Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means. Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it (18 and older only, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri:
Yesterday while taking a nap, I found myself dreaming that my ex-boyfriend showed up at my home and I proceeded to cheat on my husband with him. (Side note, my ex-boyfriend was both emotionally and physically abusive and cheated on me several times during our relationship. Plus, we broke up nearly 6 years ago and I’m now happily married with two beautiful daughters.)
Anyway, in the dream we had amazing sex (he wasn’t that good in real life). Shortly after, however, my husband, a friend of ours, and some other people showed up. I wasn’t caught by anyone, but I felt horrible. I kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe I cheated on him. I would never do something like this. I love my husband.” I really felt horrible, and wanted to keep this a secret, but I knew my husband would find out, regardless of whether I told him or not. Of course, our friend saw my ex there and wondered why he was there.
I finally yelled at my ex and told him to get the f*** out of my house. He left, and I felt terrible. I woke myself up and was extremely thankful it was just a dream. I don’t like thinking about my ex, but this dream has disturbed me significantly. Usually when I dream about him, he is always trying to get back with me (which he did in reality for years after we split), and I always tell him to leave me alone, I’m in love with my husband. I just want to know what this dream means, so maybe I won’t have this dream anymore.
Lauri: Unfortunately, when you get out of an abusive relationship, you are never fully out of it, because the emotional scars remain and will show up in your dreams. The element of feeling horrible about cheating on your hubby with your abusive ex is a tell-tale sign that remnants of that relationship show up every now and then and affect your marriage.
Do you still have trust issues? Do you have a difficult time handling arguments with hubby? What sort of behaviors do you sometimes exhibit that stem from when you were in the abusive relationship? Odds are, around the time you had this dream something must have happened, you must have said something or behaved in a manner that made you feel guilty, which is why you had so much guilt in the dream. Just as you said, “I would never do this to my husband” in the dream, what did you do or say in real life that is not like you? Did you sneak a look at his phone? Did you get irrational in an argument? Whatever it is, you are fully aware that were it not for that abusive relationship, you never would have done it.
The way you tell him to get the f*** out of your house in the dream is really you demanding that he get the f*** out of your psyche because clearly, as evidenced by this dream, he is still “screwing” with you psychologically rather than physically. He’s not in your life anymore but emotional scars from him are.
If this is a frequent thing, I would urge you to get help with it. Far too often past relationships continue to play an unhealthy role in current relationships because we haven’t been able to fully let go of the pain, the fear, the distrust, etc. I have partnered with a psychologist and we specialize in this sort of issue. If you are interested in getting help, we can help you in just one to three sessions, as opposed to months of therapy. You can find out more at DreamingtoHealing.com.
Visit Lauri’s site, WhatYourDreamMeans.com, for even more dream interpretations! If you want to be able to figure out your own dreams every morning, then check out her latest book, Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life, which will give you the tools you need to become a dream expert, too. Check out all of Lauri’s books here.
