cheating – Page 4

Married Life: Dreaming About Cheating Vs. Actually Cheating

Our dreams don’t always make sense, but if you’re dreaming about cheating on your current partner, it can be downright scary. It can be even more frightening if you’ve never thought about cheating on them during your waking hours and would never betray your partner like that. So what exactly do cheating dreams mean and should you tell your partner about them?

I have been dating the most beautiful girl for the past 3 years and I love her with all my heart and would never even consider cheating on her. But lately I have been having a lot of dreams of me having an affair on her with other girls I use to know. I wake up and I feel ashamed that I’m having dreams of hurting her and being with another woman. Any reasons why this might be happening?

–YouTube Viewer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbf3QjeUzHY[/youtube]

When Your Brain Brings Up Old Memories

If you’re dreaming about cheating on your current partner but in real life would never, ever do something like that, you may feel like your sleeping brain is betraying you. Or you may feel like you secretly or subconsciously want to be with women other than your current partner, or else why would you be dreaming about them? The truth is, our bodies and our brains tend to bring up old memories when we are in similar situations and are experiencing similar emotions. What that means is that those loving relationship feelings you’re experiencing with your current partner were very similar to the emotions you experienced with your previous partners, so your sleeping brain is remembering those emotions in all the different manifestations that you experienced the emotions in. Dreams of cheating on your partner doesn’t mean you subconciously want to be with other people, nor does it mean that you will cheat on them sometime in the future with an old girlfriend, so relax a little!

Letting Your Partner Know About Your Dreams

Although your dreams of cheating on your girlfriend are harmless, the idea of telling her about your dreams can be downright terrifying. Does hiding your dreams make you a bad person? Not really, because you don’t always share all of your dreams with her. But telling her about your dreams – and why they are freaking you out – can help you and your partner better understand each other and recognize the love you have for each other. Let your partner know that you’re having dreams about cheating on her, but that you are also waking up frightened and ashamed. Let her know that you’re not exactly sure why you’re having these dreams of infidelity, but in your heart you deeply and truly love her and that you’ve never thought of cheating on her or being with someone else while you’ve been with her. Laying your feelings out on the line like that is definitely nerve wracking, but if you are completely honest with your partner, you have nothing to worry about. Your girlfriend will understand that you have no control over your dreams and that you do love her and want to be with her.

The Dreams Will Go Away Eventually

Even if you’re dreaming about cheating on your partner every night, take a deep breath and relax. You won’t dream about cheating on your partner every night for the rest of your life, so you can rest assured that the dreams will eventually go away. Talking to your partner about your dreams and realizing that the dreams don’t mean anything serious will do wonders getting your brain to relax and start focusing on something else at night. Even though you can’t help what you dream at night, laying down while worrying about whether you’re going to dream of cheating or not will definitely make it worse. Read a good book or watch your favorite televsion show or movie (that doesn’t have an affair in the plot) before going to bed to try to get your mind off of worrying about what your next dream will be. It may take a little while, but you and your partner will move through this trying time and come out on the other end with a much stronger relationship for it. Eventually, you may end up thanking your crazy cheating dreams if you are presented with the temptation to cheat in the future. You’ll remember how horrible it felt to wake up and felt like you cheated on your partner and you definitely won’t want to go through it for real!

Should You Stay With A Cheater?

By loveandsex

The bad news is your long-term girlfriend cheated on you. The worse news is you don’t know whether to stay with her or not. Yet no one can decide for you. This is something you will have to come to terms with whether that ends in a breakup or on the rough road to patching up your damaged relationship.

Why Work It Out?

Hopefully, this is because you truly love her and can’t picture your life without her. But maybe it is because you don’t want to be alone or to start over? If it is, stop reading right now, pick up the phone, and break the bad news to her. This is not a good reason to carry on any relationship, let alone one which is on the rocks.

Will She Do It Again?

This question will be the most important one to figure out. She has broken your trust, but is there any hope of repairing that trust? If you can’t learn to trust her again and she isn’t trying to earn back that trust, this will be a lost cause. Here are some ways to determine if this was a one-time mistake which she truly regrets, or the first of many more “I’m sorry’s” to come:

Did she admit to the affair or did you find out?
Was she apologetic or defiant and indifferent?
Has she taken any steps to regain your trust or to improve the relationship yet?
Will she see the other man again? If so, in what capacity?
Can you get over this?

