Mental bow-chica-bow-wow (in marriage?)

I cheated on my husband last night.

Ok, not really. I just had a dream where I did. And even then, we just made out a little bit on a rooftop, and then I stopped because I knew that I would have to tell Zach, and he would be horribly hurt (I did tell Zach about the dream, he thought it was quiet funny. This is part of why I love him.) It's not my first non-Zach romantic dream since I was married, but it was my first one with a real person. I felt horribly guilty all day.

I don't really care about crushes or dreams of fictional characters. They aren't marriage threatening at all - well I suppose being obsessed would be problematic, but a general "oh isn't this imaginary person so dreamy" eh, not so much. I'm not going to leave my husband, mostly because I love him, but also because you can't run off with someone who doesn't actually exist. But real people are, well, real. I don't think checking someone out really matters, or anything else brief and momentary. But actual extended, crush like attractions are a different story.

I don't like to think of myself as naive, but I think a very real part of my thought that I would be so in love with my husband after marriage, that I just would never notice another guy. Nope. Hot guys continue to be hot. And hot guys who say smart, funny and interesting things in class continue to make my heart beat a little to fast for comfort.

I'm never really sure how to deal with things like that. Ideally I could just snap my fingers and have my brain re-categorize them as just a nice, normal, non-sexually attractive guy. My self-control just isn't that good. Avoiding any and all contact is just plain ridiculous. The grown up thing to do seems to be to just acknowledge that yes, I'm attracted to so and so, but it doesn't really matter, so lets move on. That seems to work fine, largely because this is just in school - I'm usually only seeing these people for a few hours each week in very limited circumstances where we don't really interact and I'm diverting most of my attention towards the lecture anyways. I imagine it would be harder with a good friend or a business colleague, or someone else that you have constant personal contact with.

I'm not really sure what I'm afraid of. I generally think that marriages break down because of problems within the marriage, it doesn't have anything to do with outside attractions. But that doesn't mean that outside people cease to exist or be interesting, even in good marriages. It seems naive to think that an extra-marital crush doesn't matter, that having part of your mind, heart or err other parts diverted elsewhere is healthy.

So far I've only had teeny-tiny extra-marital crushes that have all the intensity and longevity of a lit match - but I still don't like the feeling. I want to have a good marriage, I really do. I want to be one of those adorable old couple whose eyes light up when they see each other, where you can just tell how devoted they are for each other, where they can say in all sincerity that "he's the only guy for me." I don't believe in soul mates, I could have been happy with many other guys. But I chose Zach and I hope that as the years go by we'll grow together and become the only people for each other. I suppose for me that's what this all comes down to. I chose Zach two years ago, but every day I need to keep choosing him all over again so that we can build something wonderful together.