katielee Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 many of you know that I have them occasionally. Hubby has had them two nights in a row now. He's told me about them and I've tried to comfort him and apologized. I just don't understand. We had 2 weeks of a great vacation where he held a surprise birthday part for me, we really connected, and now we're back to this. I've been wondering if he is telling me everything about work and am biting my lip about him being the president of the group where he met OW2. I was a big girl about it and told him I hope he did well at the meeting. He told me he loved me as I'm sure he sensed I was nervous. If this is happening in our dreams then it is front and center in our subconscious. That's not a though we can just switch off. Or, make a decision not to worry about it as it comes through in our dreams. But, when will this end? Link to post Share on other sites
NTV Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 It sucks. For me it took like 6-8 months after DDday to go away. Between that and mind movies and obsessive transformation into Sherlock Holmes and alternating anger/sadness/numbness by the minute, I probably could have been institutionalized. Link to post Share on other sites
Author katielee Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 It's been 6.5 years for him and 4.5 for me Link to post Share on other sites
OneLov Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 The pain from infidelity never goes away. It is not something you ever get over; you learn to live with it. This is a different type of loss. I know this is probably something you do not want to hear. But it will become easier if you accept everything you are experiencing is a natural reaction to the type of loss you experienced. The bad dreams are just that -- bad dreams from the remainder of your subconscious. I would not in anyway read into them or become anxious if they occur. Focus on the good because that is the present. In time, you will learn to live holding two opposite truths: He can hurt me like no other human being (and I him); he can love me like no other (and I him). Learning to live with the ambiguity will cause you less stress and anxiety over time. As always, I wish you the best. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
ladydesigner Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Katielee are your nearing any antiversaries? Sometimes the subconscious remembers these awful dates before we do. Link to post Share on other sites
Author katielee Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 no anniversaries. But maybe our time at the lake, away from here and everything it represents, is our new beginning. We just can't experience it all the time when we have to come back to jobs, etc. It's like the lake suspends us from our reality for a while. Although we have had a douzy of a fight there. Link to post Share on other sites
understand50 Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 katielee, They are just dreams, I would put no stock in them, nor would I worry about them. Leave them where they belong, in your sleep. I wish you luck..... 2 Link to post Share on other sites
merrmeade Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 Actually I hadn't experienced that particular gift until recently. I don't pay much attention to dreams usually, but I had a terrible one recently in which my husband was with someone else in front of me, talking, flirting - pretty much hooking up as an item. We were in some weird mass of people moving along together somewhere, so I kept seeing them together. He glanced at me maybe once but there was no reaction. He saw me and saw that I saw, but there he didn't care. He didn't notice me. It's just that he was doing that now. He was just gone. But gone in front of me. There was all this noise and activity because of all the people and where we were, and everyone I knew would show up at some point in the movement of people. And they all saw him but no one was acknowledging it to me. So it was that, not only was he completely indifferent to me, he made no effort to hide it from anyone. Pretty intense humiliation. What happened next I wrote about here a few weeks ago: I woke up gasping and crying out, "You did it again..." It was daytime, and he heard and came to the room. At first, he tried to leave because I got a little abusive, but I called him back and insisted he sit there and listen. So this is the important part, kl: He was kind of clueless what he should do as usual, but - as usual - I helped and told him what I needed, which was just to listen. So he listened. And I talked. First about the dream and then about what he'd done so long ago and thought it had nothing to do with me. And all kinds of things and themes that had wound around through my heart and mind since dday. But because I was in that sort of relaxed, open state between dreaming and waking, it sort of got to the essence of the awfulness of how it all felt to me. He listened, put his arms around me sometimes, said he was sorry again, bowed his head a lot and then said kind of plaintively, "But I think I've changed. I'm trying..." I don't know. It was just kind of a pivotal moment and neither of us guarded or defensive, just feeling and accepting. What I'm getting at is I recommend you try to share with him just how the dream made you feel without planning it, just try to remember it and how it felt and tell him that. I think it's like having the opportunity of both of you witnessing the actual event unfold while you share how it's affecting you as it happens. And it's not contrived because you're sort of retrieving it for him so you're not alone with it. Does that make sense? Link to post Share on other sites
