M is used to indicate both months and minutes.

As noted on the referenced wikipedia page for ISO 6801 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso8601#Durations

To resolve ambiguity, "P1M" is a one-month duration and "PT1M" is a one-minute duration (note the time designator, T, that precedes the time value).

Using: PHP 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.19

// For 3 Months
$dateTime = new DateTime;echo $dateTime->format( DateTime::ISO8601 ), PHP_EOL;
$dateTime->add(new DateInterval("P3M"));
echo $dateTime->format( DateTime::ISO8601 ), PHP_EOL;
Results in:
2013-07-11T11:12:26-0400
2013-10-11T11:12:26-0400

// For 3 Minutes
$dateTime = new DateTime;echo $dateTime->format( DateTime::ISO8601 ), PHP_EOL;
$dateTime->add(new DateInterval("PT3M"));
echo $dateTime->format( DateTime::ISO8601 ), PHP_EOL;
Results in:
2013-07-11T11:12:42-0400
2013-07-11T11:15:42-0400

Insert a T after the P in the interval to add 3 minutes instead of 3 months.

It is not stated, but you cannot create directly a negative interval, this is you cannot create a "-2 days" interval as:

<?
$interval = new DateInterval("P-2D");//or
$interval = new DateInterval("-P2D");
?>

Instead you have to create first the interval and then set its 'invert' property to 1, this is:

<?
$interval = new DateInterval("P2D");
$interval->invert = 1;
?>

Then you should keep in mind that this interval acts as a negative number, hence to subtract the interval from a given date you must 'add' it:

<?
$interval = new DateInterval("P2D");
$interval->invert = 1;
$date       = new DateTime ("1978-01-23 17:46:00");
$date->add($interval)->format("Y-m-d H:i:s");//this is "1978-01-21 17:46:00"
?>

It should be noted that this class will not calculate days/hours/minutes/seconds etc given a value in a single denomination of time.  For example:

<?php
    $di = new DateInterval('PT3600S');
    echo $di->format('%H:%i:%s');
    
?>

will yield 0:0:3600 instead of the expected 1:0:0

Warning - despite the $interval_spec accepting the ISO 8601 specification format, it does not accept decimal fraction values with period or comma as stated in the specification.

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=53831

<?php
/* Example from ISO 8601 documentation */
$interval = new DateInterval('P0.5Y');
?>

Will result in
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'DateInterval::__construct(): Unknown or bad format (P0.5Y)'

I think it is easiest if you would just use the sub method on the DateTime class.

<?php
$date = new DateTime();
$date->sub(new DateInterval("P89D"));

Note that to add time you must enter P even though the period is empty.

To add 1 hour : 

<?php

$plusOneHour = (new DateTime('now'))->add(new DateInterval("PT1H"));

var_dump($plusOneHour);

?>

Note that, while a DateInterval object has an $invert property, you cannot supply a negative directly to the constructor similar to specifying a negative in XSD ("-P1Y"). You will get an exception through if you do this. 

Instead you need to construct using a positive interval ("P1Y") and the specify the $invert property === 1.

Alternatively you can use DateInterval::createFromDateString() for negative intervals:

<?php
$date = new DateTime();
$date->add(DateInterval::createFromDateString('-89 days'));

Take care, if you have a DateTime Object on the 31h of January and add Da DateInterval of one Month, then you are in March instead of February.

For Example:
---
// given the actual date is 2017-01-31
$today = new DateTime('now', $timeZoneObject);
$today->add(new DateInterval('P1M'));
echo $today->format('m');
// output: 03
---

As previously mentioned, to do a negative DateInterval object, you'd code: 

<?php
$date1 = new DateTime();
$eightynine_days_ago = new DateInterval( "P89D" );
$eightynine_days_ago->invert = 1; //Make it negative. 
$date1->add( $eightynine_days_ago );
?>

and then $date1 is now 89 days in the past.

Although PHP refers to periods of time as "intervals", ISO 8601 refers to them as "durations".  In ISO 8601, "intervals" are something else.

While ISO 8601 allows fractions for all parts of a duration (e.g., "P0.5Y"), DateInterval does not.  Use caution when calculating durations.  If the duration has a fractional part, it may be lost when storing it in a DateInterval object.

If you'd like to persist an interval object in a DB it could be handy to implement the __toString() method. A formatted interval value can be easier to read by a human than the output of serialize. Here's an example:

<?php

namespace App;

class DateInterval extends \DateInterval
{
    public function __toString()
    {
        return $this->format('P%yY%mM%dDT%hH%iM%sS');
    }
}

$interval1 = new DateInterval('P1Y');
$interval2 = new DateInterval(strval($interval1));
assert($interval1 == $interval2);

⚠️ It's important to remember the warning about DateInterval given by "admin at torntech dot com" in an earlier comment (http://php.net/manual/en/dateinterval.construct.php#116750).  To reiterate:

Some versions of PHP (e.g., 5.6.31) have a bug that disallows fractional parts in a ISO 8601 duration string given as the argument for the DateInterval constructor.  That is, these examples will fail:

<?php
// 'P0.5Y' is valid according to ISO 8601
$interval = new DateInterval('P0.5Y');  // Throws exception
?>

<?php
// 'PT585.829S' is valid according to ISO 8601
$interval = new DateInterval('PT585.829S');  // Throws exception
?>

If this bug affects you, please go to the report for this bug in the PHP Bug Tracking System, and place a vote stating that it affects you:  https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=53831

To recover the interval specification string:

<?php
function get_interval_spec(DateTime $alpha, DateTime $omega)
{
    $intvl = $alpha->diff($omega);

    $date = NULL;
    if ($intvl->y) $date .= $intvl->y . 'Y';
    if ($intvl->m) $date .= $intvl->m . 'M';
    if ($intvl->d) $date .= $intvl->d . 'D';

    $time = NULL;
    if ($intvl->h) $time .= $intvl->h . 'H';
    if ($intvl->i) $time .= $intvl->i . 'M';
    if ($intvl->s) $time .= $intvl->s . 'S';
    if ($time) $time = 'T' . $time;

    $text ='P' . $date . $time;
    if ($text == 'P') return 'PT0S';
    return $text;
}