You may have forgiven her for the affair and you may trust her to not stray again. But if you can’t forget what happened, this relationship will not last. Every time you have sex, you may wonder if he performed better, if she preferred his body to yours, or if she envisioned him instead of you. Yet it may not be about her at all. You might think, “Well, if she got to sleep with someone else, why shouldn’t I? Then we will be even.” This tit-for-tat mentality may sound like a brilliant idea in your head; but trust me, the world is not always fair and neither are relationships. If you want it to last, sleeping with a stranger of your own is not the way to do it.

What Did You Do Wrong?

Politically correct answer: nothing. She cheated, so she is the bad guy. Truth-that-hurts answer: probably something. What victims of cheating never like to admit is that they are occasionally at fault, at least partially. While they may not have forced their lovers upon another, they may have contributed to the act. Think about your own relationship: has your sex drive dwindled recently? have you not been appreciative or attentive? While this may have come as a blow, it certainly couldn’t hurt to think about what exactly led her to the arms of someone else. This does not mean you are taking some of her blame. It does mean, however, that there may be deeper relationship problems on which to focus.

Q&A: Can A Relationship That Starts As An Affair Really Last?

By loveandsex

People start relationships in a variety of different ways. You might meet someone at a coffee shop, a bowling alley, a bar or through a friend. Or you may have had an affair with them while you were in another relationship. Can a relationship that was once an affair really succeed or is this relationship doomed to end?

Question: What’s the chances a relationship can work when both sides lied and had affairs on their spouses? Do they normally last?

–YouTube Viewer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooccI4oJAfM[/youtube]

Statistically Speaking

Statistically, a relationship that starts out as an affair generally won’t work out. In fact, second marriages statistically have a higher failure rate than first marriages, and third marriages and so on have an even higher failure rate than that. But these are just statistics. It doesn’t mean that your particular relationship won’t work out or is doomed to fail. A relationship is made up of many, many more things than how you met. Many relationships have difficult beginnings that both partners are able to move past to create a healthy, happy relationship.

That said, two people must truly trust each other and be honest with each other if their relationship is going to last. Typically these are issues that people have with each other when the relationship starts out as an affair. You and your partner may both feel that the other is going to cheat again, since they cheated on their previous partners. While this doesn’t mean it will happen, you and your partner need to sit down and talk with each other and make a committment to be completely honest with each other and trust each other.

Repeating The Same Patterns

The biggest reason that relationships don’t work out is not because of how you met or even what went on at the beginning of the relationship. Many people carry with them the same habits and issues that made their previous relationships fail. Instead of solving the deeper issues that are at the core of the relationship problems, they assume that it is their partner’s fault and move on to find someone else without those “faults.” In reality, they are simply taking the same problems with them into a new relationship. They will repeat the same patterns over and over until they truly realize what is at the heart of the matter.

Resolve Your Own Inner Issues

For any relationship to succeed, whether it started out as an affair or not, you must solve your own inner issues before you are able to fully commit to a happy, healthy and trusting relationship. Take some time to think about what might have caused your earlier relationships to go awry, and think about how you might have contributed to those issues. Think about what your previous partners have said about you, and if there is a trend there. Are they all saying the same thing? Could there possibly be some truth to the matter? It’s not easy taking such a deep look within yourself at all your flaws and failures, but for any relationship to succeed, you need to resolve your own inner issues. Work towards bettering yourself and bettering your relationship by eliminating your contributions to problems in this relationship and past relationships.

How Can An Affair Be Defined As A Life of Truth?

By drbonnieeakerweil

It may seem strange to hear someone attribute their affair to wanting to “live a life of truth” but that’s exactly what John Edwards’ mistress did on a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey. “Our hearts were louder than the minds,” is how Rielle Hunter explained her decision to have an affair with a presidential candidate whose wife has cancer. Additionally, Hunter insisted that she wasn’t a homewrecker because the Edwards’ marriage was over long before she got involved and that she isn’t sure whether she hurt John’s wife Elizabeth. According to the New York Times, Hunter justified the affair:

[Hunter] said she didn’t regret the affair, and instead painted the whole sordid scandal as a perhaps necessary stage in Mr. Edwards’s “process” of self actualization. “I followed my heart, and I believe it was the right thing to do … I was supporting him in his process, and his intentions never wavered. I knew that he wanted — he just had a really unique way of getting there — to live a life of truth.”

Could Edwards’ Relationship Be Saved?