merrmeade Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 katielee, They are just dreams, I would put no stock in them, nor would I worry about them. Leave them where they belong, in your sleep. I wish you luck..... Most of the time, I agree with this, but very occasionally - like maybe once in five or more years - you have a doozy of one that squeezes so hard at the base of your soul, it wakes you up - and usually right in the middle so it stays with you. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
harrybrown Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 I don't call them dreams, I call them nightmares. I wish I would never have one again. They are fewer and fewer as the years go by. But I am glad for your H that you listened to him. He or you can't really control your dreams, but the nightmares can have a huge impact on how you feel. cheating is the gift that keeps on giving for a very long time. I do hope you and your H keep growing together and work to make each other the most important in your part of the world. Good luck to you both. If you do find a way to control the nightmares, please have your H pm me with the solution. And then sell it on amazon or ebay. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
MuddyFootprints Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 I had some pretty horrific dreams last month. I was cheating. Life has been stressful and we are both just fighting to try to meet our own responsibilities. The dreams made me acknowledge the disconnect we've been experiencing and address it. It's not easy, sometimes. It does help to talk about it and keep the subconscious thoughts conscious. I'm back to dreaming about buying plants again... Last night it was extremely high-priced orange trees that someone was trying to grow as waterlilies... Hopefully that is not some kind of weather prediction. Link to post Share on other sites
Author katielee Posted July 10, 2016 Author Share Posted July 10, 2016 we talked last night. I saw a connection request from a woman come in on his phone for LinkedIn as I walked by it. It just made me irritated. He said if he doestn' know the person he doesnt' connect. I said it causes anxiety in me. Not because he's doing anything wrong, but because of what happened in the past. And I compared it to the bad dreams he's having. They wouldn't be happening had I not did what I did. And I have no problem apologizing for something I did in the past that still haunts him now. I said we just need to be empathetic to each other. I also mentioned we are very giving to each other. He does LinkedIn, is the president of the chamber now, etc. He said yes, we can't keep each other caged up at home. I agreed. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
merrmeade Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 we talked last night. I saw a connection request from a woman come in on his phone for LinkedIn as I walked by it. It just made me irritated. He said if he doestn' know the person he doesnt' connect. I said it causes anxiety in me. Not because he's doing anything wrong, but because of what happened in the past. And I compared it to the bad dreams he's having. They wouldn't be happening had I not did what I did. And I have no problem apologizing for something I did in the past that still haunts him now. I said we just need to be empathetic to each other. I also mentioned we are very giving to each other. He does LinkedIn, is the president of the chamber now, etc. He said yes, we can't keep each other caged up at home. I agreed. I'm glad you did this, kl, but it depends on how you both were afterward - but you for sure. How do you feel, kl? Are you glad you did it? Link to post Share on other sites
Author katielee Posted July 10, 2016 Author Share Posted July 10, 2016 I always feel better after we talk. Even if the info us not what i want to hear at least I know where he's at. He still hates talking. But we recovered very well. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
merrmeade Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 I always feel better after we talk. Even if the info us not what i want to hear at least I know where he's at. He still hates talking. But we recovered very well. I know I think. Mine hates it, too. But too bad. I have to have it, so he has to do it. All things considered, it's not asking for very much. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Cephalopod Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 I feel bad for your situation. Madhatters have their own special brand of pain they must endure. I have been divorced from my exWW for many years now, but I still occasionally have weird and sometimes terrible dreams involving her. It's odd. I never think about her consciously. I have not spoken to her in eons. She is no longer a part of my or our daughter's life. Yet despite this, her betrayal after all these years still haunts me. The scars never go away because most of them are psychological. All I think you can do for yourself and your husband is to talk about the dreams with each other, to help process them. Who knows? By doing so it might actually bring the two of you closer. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
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