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Does anyone here ever experience nightmares about the ex? I have one about every other week and it is always the same theme that I am back with him and I don't want to be. I usually end up telling him that I don't want to be there or escape, or some theme of that sort.

I always wake up feeling icky and wondering why he still occupies my thoughts when i don't want him to. I have never missed him once since I left. I have felt relieved and at peace until I get a nightmare and it leaves me feeling unsettled and confused.

Is it my mind just sorting things and putting it to rest? It's been 4 years since I left you would think the nightmares stop at some point.

I've not had this exact dream. Prior to finding out about the A, I used to often dream I had married one of my ex boyfriends. In those dreams, I am so disappointed and feel like I have to stay with them bc I married them. I would wake up and be so, so grateful I had married my (now) XH. Now, I don't have dreams like that at all. I'm not sure if that is better or worse.

20+ years later and I still have them. Just a couple times per year but they do happen. Nothing triggers them, as I consider that whole segment of my life as a ‘past life’ and think of myself as a completely different person now. I think it’s just my subconscious getting pissed off at me for whatever reason and wanting some revenge. "Take that! Asshole."

I had nightmares almost nightly until about a year after I got my own place. It was XWH and AP trying to kill me. They finally tapered off and I don't remember the last one I had.

It could be remnants of your PTSD or it could be what OIY said.

Sadly I have nightmares.

Also I have found it difficult to sleep.

Something I now say that is a paraphrase of something I read somewhere is that trauma did not make me better. It just made me traumatized.

Coming up on two years divorced.

I would not call them nightmares, but they wake me. Mostly finding new phone(s), having arguments, …. Right now I am in a period of five days out of seven.

A bat to smash things sounds alright to me Peace.

I had similar dreams. It's been 10 years now, so they don't happen often anymore, and rarely am I stuck in a marriage or him stalking me. However, those first few years they were nightmares of me not being able to escape him and him sucking the life out of me. The more time that went by the less often I had dreams about him. My guess is you haven't really finished sorting things out at the subconscious level.
Were you together a long time? So you still have dealings with him? Some of this also plays into it.

Thank you for the responses they were really helpful. I am sure the length of the M is why I still have these nightmares as my brain sorts this out.

I just had one the other night about me not being able to take my kids out of school because the ex took me off the school record. My kids are adults now so this would never happen today, but just another crazy example.

I put it down to your brain processing out the life history to help your life narrative. Psychologists who study the lifespan think that, as we age, we enter the final life stage of creating a whole life narrative, in order to be able to look back with some sense of continuity. Harder for those of us with ruptured families and primary attachments that ended!

Last night, I had another dream (2nd in 2 nights about 2 different guys I was involved with in my 40's). It was mostly about an old race horse I owned at that time. I was talking to this boyfriend about the horse, trying to impress him (!) saying I wasn't going to run the old horse in another race, like some other horsemen I knew from that era of my life were encouraging me to do - in the dream! I clearly heard him say that was a good thing and I clearly recall saying "thank you for saying that." What?!

Dream may have been due to recently reading a news article about an 18 year old Thoroughbred who won a major timber race (racing over tall wood fences!) I was amazed, because I'd sold my old jump horse when he was 10 and I assumed he was already "done." That XBF in my dream had watched this old horse racing at least once - along side the woman he dumped me for!!

So when I woke up, I wasn't sure if the dream was about the old horse, or this old woman now (me!) not wanting to go back and re-live the awful string of boyfriends I went through!! But at my age, it seems that we do this....

Or you are cleaning out the old files in preparation for another chapter? Remember that we need to not deny our stories.

Anybody else my age (60+++) have this going on?

[This message edited by Superesse at 1:28 AM, Wednesday, November 6th]

It's been 10 years since my ex and I were together (1 year separated, 9 years divorced) and I still occasionally have nightmares that my ex and I are still married. It used to happen once a month but now it's more like twice a year. I wake up in a panic... but then I feel a wave of relief when I see my husband sleeping beside me.

The nightmares usually happen when I'm overtired, stressed, or anxious. So while it's possible and even likely that your brain is still processing the trauma, there might be other triggers you can identify and work on.