Some cheaters seek backdoor approval of their cheating by getting you to ‘approve’ their dreams and fantasies.
Is it okay to dream about affairs? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio, and I’m glad you tuned in this evening. Tonight’s program we’re going to be dealing with the question “Is it okay to dream about affairs?”
I decided to include this topic because many times, as people go through affair recovery, they have questions. And this is one of those questions that does come up. Having thought about it and having dealt with it I wanted to pass on some ideas to consider here.
Some cheaters often seek backdoor approval of their cheating by getting you to approve their dreams and fantasies. If you listen to them and you say “it’s okay that you daydream about affairs”, or “It’s okay to have fantasies, just don’t cross the line”.
Although you recognize that you put some limits on it, when a cheater hears something like that they hear something totally different. They hear “Oh, affairs are okay”.
They leave out that part about not crossing the line. You’re going to have to be aware of that.
As you go through the recovery from affairs there will often be dreams about affairs. You may have dreams, your spouse may have dreams. That part is natural.
We’re going to be talking a little bit about that because part of the affair recovery will involve rehearsing and changing the narrative related to these dreams.
I’m not going to get too bogged down in that, but when the affair is over there will be some episodic dreams about affairs. You run into problems when you persistently dream about affairs, because some cheaters, although they may have stopped the affair with Bob or with Mary, they continue fantasizing and dreaming about Bob or Mary long after the affair.
Or maybe they bring in Sandy or Frank as a substitute for the affair that they just ended. You’re going to want to take some steps to nip this stuff in the bud, to stop this behavior.
It’s one thing if it’s part of recovery. It’s another thing if the cheater is using this to continue to persist in affair related thinking.
Your solution is taking steps to reduce the affair dreams. There are things that you can do.
1.Both of you will have to learn to hate affairs. When I say hate affairs it’s going to have to go beyond just disapproving of the effects of the affair and hating the effects of the affair.
You’ve got to get to the point where any romanticizing of the affair is done away with. As long as you let there be a foot in the door and let them have any romantic notions about an affair, the hope that the affair brought or anything like that, that’s not good.
That creates ground for more fantasizing to develop. You’ve got to hate the affair.
The cheater has got to hate the affair, not just the effects of the affair. Not what the affair did to your family. Those will have to be hated too, but they’ve got to hate the affair. They’ve got to hate all the secrecy, all the excitement, all the whatever that went with it.
2. Quit watching shows or listening to music that romanticizes affairs. I know these days just about every television show or just about every other movie deals with the topic of affairs.
Affairs are definitely a popular topic. But you don’t have to steer right into those that romanticize or make fun of affairs, and in some ways even encourage affairs. Especially during recovery.
As you’re going through recovery you don’t need something that encourages the cheater to get back into the kind of thinking that they were at the moment. Or even listening to the kind of music they used to when they had the affair.
That can have them mentally wandering off, in their mind, into another daydream about an affair. And that’s what you’re trying to stop.
These things, the watching of shows and listening to music, can operate like triggers that get them back into that way of thinking. And you’re wanting to stop that.
You’ve got the affair out of their body, or you stopped the behavior pattern. Now you’ve got to get it out of their heart. Getting them to quit dreaming about it is about getting it out of their heart.
3. Double check to see if the affair is out of the cheater’s heart. Many times, although they may have stopped the affair, there may be a part of them that really enjoyed the fantasies. That really hasn’t learned to hate the affair, that secretly wishes that parts of it could continue.
This is having an affair of the heart because there are many cheaters out there that may not be actively cheating, but they’re cheating in their heart. They may have ended the affair yet continued to daydream and fantasize about the neighbor.
And then they make the excuse well, I didn’t actually do anything.
Well, they may not have crossed the line and done anything, but their heart is still not one hundred percent with you. These days marriages are under a lot of pressure and you can’t afford not to have a person one hundred percent committed to the marriage, where their heart’s fully in it. It’s going to be important that you stop the dreams about affairs.
These are steps that you can take to reduce the affair dreams. It won’t totally eliminate them but it’s going to reduce it down to where it needs to be.
Stopping the dreams is only one part of preventing affair relapse. In the video “Preventing Affair Relapse”, you’ll learn about the other areas needing your attention.
Best Regards,
Jeff
