Hi Rick,
my husband and I have a question about dreams with sexual encounters with other people. I am the faithful spouse while my husband is the unfaithful. This question arose because the other night I had a brief dream about a sexual encounter with another person and it ended with me feeling extreme guilt and pain and not being able to face my husband. so it sparked my interest to know if my husband was still having dreams that were similar. After discovery of his multiple infidelities during our marriage, the last one ending in an emotional affair, we made the decision to stay in our marriage and we started seeing a therapist who specializes in affair recovery. My husband over time began speaking much more openly and honestly with me and the dreams were something we briefly discussed much later into recovery but haven't discussed since then. We are almost two years into recovery. What he had expressed about his dreams is that he would be close to being involved in a sexual encounter but the dream never really consisted of the full act and he would wake up soon. He did not like the way that it felt even in his dreams and it made him angry because he doesn't even want that in his dreams. So sometimes he prays about it if he is fully awake and other times just goes back to sleep. So we are wondering what these dreams are an indication of and how is one supposed to rid their subconcious of this type of stuff? Also is this healthy to talk about? I was surprised to see that after my husband answered my question and told me he still occasionally had these dreams it perpetuated more questions such as "were any with the affair partner?" Then I kind of spiraled down hill and didn't feel so well about it. However, I really do appreciate the fact that my husband is honest with me about it, something I don't believe he would have done before our recovery efforts. Your insight is greatly appreciated!