I Dreamt My Husband Had Another Family and *I* Was the Side Chick

Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex & relationships. If you’ve got a good one, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg just might tell you what it means! Click here to submit yours (18 and older only for dream interpretations, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri about dreaming of her husband’s love child:

Last night I continued to have the same dream over and over. No matter what I did, every time I woke and went back to sleep, the dream continued from where it had left off. In the dream, a woman walks up to me with a little boy who’s younger than my daughter, saying that my husband is her child’s father. And in the dream, my husband acts as if it were nothing. There were also times in the dream where he put her before me and made me feel like I was the side woman.

Lauri: When you have a series of dreams like this, throughout the night, that pick up where the previous one left off, it means your subconscious is laser focused on one particular issue that is really bothering you. The clues in your dream will let us know what that issue is.

In your dream, your husband has another child from another woman. No doubt this was very alarming for you but don’t take this literally! The child in the dream symbolizes a project or something that your husband would consider “his baby,” something he brought forth through his ideas and efforts, something he is nurturing so that it can continue to grow and develop and reach its full potential.

Whatever this is, it is something that may be causing you to feel left out, hence feeling like the side chick in the dream. He also acts like this is no big deal in the dream. That is because in real life he must not realize you are bothered by this project or whatever it is he is giving his time to… or he thinks you shouldn’t be bothered by it.

But the dream continued all night long so you clearly are.

My suggestion is to bring this up to him, but do so gently. Remember, he hasn’t actually cheated on you! You can open the conversation with this dream — that’s a good way to break the ice. Then let him know that you are feeling a bit left out. Offer to cut back on something of yours if he can cut back a little on his project or “baby.” Together, find a way you two can spend more quality time together… something that will make you both feel like you are each other’s priority. Do this and these sort of dreams will stop!