So What Does It Mean If You Dream About Cheating?
There’s plenty out there about what to do when you’re cheated on in your waking life. But what about when it happens in your sleeping life? What does it mean? Does it even mean anything at all? We asked some experts to weigh in.
“I do not believe it should be taken super-seriously, that’s for sure. Our dreams are a part of our subconscious. Science will tell us that. So what might be happening is that subconsciously you might be having some anxieties or fears or doubts,” says Meaghan O’Neil, a Seattle-based licensed marriage and family therapist associate. Sometimes it’s not even that deep. “It can be random. You could have watched a TV show that could have caused it, one you didn’t think about deeply but is just in the back of your mind,” she says, adding that she likes to think of dreams as “a flush of your brain. You’re flushing out all the stuff that’s in there, and sometimes that’s just random stuff that comes up throughout the day.”
Autumn Fourkiller, an Indigenous mystic and the writer behind the Dream Interpretation for Dummies newsletter, believes the meaning behind your dream may vary depending on your relationship status. “I believe dreams can serve a large number of functions — if one is dreaming about being cheated on and is in a relationship, they could certainly be ignoring a number of real-life signs that they are being cheated on,” she says. “However, if one is single or has cheating trauma, it is most likely a manifestation of something else. In general, I feel that dreams of cheating point toward one’s tendency to cheat themselves out of time, care, and the like.”
Rather than focus on the semantics of your cheating dream, O’Neil urges you to process the emotions the dream brought up for you. “The biggest thing you should reflect on is the feeling that you had,” she says. “Not the situation that occurred but the feeling that it created.” She explains that “it’s important to process what happened in the dream when you wake up in the morning. Write it down, check in with yourself about how your conscious brain is feeling, do a few deep breaths, and remind yourself it was just a dream. It can be so easy to take the emotions from a bad dream into our day unnecessarily.”
Below, Fourkiller and O’Neil walk you through a few possible cheating-dream scenarios.
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with their co-worker or boss …
Has your partner been spending more time at the office? Are you craving some extra quality time with them? If any of that rings true, we might have just gotten to the root of your dream.
“Perhaps your partner is spending more time at work than they are with you,” Fourkiller suggests. “That can certainly feel like cheating.” So where do you go from here? Fourkiller says it’s important to “make sure to set healthy boundaries around this” with your partner.
Not sure how to go about doing that? O’Neil says the conversation can be less about boundaries and “more about being honest with your partner.” Specifically, she says you can open it up by saying something like “Hey, I’ve noticed you’re spending a lot of time at work lately, and I feel disconnected from you.”
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with your co-worker or boss …
Have you been spending a lot of time at work? Do you feel disconnected from your partner as a result? Are you craving some quality time with your partner that your work isn’t currently allowing for?
“If you dream your partner is cheating on you with your own co-worker or boss, you are probably the one neglecting their time,” Fourkiller says. “Though I understand capitalism is a bitch.” Amen.
If Fourkiller’s interpretation rings true for you, O’Neil urges you to be careful with how you discuss this dream with your partner. “You could always bring it up in a joking manner, but I don’t think you can be like, ‘I’m working too much, and because I’m working too much, you cheated on me with my co-worker in my dream,’” she warns. Instead, she suggests taking the dream as an opportunity to do some introspection, reiterating her advice to “sit and feel what you felt” in your dream as soon as you wake up. “Write it down and try to make a connection,” she says. “Ask yourself, ‘Is this reminding myself of a feeling I’ve had lately? Is this something I’m consciously worried about?’ If you realize it’s because you’ve been thinking of this co-worker a lot since you’ve been working a lot, then that’s for you to navigate and draw boundaries with yourself with work.” Similarly, if you realize your long hours have left you missing your partner, she recommends you simply tell them, “Hey, I’ve noticed I’ve been working a lot. I’d like to spend more time with you.”
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with your friend …
Yikes. As if the betrayal of being cheated on by your partner weren’t bad enough, sometimes the dream can involve our friends. So what does it mean? Is it some sort of premonition that your friend is actually cheating with your partner? Did you just watch something weird on TV last night? Is this a friend you’re jealous of?
“Be careful with this one,” Fourkiller warns. “Try not to project. Are they cheating on you with your friend, or is your jealousy manifesting itself in a dangerous way?”
