This question is everywhere right now: Why does my relationship feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells? It’s the kind of thing people search for at 2 AM when they can’t sleep because every interaction feels like navigating a minefield.
I ran the same question through two different Tarot systems, the Marseille and Rider-Waite-Smith, to show how each one diagnoses the core issue. Both pointed to control and manipulation, but they revealed it in different ways.
Marseille Reading: Financial Control as the Core Tension
The center card in the Marseille spread was the Knight of Pentacles (Denier). In this deck, the horse has its legs raised high, ready to charge. The knight holds both a sword and a coin, eyes locked on the pentacle.
“Why is it like this? Because they’re putting money over the relationship. That’s the way of looking at it, right? When you put money over relationship and don’t keep your eye on the person, things feel toxic because you’re always worried if they’re spending too much or if I’m spending too much or whatever.”
The flanking cards escalated the issue: the Knight of Swords charging directly into the Five of Pentacles. One partner is aggressively controlling the finances. The other is being cut off from financial freedom.
The High Priestess (or Juno in this particular Marseille deck) appeared on one side, representing the partner who has to hide decisions and look away just to maintain peace. On the opposite side, the Four of Wands showed the controlling partner convinced that their version of stability justifies the behavior.
“She has to kind of hide things in order to move forward, in order to have stability in her life and not always be walking on eggshells. Why? Because she’s always having to observe his every move so that it doesn’t explode into chaos.”
The Hermit appeared as the path forward: the oppressed partner must either become a mentor to guide the fool out of his obsession with money or recognize the relationship isn’t worth the constant stress and leave.
RWS Reading: Emotional Manipulation Built on Fabrication
The Rider-Waite-Smith layout took a different angle. The theme card was The Magician, a figure known for controlling all the elements on his table. But the Magician is also a trickster.
“It feels like it’s all like walking on glass because it’s built on lies. It’s built on fabrications. It’s not built on reality, you know, because the one person controls everything.”
The blockage card was the Page of Cups, emotional manipulation at its core. This person refuses to let go of control over the relationship’s emotional landscape. Every creative decision, every moment of vulnerability, every attempt at growth gets filtered through their need for dominance.
“Every creative outlet, everything they want to do together, every way they want to grow—it’s up to him. He wants to manipulate the other person into what he wants to do.”
The outcome card was the Six of Swords, but not in its usual “moving toward calmer waters” context. If the manipulation continues, there’s no peace of mind. Just a mind perpetually destroyed by chaos.
I pulled Death as a clarifier. The only way forward is total transformation, a complete transformatoin of the old pattern.
The numerology reinforced it:
“I’m seeing a 13 and the 13 is a four—that’s the Emperor. And the Emperor upside down is highly toxic. He’s a very dangerous individual, right? Very controlling, a straight-up narcissist. And then you have a six, right? So you have a six and a 13—that’s a 19, which equals a 10. It’s a toxic cycle.”
What Both Systems Reveal
The Marseille reading focused on financial control, the partner weaponizing money to create dependence and fear. The RWS reading exposed emotional manipulation, the partner fabricating reality to maintain total authority.
Both systems arrived at the same conclusion: one person is holding all the power, and the other is forced to tiptoe around their moods, decisions, and insecurities just to survive the day.
“Unless you break the toxicity, die to it, and let that mind settle and have a little bit of harmony there, you can’t get to the one—to the new stage in the relationship. You get stuck in this vicious cycle of just complete chaos.”
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