AOAI is an online Peer Support Group and safe space for individuals (betrayed or wayward) who are actively attempting to reconcile after infidelity. Reconciliation peer support is emotional and practical support between people who share the common experience of reconciling after infidelity. (Observers are strictly limited to messages of support only.) Kindly read the rules before participating.
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I keep having nightmares almost every night about my partner and his cheating. Sometimes the dreams are weird, I remember one when I was just talking on a long road of sand and I was crying so hard thinking about what happened. Last night I dreamed he said something to me, and I said "yeah, I know", and he asked if he had told me that before (he called me a nickname or something) and I said "No, it wasn't to me that you said it.") and I walked away and started going through the messages that he sent to his online gf. In the dream, the messages were longer than they were irl, and he was showering her pictures of things and places - which is something I hate, because as much as my WP says it meant nothing to him and it was like an alternative reality, he tried very hard to connect with this girl, including telling her about places irl.
I have felt good the past few days, but it's hard to ignore the dreams. I guess it's trauma? I still have constant dreams about my father, who died like 4 years ago, but was a constant source of trauma my entire life, and I dream almost daily of him.
I can't control my dreams - these nightmares happen even when I'm having good days. It's hard to not feel affected by them. I wonder if they mean anything, I never gave much thought to meaning of dreams as I tend to be skeptical and my dreams are usually very uncreative and tend to be about things that happen irl.
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r/Asoneafterinfidelity is an online Peer Support Group and safe space for individuals (betrayed or wayward) who are actively attempting to reconcile their relationship after an affair(s). Please review our wiki which includes resources and can answer most questions about this subreddit. Be sure to read the rules before participating as they are our boundaries and your initial warning. Failure to do so can result in a ban.
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I dream a lot normally, but I wouldn't describe them as nightmares. Since I found out about the affair, I've had maybe 5 or 6 terrible nightmares over the past 9 months involving my WH and his AP, where I woke up absolutely sobbing. I have never had that happen before in my life (I'm 50).
I will say it happened mostly in the beginning, and it's been 3 or 4 months since the last one. I'm sorry it's happening to you so often. Hopefully, with time, it will lessen.
Yes, literally had a nightmare last night about catching my WS having sex with AP (which didn't even happen...). It's horrible and I woke up scared, angry and anxious. Every time this happens in my dream I beat the AP up. I'm not a violent person, but I've had so so many dreams like this where I become physically aggressive towards the AP. It's my brain processing the trauma and emotions, I'm angry and this is how it comes out.
I dream of beating up my father very frequently lol not my WP though. But I understand. It's definitely anger and I think, for me, the fact that I never got to really stand up against my father, I feel that he got off too easy given how horrible he was and I hate that and I'm still bitter about it. Same goes for WPs, they definitely get off way too easy.
I also have nightmares usually relating to my trauma, a lot of my trauma and the way I’ve reacted to the affair has been a direct correlation to me being abandoned by my mother, and my dad and step mom giving up on me and kicking me out at 17. I started dating my wife when I was 17 and she cheated on me when I was almost 22. I just turned 29 and still deal with the problems from the affair internally much more than she’s aware of. It’s become a massive thorn in my side in relations to my self-esteem and insecurities of never feeling like enough for someone that they would discard me. I still get nightmares relating to all of this and I hate that those are the dreams I usually remember, I hate that I wake up and they put me into a bad mood all day. Really wish I was better at compartmentalizing but my adhd brain just has me ruminate on negativity so hard causing massive anxiety
No nightmares now, but pre dday I was having dreams of him cheating. This is before I knew anything. I guess my subconscious was picking up on things I was ignoring in my day to day. Over a period of weeks the dreams went from a faceless AP to actually THE AP.
I rarely used to dream now it's every night. I've kind of just gotten used to waking up to them. They're always painful but sometimes worse than others.
They don't effect my day much anymore, but they can put me in a bad mental place in the morning, which can ruin my whole day if I let it. It really helps if I have something to distract myself with first thing in the morning though, which sucks because I used to really enjoy slow weekend mornings, now I have to try to find something to do right away.
Yeah, I usually have to work almost immediately, so I just have time to make my coffee. But yeah, last night I was excited for today because I was going to try to bake something new (I love baking and it's something from my home country that I miss and decided to try to make), but now I ended up scheduling a bunch of extra work for the day because I'm just not in the nice light mood for baking anymore. Staying busy is definitely a must, it's hard to not go down a rabbit hole of pain when one isn't busy.
