[TishaBuv]

I woke up and realized I dreamed of Steve again. The dream had a lot of water. I was in a swampy park. I think maybe I was initially with my youngest son in the dream and a group of his friends. We were having some sort of adventure, maybe there was wild life and a gator, but they were non threatening. Then my companion became Steve. I was showing him around, wanting, as in all my dreams of him, to love me.

So, who is Steve? He was a boy I had a huge crush on in high school. We dated (sort of/ very strange relationship) on and off for ten years. After I got married, we lost touch, but I continued to obsess about him in my thoughts and dreams.

When facebook came to be, we reconnected. Both of us now married to others. The exchange felt like closure and felt validating. Although he told me I was 'the nicest anyone has ever been to him' and he had 'thought of me often over the years', he didn't say (as I was hoping he would) that he loved me and I was the one who got away.

Just like how I much later realized that our 'dating' had been more of a booty call back then, I soon could see that our reconnection was him wanting to try to have text sex with me behind our spouse's backs. I am not at all about that, and felt relieved that I was not his wife that he would cheat on.

We ended communication and for all logical reasons I learned he was not the man for me. He has so many bad problems that make him someone anyone would want to steer clear from... serious drug addiction, arrests. I don't even know why I would have such an obsession for him in the first place!

So, I guess I have OCD and this poor, unsuspecting man has been the object of my thoughts and dreams for decades. I even separate it in my mind as 'the real Steve' and my fantasy Steve.

Well, it's harmless enough. I never made it known to him about how I have obsessed and am OK with the way I acted. And, I suppose, if I thought about this person my whole life, attributing qualities to him that don't really exist in the real man while understanding that the 'real Steve' is probably someone I wouldn't even like if I was with in reality, then so what?

I think I conjured up some ideal and that's what he symbolizes. My father died when I was 12, three years before I fell in love with Steve. And, I tried to lose my virginity to him at 16, but he rejected me. I then went on my first real date with a friend of his, a brother of a friend of mine, I guy I wasn't attracted to at all. A guy also named Steve, who was legally an adult, and date raped me. I think he slipped me a drug. I didn't tell anyone but my best friend. I never said anything about it, self esteem in the gutter.

[Thunder Bow]

The swamp represents the quagmire you were in with him. The Steve-youngest son connection is connected to you feelings about your father. Wanting your fathers love that you missed out on when he died.

[TishaBuv]

Steve dream again. Wake up feeling bad because no matter how I try, he just doesn't love me. I just learned there's Relationship OCD. I obsessess, play it over and over, imagine every conceivable scenario where the result might turn out with him loving me, and it never does! I can't even make him love me in my dreams! I feel so dumb about this. This is such a waste of my brain, time, emotions. This must be some actual condition because it just makes no sense.

It just really sucks to wake up in a sad mood all the time.

I never got help from therapy or meds, so I'm trying to write about it. Maybe when it's written befor me I'll get it all out and stop, or I'll obsess and whine forever. Sorry readers.

[Thunder Bow]

Do not Judge yourself because of this. Maybe in your dreams you are trying to get yourself to love yourself.

[TishaBuv]

Multiple Steve dreams since last post. Had one again last night. I have been secretly obsessed with this guy throughout my whole marriage. I know it's not the real person I am obsessed over-- it must be what he represents or the fact that he was so elusive.

He is my White Rabbit.

Did this obsession prevent me from loving my husband or did my dysfunction with my husband keep fueling my obsession?

Is this the product of a MI?

I'm thinking about bringing this way out into the open as my husband and I are now embarking on therapy. Will the truth set me free?