Name: The Widower
Italian Name: Vedovo
Playing Card: 3♠
Polarity when Upright: Negative
Core Meanings: Removal, Abandonment | Loss, Lack, Deprivation | Loneliness, Aloneness, Oneness | An elderly man
Polarity when Reversed: Extremely Negative
Reversed Core Meanings: Bereavement, Grief | Trauma, Traumatic loss | Mental alienation, folly, aberrant conduct | A ritual or rite of some kind

Card Description: in a cemetery, an elderly man prays by his late wife’s tomb.

Suit and Number: all threes are connected to the idea of movement. Since Spades are a negative suit, the concept of movement is interpreted as a removal, and by extension the losing of something.

UPRIGHT 3♠

General: a mostly negative card with only one neutral meaning, when it is a significator. In that instance, it is the male counterpart to the Old Lady, representing an elderly man, not necessarily a bad one. Experience, however, shows that it is somewhat more common for the Two of Spades to act as a significator for an old woman than it is for the Three of Spades to act as a significator for an old man.
Otherwise, this is a negative card, whose primary significations are connected to (usually unwanted) removals and to loss. A particular function of this card is that it can deprive us of whatever the card preceding it signifies, but usually only in a negative sense.

Love and Relationships: The Widower is connected to the idea of loneliness and abandonment. It refers to solitude, usually unwanted, unless other cards contradict it. It  often signifies strong interpersonal difficulties and an inability to reach out to people. Often, this card heralds separation and abandonment, or moving away from the family, with all the typical feelings associated with it, from sadness to regretregret to suffering. By analogy with the concept of removal, the 3♠ can signify feelings of hatred, repulsion, disgust, rancour, incompatibility, estrangement, depending on the supporting cards.
The Widower is connected with the idea of oneness, aloneness, etc. There is only one case in which this is positive, and that’s when it is surrounded by the Four and Nine of Hearts, in which case it represents the one true love. Further, when the Three of Spades is surrounded by cards signifying merry-making and jollity, it can show someone who is alone but has fun.
More usually, though, this card stands for lack of support and being left out in the cold. If the other cards show a long-distance relationship, the Widower can show that every inch of distance between the two lovers is like a fresh wound.
Like the Old Lady, this card can signify the ex, in this case the ex man, but it can also happen that an old situation be signified by the Old Lady regardless of gender. Be flexible.

Work and Money: naturally, this card is connected to financial loss and lack of means and resources. It often signifies loss of employment or being forced to abandon a project, but it can also come up to show a relocation, again usually an unwanted one. Occasionally, with positive cards, it can imply that the person works alone and independently, for instance they man have their own business. This, however, is rare.
Due to its connotation of lack and absence, the Widower can show practices that fall outside the confines of the law (they are without the law or lawless). This is especially true if cards like the Priest come up before it, so that the Widower acts as a negation.

Other: psychologically, the Widower is connected to loneliness, helplessness and a marked inability to reach out to people or to express oneself (it is one of the cards that can identify autism). Most of the times, the card shows a psychologically difficult situation.
Due to its connection with removals, it can show the concept of abroad, but usually with a tinge of negativity.
In spiritual readings, great care should go into the analysis of the surrounding cards, as the Widower can say very different things. It can show an intense need to be alone and contemplate life or meditate (it is connected with hermitages and similar places). However, it can also show someone who is godless or someone who feels abandoned by god.
This is one of the cards that if show up in sequences of bereavement, although this signification is highlighted more when the card is reversed.

Important Combinations:
6♥ + 3♠ = loss of money
K♦ + 3♠ = work-related removal or working alone | with other negative cards, loss of job
A♥U/R or 8♣U/R + 3♠ = isolation, difficulty interacting with people
7♦ + 3♠ = sterility (in all areas of life)
K♠ + 3♠ = illegal, unauthorized, against regulation (literally, “without the law” or “lawless”)
4♥ + 3♠ + 9♥ = the one true love

REVERSED 3♠R

General: one of the worst cards in the deck, although it does have a neutral meaning, when it represents rituals and rites of all kinds and of all religions. Otherwise, this is the card of traumatic loss and of scarring situations. Upright, the Widower symbolizes removal and abandonment, a movement away from something. Reversed, it becomes a symbol of mental aberration and wrong conduct, the idea of straying away from normalcy, whether mental or moral.

Love and Relationships: oftentimes, the reversed Widower signals traumas surrounding relationships, whether past or future. The specifics, of course, must be read from the surrounding cards, but a rather typical scenario is when one of the two is unable to move on from the break and sinks into a depression.
This card can also show that one of the two is abusive toward the other and behaves in an irrational way. In the best case, it can show someone with horrible and morbid fetishes, but the connotation is still very negative. Whoever is described by this card, whether it be a partner, a mother or father, they were normally incapable of normal behavior and the querent should put as much distance between them as possible.
The 3♠R is another card that may show a negative group of people (from the fact that it’s a Spade and it’s the reversed of the upright Widower, which signifies loneliness). In the most harmless sense, the negative group may be a group gathering for a religious function of some kind, like a funeral (but with positive cards it can be a wedding or a christening). With negative cards, it can show gangs or cults.

Work and Money: like its upright counterpart, the reversed Widower points to losses. This time, however, they are much heavier and they are more likely to be the result of the querent having completely lost touch with reality. Needless to say, it can point to money wasted on alcohol. It can also show groups of people pressing the querent for money. The same applies to work, where it may signify criminal activities, abuse at work and horrible miscalculations that end up costing the querent dearly. It can also show a traumatic experience at work. Career-wise, it is connected (like its upright counterpart, but more strongly) to working with corpses and organized religion, as well as to all places and things that are likely to elicit a disgusted or anxious reaction, like loos, sewers, pits in the ground, graves, insects, feces, etc. It is also connected with mental illness.

Other: psychologically, the card is connected to traumas and to mental alienation. This is a heavy-hitting card, and it rarely shows only mild distress. When it shows moral aberration, it signifies that the person has lost any sense of morality and has now strayed on the wrong path.
Spiritually it is connected to rites and rituals of all kinds and of all religions. As anticipated, this is a neutral meaning.
This card can also signify a magic ritual, so it is important when it shows up in questions connected to hexes. Because it represents rituals, this is more than just the accidental projection of negative vibes to people we hate or envy (the evil eye, “malocchio” in Italian).

Important Combinations:
6♥ + 3♠R = a traumatic past
6♦ + 3♠R = processing a trauma | mental aberration | planning to do something wrong, wrong conduct
7♥R + 3♠R = derangement | intelligence bent to negative ends
4♥ + 7♠ + 3♠R = being profoundly scarred by a breakup
3♠R + K♠ + 8♣ = a religious rite of some kind

Other Combinations: Vera Sibilla | Examples of Combinations – The Threes