Why Do I Keep Dreaming About My Ex When I’m Happily Married?

If you keep dreaming about your ex when you’re happily married, rest assured that your dreams don’t signify that you love your ex, that you’re destined to be with your ex, or that your ex is thinking about you or missing you.

Dreams about an ex when you’re happy with your husband or wife occur for completely different reasons.

They occur when:

• You’re stressed, anxious, extremely busy, restless, or depressed. Your overall well-being outside the relationship can cause you to dream about the times when you had less on your mind and were more relaxed.
• You’re curious, envious, or jealous of your ex. You may not want your ex back, but you might still wonder what your ex has been up to and who he or she has been spending time with.
• Your ex didn’t give you closure, so you now fantasize about getting answers from your ex in the form of a dream.
• You’ve been talking to your ex, thinking about your ex, or did something that reminded you of your ex. Somehow, you’ve put your ex into your subconscious mind and dreamed about him or her.
• Or perhaps there are no explanations for your dreams. Your ex-dreams may be completely random, meaningless, and unexplainable.

If you’re emotionally healthy, stress-free, and happy in your marriage, you probably keep dreaming about your ex because you randomly dreamed about your ex once and created a strong emotional impression of that dream. You dreamed about something painful, nostalgic, happy, sad, or unfair and brought your ex from your distant memory to the front of your thoughts.

This is how you gave life to your ex in your conscious or subconscious and kept dreaming about your ex even though you’re happily married and never thought about getting back together with your ex.

Repetitive thoughts and imagination enhanced by strong emotions essentially caused you to dream about your ex.

In this post, we’ll answer the question, “Why do I keep dreaming about my ex when I’m happily married?” We’ll go into more detail and give you some advice on how to stop dreaming about your ex.

Why do I keep dreaming about my ex when I’m happily married?

Sometimes we dream about our exes and don’t even remember our dreams. The moment we wake up, we either lose our dreaming memory or remember very little about our dreams and soon forget about them completely.

We tend to remember dreams only when they shock us, leave a strong impression on us, or if we share them with others.

So if you can’t stop dreaming about your ex, bear in mind that you keep dreaming about your ex because you’re intentionally or unintentionally giving life to your dreams. You’re giving them the energy they need to creep into your subconscious mind and stay there.

It’s completely normal to have dreams – even dreams about ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. On average people have 3-4 dreams per night—and don’t think about them for more than a minute. So if you don’t look for a meaning behind random, unimportant dreams when you wake up, there’s absolutely no need to worry about your ex-dreams and look for a meaning behind them either.

Ex dreams are really no different from random dreams.

You should be concerned only if your ex has hurt you a lot and you still haven’t processed the breakup. In that case, you should know that 70% of all nightmares are caused by trauma and that you need to work through your trauma before you can stop dreaming about your ex.

You have to accept the outcome, detach from your ex, fall in love with yourself, and start enjoying your life again.

But assuming that you’re over your ex and happy in your marriage, your ex-dreams are probably nothing to worry about. The reason you dream about your ex is that you’ve spent a lot of time with your ex and now remember those times and dream about them.

You may not dream about the exact same memories from the past, but you nonetheless make your ex the protagonist of your story and remember your ex when you wake up.

And that’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Remember that ex-dreams are nothing but reminders. Reminders that you used to be intimately close with your ex, that you had hopes and plans for the future, and that you felt valued and cherished by your ex.

I know you don’t want these reminders to bother you because you’re loyal to someone new now. You want to focus on the present and leave the past behind. But before you get upset, bear in mind that you created a lot of memories with your ex.

Some memories are good and some probably aren’t.

But no matter what they are like, your brain still remembers how you felt and is now trying to tell you that your ex is missing from you. Missing as in no longer present in the same form he or she used to be in the past.

What to do if I keep dreaming about my ex when I’m happily married?

There’s only one thing you should do when you can’t stop dreaming about your ex. Tell yourself that you’re over the relationship, that you have no hard feelings for your ex—and that it’s okay to dream about your ex even though you’re with someone else now.

Your brain needs to know that you accept the dreams because as soon as you do, you’ll emotionally process your dreams and experience them much less strongly and frequently in the future.

Get angry, upset, and emotional because of your dreams, however, and you’ll most likely keep your ex close to you and dream about him or her even more.

That’s why the key to stopping ex-dreams is to handle them like you handle random, meaningless dreams. Simply accept them, attach positive emotions to them (neutralize them), and carry on without thinking about them and sharing them with others.

The less attention you pay to your dreams and the better you react to them emotionally, the quicker you’ll stop having them.

And if you want to stop dreaming about your ex even quicker, focus harder on the connection you have with your partner. Plan romantic dates, bond with your partner, ask him or her lots of questions, and pay no attention to your ex and ex-dreams whatsoever.

So again, don’t deliberately obsess yourself with your ex by analyzing your ex’s social media behavior and/or messaging your ex and asking what he or she is up to. Prying into your ex’s life won’t reduce the number of your ex-dreams.

It will increase them and make them worse.

Here are a few things you should do when you keep dreaming about your ex when you’re happily married.

Should I tell my spouse about my ex-dreams?

There’s nothing wrong with telling your partner about your good, bad, or uncomfortable dreams. But if you have recurring dreams about your ex, you may want to keep your dreams to yourself.

If you tell your partner about your dreams, you could have a lengthy conversation about your dreams, store the conversation deep into your subconscious, and then dream about your ex as a result.

Telling your partner about the dreams could also encourage your partner to start a discussion about your dreams randomly out of the blue. And that could make you feel strange and once again, engrave your ex deeper into your subconscious.

So talk to your partner about your dreams only if you dream about your ex once in a while and would like to share it with your partner. But if you keep dreaming about your ex every night and you want to stop dreaming about your ex, then it may be for the best not to talk about them to your partner at all.

There’s a decent chance that talking about your dreams will have the opposite of the desired effect.

Personally, I tell my partner about my ex-dreams because I have them once every few months. I’m not sure if it’s because I work with dumpees and dumpers every day or because of some other reason.

How long will it take to stop dreaming about my ex?

I’m not a dream expert, but from what I see, ex-dreams usually don’t last very long. If you handle them properly (not empower them with obsessive thoughts and negative emotions (anger or sadness), they should go away after a week or two.

If they go on for longer, then these dreams probably bother you a lot more than they should—and you should learn to subdue them.

Remember that the human brain doesn’t understand that you don’t want to dream about your ex. It especially doesn’t understand what it means if you get upset or angry and try your hardest not to dream about your ex. Your brain can’t differentiate between what you want and what you don’t want.

It just knows that you’re interested in that which you think/obsess about and feel strongly about.

That’s why it’s safe to say that you’ll stop having ex-dreams as soon as you stop worrying about them and thinking about your ex. It will probably take some patience before you can get your mind off your ex, but if you’re happy with your partner, it shouldn’t take too long.

So start working on accepting your dreams and letting go of any meaning you attach to them. The sooner you become okay with dreaming about your ex, the sooner your “nightmares” will end.

Do you keep dreaming about your ex when you’re happily married? Let me know what your ex-dreams have been like and what you did so far to stop having them. Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you soon.

Also, if you prefer to talk privately about your ex and the dreams you’ve been having, check out our 1-on-1 coaching options.