and will always think that he is alone, but the hope just lies behind his disappointment. As long as he picks up the two standing cups and crosses the bridge, his life will start again. Otherwise, his life will always be so miserable.

Highlights for Understanding

The Five of Cups, whether being upright or reversed, indicates that things are not going the way you expected. You will suffer a loss but not a total loss, and you will feel sorry for yourself. The difference is, when this card is upright, it means that you can accept the loss and move on. When it is reversed, it marks that you will continue to feel sorry and sigh for yourself.

Five of Cups Upright Meaning

Core Meanings of the Card

Keywords: Feeling regret, regret, remorse, politely or formally apologize, deplore or grieve, fail, fail to do, fail to perform, disappointment, frustration, bummer, pessimistic mood, pessimism, things are not what you hoped to be, frustration

Love & Marriage

Keywords: Just experienced disappointment, forgive yourself, reunion of a couple after an enforced separation or rupture, open your heart, the result is very bad but I also accept, things have been so, so be it

This relationship has made you very sad and the joy you had is now completely overwhelmed by pain. You can easily see the other person’s shortcomings, but you can’t appreciate their advantages.

A new relationship is now impossible, because you are still controlled by your past traumatic emotional experiences. You can’t create a future if you can’t get over the past.

This is a painful relationship. Some problems cannot be solved even if you try very hard, which makes you feel disappointed and sad. You may start to want to end the relationship.

There is absolutely no chance of getting back together between the two of you. It is impossible to heal so quickly after the damage has been done, and breaking up is the best option for each other.

Career & Education

Keywords: Recently suffered a setback or loss, continue to struggle, stage a comeback, grateful for the ordeal, rally forces again after a setback, continue to work

You have a strong sense of loss in the midst of your work, and possibly because there is a situation where a colleague is not getting along. You lose your motivation to work and just see the bad side of things.

There’s nothing to look forward to in this job anymore. It’s not easy to make a living, but it’s not easy to develop anything, so it’s better to find an opportunity to leave as soon as possible.

You have not been doing well in school recently, or you have failed an important exam or competition, so that you feel sad and are not in the mood to study.

At present, you should make use of what is still good in your performance, instead of focusing only on what is not good in your performance, otherwise it will affect your mood.

Relationships & Wealth

Keywords: Do not want others to know their failure, people around you do not know how much pain you have, let bygones be bygones, continue the unfinished business, there is no way to undo the damage

Recently you may have lost a good friend, so you will feel sad and lost in the friendships. But in reality, you still have some very nice and caring friends.

Some damage has been done and it is not possible to end it immediately. It may be necessary to assess whether the friendship is necessary to continue, and giving up is one way to do so.

You are having serious financial problems and have a feeling of falling from heaven to hell. Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgement now or it will get worse.

Five of Cups Reversed Meaning

Core Meanings of the Card

Keywords: Regret, failure, disappointment, loss, sadness, self-pity, frustration, pessimism about the future, self-hatred, inability to accept such a result, how can this be, can not believe that this is the end, personal frustration, self-forgiveness, moving on, self-forgiveness, keep moving, accepting reality, accepting lessons, reflecting on mistakes, go ahead, mainly due to emotional issues

Love & Marriage

Keywords: Drowning in self-pity, feeling very disappointed, feeling very dissatisfied, the gap between the previous imagination and reality is very large, missing the past time, how can he/she do this to me, how can he/she do this

This relationship has gradually developed from love to hate, and all the resentments have broken out. There have been constant conflicts between the two of you, and you feel very painful, but you cann’t be separated.

It’s totally unlikely that there will be new love interests now. Even if someone you like appears, it won’t develop into love, so it’s better to get used to being alone quickly.

This relationship has caused great damage. Even though you still love each other very much, it becomes unbearable and you often want to end the relationship as soon as possible.

Basically the two of you have grown out of love and hate and it is impossible for you to have any more pleasant relationships. So it would be happier for both of you to separate.

Career & Education

Keywords: Regret, not laying a good foundation in the past, the past behaviors lead to the present dilemma, local mistakes lead to the overall passive situation, every clound has a silver lining, think too simply before doing things, the reality is not as expected, immersed in the glory of the past

All sorts of problems keep happening at work and new ones keep coming up. Previous plans are completely out of whack and it’s all bad news at the moment.

It’s better to quit the job earlier than later. Staying and continuing to work will only make you sadder and more depressed. There are many uncertain changes ahead.

You are in a miserable state academically and are not achieving your goals. You should review and develop a new plan if you are not going to succeed in your current way.

Now you can try a new approach and don’t keep holding on to your original method. Try to make improvement basing upon other people’s methods, maybe you will get better results.

Relationships & Wealth

Keywords: Caught up in meaningless social activities, sense of brokenness, doubting life, what you think is not real, legacy problems, clean up the mess left by others.

You really don’t have any good friends, and you are used to being alone. Don’t expect too much from friendships, or it will bring more disappointment.

The same question keeps repeating. You should review for yourself what is going wrong, otherwise the problem will never be solved in the same pattern.

The current financial situation is in irremediable trouble. You should recognise the facts and stop running away from them, and the worst possibility is to start all over again.