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Partner cheating in dreams: what it can mean

  • Love and relationships
  • Fear and danger

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The short answer

Dreaming that your partner is cheating is common and upsetting, but it is not evidence that anything is happening. These dreams more often mirror insecurity, distance or fear of loss.

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

Dreams follow our emotional concerns more than the facts of our lives, which is the core of the continuity view. A dream of betrayal often appears when you feel less seen, less close, or less sure of your place, or after a past experience of being hurt. It can also reflect your own mixed feelings. A useful approach is to separate the dream from the partner: what was the feeling (jealousy, humiliation, abandonment), and when do you feel a smaller version of it while awake? If you do have real concerns about your relationship, they deserve a real conversation, not a verdict from a dream.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What feeling was strongest: jealousy, anger, shame, fear of being left?
  2. Have you felt distant from your partner, or unsure of your place with them, recently?
  3. Is the dream echoing an older hurt from a previous relationship?

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Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. G. William Domhoff (2001). A New Neurocognitive Theory of Dreams. Dreaming 11(1): 13-33.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: pp. 13-33 (dreams as simulations of personal concerns) (reference not yet checked)

    Dreams as embodied simulations of personal concerns (the continuity view). The backbone of our psychology lens.

  2. Calvin S. Hall, Vernon J. Nordby (1972). The Individual and His Dreams. New York: New American Library.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: continuity of dreams and waking concerns (reference not yet checked)

    Early statement of the continuity idea: dreams carry over the concerns of waking life.