I was just thinking about making a post like this myself. I have always dreamt pretty much every night and have been prone to nightmares during stressful life situations, and since dday its pretty much just been 3 hours of sleep with the 3 hours beeing nightmares. I imagine its normal, since our brains process things while we sleep. Hopefully with time it’ll get better for all of us. Good luck to you.
So sorry you're going through this. I have posted about my recurring dream. I also posted about facing my fear and since then I have not had that particular dream. Here are my posts:
Dream: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/comments/18wq1ky/recurring_dreams/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Facing Fear:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/comments/1aezfhy/where_it_all_began/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I usually dreamt about the AP. Sometimes she pops up still. It’s weird. I didn’t sleep a lot after D-day, for months. My psychiatrist prescribed sleep meds and it knocked me out without dreams for awhile which was a god send.
For the first few weeks after DDay, I was having nightmares. Except, they weren't real "nightmares" -- they didn't feel cold-sweaty terrifying. They felt super-duper normal and real. For example, I'd have a conversation with my WH or the AP about something I already knew, and they would add a new, believable detail to the mix. Talk about a mindfuck -- it was like my own brain was trickle truthing me! Then I'd wake up around midnight, on the rumination hamster wheel, unable to go back to sleep.
I had my annual checkup about a month after DDay, and I told my doctor about the (then impending) divorce and she asked about my sleep. When I told her it wasn't great, she stopped and said, "This is not a time when you can afford for your mind and body to be sleep deprived. The danger to your health is huge. Getting good sleep has to be a top priority right now." Although I've always been extremely hesitant about the idea of using sleeping pills, I agreed to try a very light sleeping pill on an occasional basis, and I think that those + time helped knocked out the nightmares. Honestly, I think prioritizing sleep has done as much (if not more than) IC to get me to a place where healing is even possible.
Sleep is definitely super important, I have had trouble sleeping for many years now. I've been taking sleeping pills for a few years but unfortunately, I still have issues sleeping
I really struggled with this the first few months after DDay2. It ruins your whole day. You wake up disoriented and questioning reality. My dreams are almost about AP. Her telling me some details I’ve never known, her attacking me, her becoming my friend, real insidious shit that does a number on me upon waking up. We could be in a good place in R, and then a bad dream will have me pain shopping the whole next day, drowning in misery.
I’m six months out now and I’ve only had a handful of dreams related to the affair in the last two months. It does get better. I do smoke before bed, but that doesn’t really keep me from dreaming at this point. I think it’s just something that gets better with time.
I typically don't dream. I'm a blackout sleeper, been that way my whole life where I go to bed and Bam next morning and I'm waking up.
Since our DDays I also have nightmares and I learned in IC that those represent my subconcious fears. Things I didn't even think about yet, what could come to light that would shatter me more, what if scenarios and more. I need to let those dreams be something I work with, navigate the feelings that come with them and the thought process that follows.
We process a lot while sleeping and only you can figure out if your dreams are a representation of your fears or if your subconcious picked something up and wants to warn you. Try talking with your WP about those dreams. It builds trust and maybe he did something that was a pattern while the cheating happened you just didn't realise it yet, so this brings some awareness to him as well as to what not to do anymore.
All the best for you.
Thanks. I feel that my dreams tend to be kind of straightforward - I hate that my WP talked to this girl about real life things and places, it's a way to bring this online EA to real life, and this detail bothers me (especially when he would mention being somewhere when we were together and he would refer to me as his fucking cousin). I don't fear that he's talking to the same person, but yeah, I'm always afraid I don't know what he is doing behind my back, and I also never will know the full extent of his cheating.
My subconscious is also very straightforward - right before I found out he was cheating, I pointed out to him that he was actively avoiding me and that I felt unwanted because I would walk into a room and he'd literally walk out lol and he would deny it, and we treated it almost like a joke, I didn't think of cheating at that time because I 100% trusted him, but I definitely picked up the signs that he was fucking around, i just refused to interpret them properly. I pay more attention. I analyze everything he does.
May I ask how your WP resonds to you bringing those dreams up to him? You being afraid you don't know what he is doing and the full extend is standing in your way of R. He should tell you the truth. No gory details but atleast he should fully disclose how he cheated, with how many, PA or EA.. things like that. You can't move forward without honesty and transparancy.
That's unfortunately something that comes with being betrayed. You over analyze everything which drives you nuts. Try communicating with your WP if you get to that point. Let him help you and let him give you some peace of mind. If you want R you have to give some sort of trust bonus while they have to proof to you at the same time they are worthy of it.
