10 years ago I had a brief fling with someone who had been on the periphery of my life for many years. I had very deep feelings for him for a very long time and I was surprised when my feelings were reciprocated. Though this really hurt my heart because he was such a special person to me, I decided we were better as friends. At the time I had also started dating someone else who I was pretty excited about – our relationship was light and fun and exciting. it made my relationship with my fling feel like it was too fraught and there was too much pressure to make things work. We were 2 very insecure people flailing trying to handle what felt like this fantasy that could never live up to expectations. I remain convinced to this day that I made the right decision.
He wasn’t happy with my decision, but he agreed it was important to remain in each other’s lives. About a year later, he married someone else. His wife was understandably uncomfortable with our relationship and our friendship has all but disappeared. I met his wife and I made a valiant effort to be friends with both of them, and though he kept reiterating how important it was for us to be in each other’s lives, it was naive of me to believe we could have a relationship on my terms. We haven’t spoken in 3 years.
I really truly believed I was fine with this. Of course I’m sad we don’t speak anymore, but that’s life. I’m married and have been with my husband for 5 years (he’s not the person I was dating at the time of my fling). I am completely in love with him and I love our life together. He’s everything I want in a partner and we complement each other really well. I rarely think about my fling in my day to day life (though I follow him and his wife on social media). But. Every few months or so I have a dream where he is overcoming obstacles to be with me romantically, and in the dream I am chuffed about it. I wake up feeling like absolute shit. So guilty. Why does this keep happening? Am I in complete denial about how I feel about him? How do I get over this? I feel so guilty and can’t talk about this with anyone. Help!
Tldr- I keep having dreams about someone I was in love with 10 years ago and I feel extremely guilty about it even though I really (consciously anyway) thought I didn’t have feelings for him anymore
3 comments
There’s no deep reason it’s happening, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t over the guy. Dreams don’t mean anything. You have nothing to feel guilty about.
It’s just a dream. You’re not doing anything wrong.
Dreams can be fed by many things – what you ate, events you are experiencing, feelings, news, etc. IMO they aren’t always about the people that appear in them. My personal experience is that I have dreams that reveal truths I’m grappling with and help me let go of false pictures of reality. My mom is often my tormenter disguised as my support. My ex is sabotaging me or avoiding me when he’s around. My old workplace where I was let go is not a place I’d want to be. My friend is focused on being a mom. One of the strangest ones was a month before my ex left me suddenly I was dreaming that he had moved out but I didn’t notice. He ended up doing just that and stringing me along for months. This isn’t always straight forward to see – my ex isn’t always the same face, my workplace rehires me, my friend is at a party with me. I also dream of random stuff that I find no meaning in. If you wanted to you could look to see if there is meaning there you haven’t accepted – maybe you wish your husband showed more “fight” for you or you feel guilty about your choice or worried about how that situation would go if you had similar struggles in your relationship now. Or maybe it’s nonsense and fed by small things you see in life – his social media or a store you went to together. Either way you can let yourself off the hook because we don’t choose our dreams. The sooner you accept the dream and let it go the sooner it will go away. Good luck!