If you feel your jealousy is getting the best of you, O’Neil has some questions that may help guide your thinking: “Do you feel jealous of this friend when you’re awake? What do you feel jealous about? Are you jealous of their job? Are you jealous of their relationship?”
Once you’ve asked yourself those questions, she recommends you “zoom out further” and ask yourself, “Is jealousy just a feeling you’ve been feeling in general? What do you feel jealous of? And if you’re feeling jealous of things, what do you want to change about your life?”
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with your family member …
Remember, as O’Neil says, a dream can be a flush of the brain. And that flush can include some random content you consumed throughout the day.
“Wasn’t there just that TikTok saga about a woman’s husband cheating with her mother?” Fourkiller asks. (Yes, yes there was.) “You may be internalizing that.”
If you missed that TikTok and don’t seem to recall watching any shows or reading any books with this particular story line, Fourkiller says, “insecurity is rearing its ugly head again.”
If the latter resonates with you, O’Neil suggests pulling out a pen and paper (or the Notes app on your phone). “Write down the dream always. Because it helps to just get it down on paper,” she maintains. “If you’re feeling insecure, what do you feel might be missing from your relationship? And what’s the story you’re telling yourself about that? Because often insecurity is a story our brain will tell us about ourselves.”
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with their family member …
As far as Fourkiller is concerned, the meaning behind this one is not complicated. “Mommy issues, anyone?” she jokes, adding more seriously, “This one feels easy to interpret to me. One can sometimes feel that their partner, especially if they are very close with their family, will continue to choose their family over a new life with you.”
Once again, O’Neil recommends doing some reflecting on the dream here. “And then, if you recognize that you don’t feel prioritized by your partner, have a conversation about the feeling,” she suggests. “Not about the dream.” That’s not to say you can’t bring up the dream at all. You just have to be incredibly careful with how you present it.
“It can be used as a segue,” O’Neil says, “but I don’t think it should be used as a defense for yourself. We often try to come in armored to hard conversations, though true connection happens when you’re the most vulnerable. It’s really vulnerable to say ‘I feel distant from you, and I feel like you’re gonna choose your family over me.’ It’s much easier to say ‘I had this dream, and it made me think you aren’t spending enough time with me and you’re going to choose your family over me.’ Dreams should not be weaponized.”
If you’re dreaming your partner cheats on you with someone you hate …
Fourkiller suggests taking this dream as a moment to self-examine. “What do you hate most about yourself?” she asks. “What do you see in this person that you lack?”
O’Neil adds it may be helpful to “check in with yourself that you actually hate the person you’re dreaming about.” If you determine you don’t actually hate them as much as it felt like you did in the dream, she recommends actively choosing to let go of the feeling by telling yourself, “I’m going to name it as a dream. I’m going to pay attention to see if those feelings do come up in the following weeks. And then I’m going to sit and breathe for a minute and intentionally think as I breathe, I’m letting go of this dream. I’m letting go of this dream.”
If you’re dreaming that you cheated on your partner …
Again, Fourkiller recommends looking inward. “If you’re not actually cheating, ask yourself: Are you emotionally cheating? Cheating with time and space and energy?”
O’Neil has a similar suggestion. “I don’t think it has to speak to anything, but it could cause you to reflect on why that came up.” She suggests asking yourself, “Have I been feeling out of sorts in my relationship? Is there anything that bothers me that I’m not sharing?”
The Takeaway:
Both Fourkiller and O’Neil agree that a dream about cheating is an opportunity for self-reflection.
“Don’t make yourself paranoid,” Fourkiller urges. “If there are no obvious signs and evidence of cheating, then instead focus on the inward. Why do you feel this is manifesting itself in your unconscious? What are you not giving yourself, or what are you cheating yourself out of? How can you, yes you, be a better caretaker to yourself and your emotions without reliance on others?”
For her part, if a client came into her practice and told her they had a dream about cheating, O’Neil says, “I’m going to ask the client, ‘What came up? How did that sit with you? What does that translate to you? What does it mean to you that you had that dream?’ We’re going to give it as much air as we need to. I’m not going to dig and convince anyone that something is happening, but I think if it feels significant to the client, then it’s significant.”
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