What Dreams May Come

I have very vivid dreams. Very crazy vivid dreams. The more crazy the dream, the more exhausted I am in the morning when I wake up. I remember dreams that I had as a child incredibly clearly. I also sometimes dream about places that I haven't been before, only to go to those places in the future. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but for instance I had this dream years ago about living in a house with two story high ceilings in the kitchen, a tv on in the room to my right and my husband standing on a catwalk looking down to me...and then we moved into our current house and I knew it was the house in my dreams. Whooooooohhhh!! (that is my scary noise :)

I also dream a lot about my husband cheating on me. Let me first tell you a little bit about my husband. I think I love my husband more than most people I know love their husbands. I genuinely like everything about him, and can honestly say he is my best friend. We have also never really had a fight. I know right now you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking "yeah right!" but seriously we have never had a real fight. Sure we have disagreed about things, and sure I have gotten mad at him for things a few times, but we have never raised our voices at each other in anger or gone to bed mad at each other. It just isn't our style. He is an incredibly devoted husband and father, who spends all of his free time with me and the girls, except for the occasional golf game here and there. He doesn't go out after work with friends and get drunk, he comes home and reads stories to his girls and helps me make dinner. He works crazy long hours and does travel for work, but does his best to get home every night to at least help put one girl to bed.

After 13 years of being together we are still very attracted to each other, and aren't afraid to smooch in public. I trust him whole heartedly, and he has never given me a reason to feel otherwise.

So why, in the name of Ron Burgundy, do I so frequently dream about him cheating on me???

I did a little research (aka I did a Google search) and found some interesting things on dreams sites about infidelity dreams. Turns out they are a lot more popular than I thought. As expected, dreaming of your spouse cheating does not mean that they are cheating in real life, or even that you suspect them of cheating (which I of course do not). It actually most times means that the dreamer has a deep seeded anxiety either about their appearance, their attractiveness or about the future in general.

I know this isn't science, but it totally rings true to me! Ever since we started trying to conceive (in 2007) and I was continuously gaining weight due to fertility drugs and being somewhat depressed about not getting pregnant for two years I haven't felt attractive. It wasn't until recently, when I started eating Paleo and working out, that I started to feel somewhat like my old self again. For years I hated looking at myself in the mirror - 40 pounds overweight, skin hanging off my body, droopy boobs (this really hasn't changed much of course), stomach protruding so much that even sucking it in didn't make a difference, all my clothes too tight (and no where else to go but the "big girl" stores). I have started to get myself back into shape, but still don't love what I see in the mirror. I still see skin hanging and stretch marks, and freckles and weird moles, and the beginnings of wrinkles around my eyes. Inside I feel like such a young cute person but then I get a glimpse of myself and I am reminded that I am not who I used to be. I sometimes think to myself "how could my husband (who still looks like he did when I met him 13 years ago) still be attracted to me?"

And I totally have been having anxiety about our future. We had all these issues with M's current school, and then scrambling to apply and pick a private school for her. Then we decided to start looking for a house (what size house did we want? Where do we want to live? Are the schools good enough? Should we send the girls to private school?) and then stopped, and then decided to build a house from scratch. My husband changed jobs late last year. And of course we had Val last year - juggling two kids is no easy feat, so of course I have anxiety about everything that comes along with that. Are they going to like each other? Will they turn out to be good kids? Are they safe at school? Should they be watching so much TV? Are they eating enough vegetables?

Last night I had the craziest dream I have ever had about my husband . I will spare you the details, but it was one of those dreams where you try to wake yourself up because you don't want to be dreaming it anymore. I woke up 3 or 4 times during the night, in tears. Each time I fell back to sleep I would think about something else, in hopes to not dream about the same thing, but without fail I was right back in the same dream! Why does that only happen with the bad dreams?!?

Tonight I hope I dream about my husband and I sitting on the deck of a beach house, drinking delicious wine and talking about how our daughters turned out to be amazing, successful, happy women. That is one I hope will come true...and in this dream I have a fabulous tight and tan body.

Goodnight!