In my head I’m having an imaginary affair 20 years ago

[buddy79]

I’m feeling guilty! And strange! But I’m having a struggle at the moment as I seem to be constantly day dreaming about exciting romantic and sexual trysts in a quite Mills and Boon esque sort of scenario… In these day dreams I am in my twenties (about 15 yrs ago!), am obviously far more attractive and cool than I was then or am now, and they centre on an old work colleague, who is a real person I had a bit of a crush on at the time, but nothing ever happened between us (I was with DP now DH) and since I stopped working there years ago I have had no contact with since and don’t intend to… yet he is very much present in my head. I don’t know why this has started - peri? Lockdown boredom? Part of me thinks it’s harmless and obviously nothing real is happening, but it’s not like me at all and I wouldn’t like it if DH was thinking the kinds of thoughts I am thinking about someone else! Anyone else been here and any advice?!

@buddy79 there's nothing to feel guilty about! I'd say most people think about past crushes / trysts from time to time though probably not everyday! Have you googled him at all as he could look totally different by now (in a negative way) which would snap you out of day dreaming about him! On the other hand he may have improved with age which could be dangerous! Anyway a bit of day dreaming is harmless unless it starts interfering with your real life where you start living in a fantasy world... that's when you'll know it needs to stop now...

It's normal to think back to ex loves and crushes and have a little daydream. It was a part of your life and you can't completely erase those memories and feelings. All sorts of things can trigger them such as a song, a photo or a dream.

If it's constant and interfering with your everyday life and potentially your relationship then you'd need to think about the reason behind it. It certainly could be hormonal or maybe life with dh isn't as exciting as you'd like at the moment. Lockdown has been hard on a lot of relationships and still continues to be difficult if both are wfh. Finding stuff to do apart is a must otherwise it just gets stale and stifling. Even without lockdown and wfh having your own interests is healthy is a relationship so maybe that's something you can work on.

Just don't go googling this guy and making it worse. Although he's 15 years older so seeing what he likes look now might actually kill the crush dead

Thanks for your replies… weirdly I think just actually writing it down here has slightly sort of dissipated it already, just seeing how totally unrelated to reality it is. But yes I agree things have got a bit stale between DH and I, and I think hormones are part of it too.. we talked tonight about having an evening out together and realised we haven’t done so for nearly a year (!) so badly needed. We have separate interests etc but we do hardly anything together just as a couple that isn’t totally child focussed, and that’s a bit of an issue I think. I am wfh and missing the social side of things there too, though that’s improving. I admit I did look up his profile once on Facebook a few weeks ago.., he still looks hot…then I got absolutely terrified about what I was doing and wiped it all without looking at anything else so I still have no clue about his life now and vowed never to do that again!! Scared myself! Anyway thanks for taking time to reply, I feel a bit less mad.