He tells me he is sorry that I have these dreams, and he tries to physically comfort me. I don't know what he could do, tbh. I told him today that last night I had these dreams, and he tried to comfort me physically, but I told him to leave cause I had to work soon. I don't really like to be kissed or hugged when I feel angry at him.
Well, I will never know what he is doing - I used to think I knew, but now my mentality is that I simply can't know for sure. It's impossible to know. Regarding the truth, yeah, at this point I'm not sure I want to know the full extent, to be honest...sometimes I do, I want to ask for more details, but I also don't really have reasons to believe what he will tell me. The details I do know are because I've seen proof. And he TT'd me, so of course he lied saying what i initially saw was everything there was to see, and then immediately I found more things. He has told me some other things when I asked. But really, I have no reason to believe him
I've always had trust issues (or so I thought lol cause i definitely was overly trusting of him), so it will be a long time before I give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, I think staying with him is already quite a big dose of trust bonus, in a way.
TT'ing really effs with our heads, I understand where you are coming from. I don't like physical contact either when I'm angry. My WP tries to just be a presence near me and 'talk me down'. He often just discusses those dreams with me, shows me where there is no truth, takes accountability for what really happened, walks trough every what if scenario with me and it helps. Maybe this would help you too?
Did you bring this up with him ? Maybe an open devices/password rule would help with that, including no deleting? So that you could always look if you need to, not to be controlling but for your own peace of mind.
You will never know everything, even if he tells you the complete truth, but you have to figure out if you can live with that. It seems to me as if you are building up resentment and I'm not loving that for you.
Do you think he may be open to talk about this ? I think you need to have a deep talk with him about what you are feeling.
I'm so sorry you are going through this.
Before dday I would have dreams of myself cheating and being with someone else. Come to find out it was WS doing it in real life. I haven’t had much nightmares about it but I do keep having dreams of me being with someone else
That is a classic PTSD symptom. Please consider calling your doctor for treatment options. You do not have to suffer because of what was done to you. You do not have to tough it out or seek comfort from the person responsible. There are ways to overcome this.
Oh yeah. I remember one in particular where my son and I were searching for her because we didn't know where she went. We ended up in this dark alley and she was there. As we went to approach her she grew taller or levitates ( I don't remember which ) then pulls out this Samari sword and chopped my legs off.
I woke up in a cold sweat.
Yes, it used to be every night. Along with the support WH was offering, my therapist suggested the following exercise, which helped me a lot.
Before bedtime, I was asked to journal, either what i was feeling or sometimes, write out a story of what I would have liked to have happened. So it could be revenge on AP, or WH saying no to AP, anything that I wished would have happened. After a few rounds of these (and 2 ART sessions), the nightmares have almost gone away completely. I have one affair related nightmare, maybe once every few months or so, but for the most part, sleep has finally become peaceful. Another thing I personally discovered as helpful was to read up on another topic of interest just before bad, for instance, we're planning a vacation this summer, and I have lots of research to do about transportation and food and places to see. That really helped my brain dream of this rather than other trauma.
Not as much anymore, but still sometimes. I do think you’re right and it is trauma. Also I think it’s my mind processing what happened and what I’m afraid of happening again.
I don’t think they mean anything like premonition, if that’s what you’re saying. Remember that in your waking moments you are also thinking about this a lot. It’s normal that your brain is thinking about it in your sleep as well.
ah, no, i don't think it's premonition at all
I’ve dreamt about fighting my SO and punching him, all while protecting another him (there was two him)…. Disturbing but … enlightening
Im struggling with nightmares again. Im 4 months post dday.
The first 2 months were absolute hell. Then a bit of a break for a month and a half where I slept decent.
Now the nightmares are back in full force, waking me up with my heart racing.
The nightmares can be so vivid too. Just last night it was a dream of my WW and her AP having sex while making fun of me.
Once Im awake, the reality of infidelity settles in, I realize its not just a bad dream but its my reality. Then I start to wonder about the negative shit she may have told her AP about me
After DD2, I have nightmares really often. I'll cry on my sleep and my husband needs to fully wake me up telling me everything is ok.
(Nightmares aren't something I experienced often, even as a child. It actually was the opposite, I discovered lucid dreaming around 10yo and always enjoyed it.)
One year after DD2, I'm pregnant and I've dreamed that AP came at my house and killed the baby by placing a pillow in her face.
I don't understand how WS can engage in something that can turn to be this traumatizing for someone they claim to love. And I'm having a really hard time forgetting him.