Hi just looking some advice on whether this is common for whether something is amiss in my happy relationship. I keep dreaming every few nights of a certain fella who I knew back in the day. I met him when I was 15 nearly 16 and he was in my life on and off until I met my DH who I have been with for 6 going on 7 years and who I have 2 wonderful children with.
the issue is the dreams always seem to be driven by the need to find out why I was never good enough to date or to find out validation on whether he actually liked me or not.
a quick debrief of the history is this we met when I was 15 and he was 17-18 when I was doing work experience. We swapped numbers and started dating however his work found out and he ended it (that was his reason) we met again when I was 17 and slept together a few times before both getting into relationships. We stayed in touch and remained FWB’s over the years when both single. I fell hard and one new year he did ask me out or rather asked me to go over to his and spend new year with him, I was in the same village coincidentally so I said yes however I was honest and said that I had a date with someone else a few days before and he went radio silence. I stupidly begged for forgiveness and then we slept together again and he left me upstairs in his bed alone when he said he was going to get a drink I came down to find him sat on his sofa he told me he thought I knew where the door was.
we then stopped seeing each other and talking until I got a job which placed us on the same train. We then had 6 months of not sitting together on the morning however he would text or I would text to say which train we were getting and we would sit together.. flirt and then we’d go home separately.
this went on for 6 months until I met my DH online. This other guy we’ll call him Mike* didn’t like it when I told him that I was speaking to someone and previously he’d already managed to sweet talk me out of other dates for instance one day I was meeting someone after work and he text me just the word train? And I switched my phone off and ghosted the other guy in order to get the train with him. When I met my other half Mike even kissed me on the train home one day when I told him I was now dating my other half and that I wanted nothing more to do with him. I had already asked him not to sit with me and he ignored it. I told my other half about this kiss and he said he’s just annoyed he’s lost you & I thought but why because he had me for some long just not permanently.
I keep dreaming of him and every time the dream leads to why was I not good enough to date, why did you keep me holding on if you didn’t actually like me and did you actually like me. My day brain is like why are you bothered.
what do you wise people on mumsnet think. Do you think he was actually bothered or do you think he just wanted to keep leading me on? Just leading me on for some many years seems a bit ridiculous.