Most people would look at this situation and make the determination that there is definitely something wrong here, whether or not you believe that John Edwards‘ relationship could have been saved. While I am in the camp that believes just about any marriage can be salvaged, hearing someone justify an affair should lead us to examine what happened in the communication breakdown of this relationship and how we can keep something similar from happening in our own lives.

If, as Hunter says, Edwards’ marriage was over before she stepped on the scene, why had this deterioration not been discussed by the married couple? Of course it’s not as simple as that – talking about tough topics is, well, tough! But I believe that when you commit to a relationship you commit to a level of honesty and integrity out of respect for the other person, no matter what life throws your way. Here are some tools I discuss in my book, Make Up Don’t Break Up, and use with my patients to help them in their pursuit of building (or rebuilding) a healthy relationship.

How To Save Your Marriage

• Learn how to fight fair: It’s a misperception that fighting is bad; a relationship without passion enough to launch arguments likely won’t last for the long haul. However, arguing in the wrong way can also drive a relationship into the ground.

• “Smart-heart”-to-heart: I encourage having a weekly ten minute open discussion with a figurative emotional “bullet proof vest” to protect from hurt, anger and defensiveness, as you listen and echo back what you heard.

• Be aware of your Biochemical Craving for Connection: we all need to connect in a deep and meaningful way with our partners. But some people have exaggerated feelings of stress, separation and loss that cause them to seek out illicit behavior in order to fill this craving. If you’re in this situation, you can avoid a lot of heartache by identifying it and dealing with it early on.

• Know your Imago: When looking to fulfill your “imago” when it comes to a mate, subconsciously, you’re looking for someone that will “fill in the holes” left by your experience growing up and your parents – or to adults who were formative in your childhood – and you’ll be attracted to these traits right away on a subconscious level. Ideas that you’re carrying around from your parents and from your childhood WILL affect your relationship. Don’t forget, however, that you have control over HOW they affect it.

Side-Step Financial Infidelity

By drbonnieeakerweil

Here’s a statistic that may surprise you, especially given today’s economic climate: in 25% of households, women are earning more money than their male counter-parts. This could also be especially due to today’s economy given that the men in these households may be out of work while their wives and partners remain employed. According to a New York Times study done early in the recession, as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs, 82 percent of the people getting laid off have been men. It won’t be long before women become the majority of the American workforce. And the pendulum is swinging again, re-writing gender roles and our relationship to money.

Is Your Relationship Heading Towards Financial Infidelity?

Typically, as men have been the breadwinners, they find themselves more defined by money and their earning power. But as the statistics above show, we need to change the way we look at male-female power dynamics. We need a new way to navigate the shift in power due to male-female role reversal and the resulting power dynamic that now faces both couples and singles. Finances have long been at the root of much relational difficulty, and with this shift, it’s becoming even more important to identify your money patterns and define what areas of your relationship tend toward Financial Infidelity. This is a form of cheating that’s often so subtle, people don’t know they’re engaging in it, yet it can be just as devastating as a physical affair.

In my book, Financial Infidelity, I define this type of infidelity as going behind your partner’s back when it comes to your finances. What this looks like in practice varies for each couple; for couples who are on a tight budget it can mean withdrawing $20 extra at the grocery store and using it for something personal. Or it can be as dramatic as not telling your significant other about a work bonus with the idea of keeping it for yourself. I call this the “money mistress.”

What Is Your Financial Imago?

Of course there are many other ways this can manifest itself and a lot of it has to do with how our relationships toward money were cultivated in our early years. This is where what I call “Financial Imago” comes in. “Imago” is a term that references the unconscious image you’ve created which defines the type of partner you’re looking for. Coined by Harville Hendrix, the term is the Latin word for “image.” As you transition through life changes with your significant other, a big part of making that transition successfully comes from the way you deal with financial stressors as a couple. In order to do this, you have to understand the ways you’re both prone to deal with money – and you have to have a road map for how you WANT to deal with money.

Communicate With Your Partner Successfully

To do this successfully, I suggest engaging in Smart Heart Dialogue. with my patients, the power of non-judgmental communication, or what I call “Smart Heart Dialogue.” This type of communication is even more important now, when egos are fragile, stress abounds, and tempers are short. It’s important that each person give the other a place in which they can be honest and – just as importantly – a place where each person knows the other is going to take their honesty to heart. What good is a conversation if no change comes from the concerns voiced?

But as with any significant change – whether culturally or within your own relationship – tradition, habits and patterns are heard to break so be sensitive and tread lightly.