First Love -or- Scenes from a Marriage

Janet, 28

I have been dreaming about my first love for several years.  Sometimes I dream about him 3 times a week.  I am happily married and don't want to keep having these dreams as they provoke feelings of desire for my first love. We still keep in touch occasionally.  We met when I was 14 and did not have a sexual relationship.  Last night I dreamt that we were sitting beside each other at a long table.  My in-laws were on the other side of the table.  He leaned over to kiss me and then he pulled away as if it was really wrong.  I don't know how to stop these dreams.  I don't generally think about him throughout the day and he definitely is not the topic on my mind before I go to bed.

Mr Hagen's Reply; The First Dream of Love

You are not alone with your thoughts and feelings! In literature we find the page on marriage and infidelity in the autobiographical book of life usually has been torn out and hidden in a failed attempt to destroy the memory. The page usually reappears in our dreams. In William Carlos William's play A Dream of Love explores the literary psychodynamics of love, marriage and infidelity. The husband confesses to his wife about his infidelity, and asks for forgiveness. What becomes evident are differing gender (male and female) definitions and beliefs about love.

Jurg Willi, Couples in Collusion: The Unconscious Dimension in Partner Relationships tells us that there are a number of external and internal conflicts which control the fate of marriages. Willi recommends seeing the film Scenes from a Marriage which provides a window to view the marital crisis of the couple, allowing the audience to "partake emotionally at a most intimate level."  

Last but not least, Ethel Person in her book Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters tells us; "First love is surely regarded as one of the great glories of life." Person believes that Tugenev's Spring Torrents provides insight into romantic love's transformative framework. For Person; "The lover commits to a new life project, a new path, to be undertaken with his beloved. Consequently, for union with a new object to be a possibility, the old objects must be given up."

In this sense, you must ask yourself whether "keeping in touch" with your "first love" is a wise idea. Evidently you feel the thoughts, feelings and dreams are inappropriate as seen in the scene with your in-laws, where he leaned over to kiss you, then pulled away, as if it was wrong. It occurs to me, that if your husband knows about him and knows that you keep in touch with him, that some of these feelings may be coming from your husband? On the other side of the coin, there may be some unfinished business on both your and your "first loves" part? As Rod Stewart tells us The First Cut is the Deepest.

All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.