Dreaming about an old crush

[Guest]

Hi everyone, I haven't posted here before so this is as good a place as any to start! I am happily married with two kids and really am completely content in my relationship. We've been together for 10 years and he's perfect - my best friend as well as a great husband and dad.

However, I've recently been having a lot of dreams about someone I adored in my early 20s. We never really got together, we were both interested but circumstances stopped it ever happening and I always regretted that neither of us acted faster. I always wake up from the dreams thinking about him a lot, which is what bothers me - it occupies my mind for a good day or so and makes me feel quite guilty as I would never actually do anything.

I bumped into him recently and although I still found him attractive it wasn't like I felt the same way as I did back then. He's married too and suggested getting together with our spouses for dinner. I think it would be nice to catch up as friends but worry that if I'm still dreaming about him in this way it would stir up old feelings. Again, I would never act on them but am I right to feel guilty about this or am I overreacting?

[weezypops]

I have someone similar to this so hopefully it's really normal! In my case it was someone I worked with in the summer holidays when I was at university who still crops up in dreams now and then, much more so than ex-boyfriends, even though we never properly got together. I have found over the years though that people I dream about tend to be the ones with things left unfinished, so a boyfriend I had at university who was a complicated fellow and an even more complicated relationship and this particular one, rather than boyfriends that were quite straightforward so I've always assumed it was my brain trying to process it. I find that as time goes on I dream about them less too.

As for meeting up, I think it's really down to you. Could you talk to your husband about it but without going into too much detail about how much you used to like him, just put it to him as a 'would it be weird to meet up with this ex' sort of question.

[Lian]

I would steer clear. My hubby caught up with an ex that he said he had no feelings for and it ended up developing into an affair.