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I dream he's cheating on me |
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Dear Jane,
I have a lot of trust issues with my boyfriend and a lot of this stems from the past, I do get carried away and constantly think in real life that he may be cheating, but I recently keep having these dreams that in fact he really is cheating on me and they feel so real. When I wake up I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t cry from the dream I just feel kinda hurt like it really happened, and I just was wondering what this means? Does it mean I should really watch out and that it's true, or does it mean something totally different?
Stefanie
Dear Stefanie,
What the dreams mean is that something now is reminding you of that time in the past when you were hurt. That something could be signs that your boyfriend is cheating on you. Or could just be the fact that your feelings for your boyfriend that are like feelings you had at that past time.
When you’ve been hurt, as you were in the past, your brain stores the memory and watches out for anything which reminds it of that situation. Since this part of the brain is very deep, and doesn’t think, the reminders could be completely irrelevant. If you’d been in a car crash with a blue car, you might feel a bit anxious every time you saw a blue car, even though the colour of the car had nothing to do with the accident. So it would not be wise to take your dreams as a sign that your boyfriend is cheating on you. You could risk spoiling a good relationship.
Try writing down the ways where your present relationship, and boyfriend, are DIFFERENT from the past. When you feel distrustful, step back and ask yourself, what would you say to a friend in the same situation? This is a useful way of gaining perspective and seeing things objectively. We always see other people’s situations so much more clearly then out own!
If you find yourself getting “carried away”, angry, anxious or distrustful out of the blue … that’s always a sign that the deep brain is taking over. AT ONCE, start counting backwards from 100, and keep this up for about 15 seconds. That ‘out of the blue’ reaction usually means the deep brain has been reminded of a past threat. Counting backwards stops the next stage, which is for your memory and imagination to start embroidering and amplifying the feeling. Left to yourself, you probably start remembering every time he’s not behaved as you’d like, and imagining all sorts of scenarios. Counting backwards stops this happening and keeps you in control.
Is he cheating on you? Has your childhood left you feeling in some deep way more comfortable with people who’ll treat you badly? The calmer and more in control you are now, the more clearly you’ll see where the real truth lies.
Good luck!
Jane
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