Search icon

Life

03rd Oct 2019

Did you dream about cheating on your partner? Here’s what it means

Find yourself dreaming of someone who isn't your other-half?

Denise Curtin

Find yourself waking up feeling guilty over a dream that felt like reality?

A dream whereby you imagined yourself having steamy sex with someone else. Someone who isn’t your other-half?

And now, you realise that this isn’t the first time you’ve actually had a dream like this. Perhaps, you’ve thought this way before. Panic.

Am I a bad person? Is this a sign that I’m getting the itch, maybe needing some fresh excitement in my life? Am I falling out of love with this relationship?

To answer things simply, the answer is no.

No, your not a bad person and no, this isn’t a clear indication that you need to move on. In fact, dreaming about cheating on your partner is quite normal and often, has nothing to do with actually wanting to cheat.

According to psychologist Karin Anderson Abrell, Ph.D, she spoke to Cosmopolitan explaining that these dreams can stem from social factors of your day-to-day life – the people you see, things you read, pictures that subliminally catch your eye.

And it’s normal for your brain to turn things sexual especially if the person/stranger in question, is hot.

Again, this is nothing to do with actually wanting to f*ck them but rather, your natural curiosity of wondering what it would be like to have sex with them.  This is a common thing, you ARE human at the end of the day.

Sometimes our brains can lead us astray in our sleep, plotting and creating scenes and fantasies that push the boundaries of real life but that’s OK because it’s a dream, not IRL.

“People freak out about this, but they shouldn’t,” Abrell says. So, fear not.

However, if cheating is something constantly playing on your mind or you find yourself forever dreaming of being with other people well then, maybe a short reassessment of your relationship wouldn’t hurt.

Try to look at your relationship from the outside in and like a psychologist, analysis what you think each partner benefits from the other and write it down. Then, write what you believe each partner is missing and how, if possible, it could be fixed.

Jotting everything down will help you clearly focus on where you think your worry might be rooted and help you to specifically focus on fixing said problem.

ALSO, remember to communicate with your partner. Never let a problem fester inside of you, a problem shared is a problem halved, always.