I Secretly Fantasize About All The Men I’ve Loved Before

When I met my husband, I was doing an on-again/off-again dance with a man I’ll call Noah. The gist of our 10-year relationship was that I wanted to be “on” and he seemed content to be on-again/off-again … forever.

This is not a man I want popping up in my dreams. And yet, even though my marriage is pretty good, as marriages go, I can never seem to get this guy out of my head. In fact, all the men I’ve loved before frequently stroll through my subconscious.

When it’s Noah in my dreams, I follow him around like a puppy, trying to figure out exactly why he won’t commit. Sometimes it’s Will, a high school flame who was sweet and dorky, and I rejected him for those things as high school girls tend to do. By the time I was smart enough to realize how great it was to have a sweet and dorky guy pursuing you, we were ready to graduate, and he went on to have a successful law career and marry a gorgeous woman who also seems to be very sweet and dorky. I wish this man all the best, but I can’t deny that sometimes I wonder “what if.”

Many of the dreams veer toward the spicier side, especially those involving my work crush (don’t pretend you don’t have one). Perhaps those are the most sexual because they feel so forbidden, and they’re much more real than the ones that feature a boy from high school I haven’t talked to in 15 years. I wake up feeling desired — and wondering if I ever show up in his dreams.

Sometimes I wonder if my brain is trying to decipher why my past relationships never worked out. What was it about me — or the guy — that didn’t click?

But sometimes the dreams do make me question my reality. “What if I had married my college boyfriend, who lives in a huge house in the suburbs with his wife and kids?” I wonder when I look at the low balance in our bank account. What if he gets divorced and we cross paths? What if another guy I knew in college whom I’ll call Theo invites me out for a drink the next time he passes through town? This was a man with the soul of a poet, who could make my panties wet with his words … but we never so much as kissed. What would it be like to be with him, or to be with any of my past flings, now that I’m more experienced sexually?

I’ve never told my husband, and I feel incredibly guilty because he barely dated before we got together, so I doubt he’s having quite as many fantasies about other women. I do blame the detail and the vivacity on my Zoloft prescription (in one dream involving my college boyfriend, I end up waitressing on his yacht and serving drinks to Sterling K. Brown), but I still would never admit to my husband that when I’m having sex dreams, he rarely has a starring role.

For all my fantasizing, I assuage my guilt knowing I would never act on any of this. My work crush is happily married, and I know his wife well. I never see Noah or Will, nor do I have any desire to seek them out after so long.

I joke with my best friend that when we’re both old and grey and widowed, we’ll embark on a “sex road trip” where we visit all the guys we loved before and have wild one-night stands. I feel less guilty if my husband isn’t in the picture, and it’s a pretty fun fantasy to add to the mix.

Sometimes, though, the dreams serve to make me appreciate my husband. When Noah pops up in my subconscious, and I wake up confused and frustrated that I still can’t seem to get any answers, I glance over at the man snoring away next to me. A man who makes loving me seem easy.

And I smile, happy to be back in reality with the man who loves me now.