keep thinking/dreaming about ex... whats wrong with me???

[DumDum32]

just need to let this out somewhere. i feel sick to my stomach even writing about this but last night i dreamt of my ex of nearly 13 years ago [fshcok] and i feel really guilty about it. I have just started a relationship with someone & this feels like i'm cheating on him!!!

the dream was quite random and nothing raunchy or anything but i still feel guilty. i've got really bad anxiety issues and i think that's why i'm probably over thinking it but i cant stop feeling bad for it and just want to cry.

how do i stop myself feeling this shite

This happens to me a lot. It took me a long time to get over my ex, and even after I met my current dp, I would think about and dream about him a lot. Then it seemed to stop, and just the other day I was thinking about how happy I was with dp, and that night I dreamt about exp again! I shouldn't read too much into it, your subconscious is probably just reflecting you feeling cautious about your new partner, it doesn't necessarily mean you want to get back with your ex!

It is also ok to mourn an old relationship. I got together with my current dp reasonably quickly after splitting with ex, and in hindsight I was so frightened of being disloyal to dp that I was in total denial about my ex and just pretended he never existed. However I was getting counselling for an unrelated issue and during one of the sessions I spoke about my ex and that time in my life. Even though I would never get back with him in a million years, it was nice to have permission to "grieve", after all he was a massive part of my life for many years!

Please don't fret about it. Dreams are weird, and they don't in the slightest mean that you miss the person or wish they were back in your life, so it has nothing to do with being 'unfaithful'.

The fact that you're in a new relationship makes it pretty understandable that your subconscious would be 'running through' related bits of your past - so aspects of an old relationship pop into your thoughts and dreams, because your brain is full of little 'connections' between the thoughts and feelings and memories.

I'm sure if you have problems with anxiety you will know only too well how one thought can lead your head into a sequence that you don't want it to go into, but the 'joins' between one thought and another pull you into anxious thoughts that you'd rather keep away from.

This is just the same kind of thing, but if it happens when you're asleep you can't deliberately try to stop yourself from thinking about something you don't want to think about.

Just accept it - your brain is making connections between the past and the present, but they don't have to be a bad thing. It will be spotting similarities and differences, both how you are a different person than you were then, and how your new partner is different from your ex. But there will be aspects of being in a relationship that are the same as well, and your head will wander around them, asleep or awake!

thanks u both i feel a little better reading your kind words

tossed ur right maybe i do need to mourn properly.... when my cnt therapy starts maybe then i can talk about it and resolve whatever this is.

Amum ur also right maybe i just need to accept it as my brain making connections between the present and the past.

i think i'm finding it hard because he was my first love & i know he couldn't care less about me now!

Dreams have stopped - yippy :)