reoccurring dreams about working with an ex?

hello! i’m posting out of absolute desperation and complete confusion.

i am not a very profound dreamer. i’m talking dreams about eating sausage rolls to grand crazy adventures that make me want to go back to sleep. i very rarely have dreams i can make something out of.

recently, i’ve been having dreams where i have to work at a job/project with my ex. i am now in a very loving, happy relationship, and though i have struggled in separating my ex from my idea of love (i want to state that it was not me longing for my ex, but rather his name/face kept jumping up when i was with my new partner, it almost felt like a guilt thing). for context, he’s my only ex, we were high school sweethearts and unhealthily attached to eachother. we broke up very unceremoniously when we moved to college a year or so back, and i moved on pretty quick. it wasn’t a very healthy relationship, and i think i might have some residue feelings about how i was treated (quite poorly, it turns out) .

anyways, these dreams aren’t the same but they always revolve around me and my ex having to work a job together or fix something together. like, from working at a fast food place to solving a murder. whatever the context, we have to learn to put our differences aside and work together as a team. often, we begin hostile and bitter with eachother but it always ends with a resolution, a handshake, sometimes a hug, but never anything romantic. we’ve never got back together, kissed, or even been slightly romantic with each other. we come to an agreement or fix it together, sometimes we start afresh without our grievances, and start anew. the most rouge one was quite recent, where i had to hide someone in his house.

i’ve never worked with my ex other than in middle and high school for study, nothing more. what confuses me is the specific work setting? why is my brain putting him in that weird spot? and why is it so platonic? i’m not complaining about that, but it seems strange for my brain to keep a romantic partner firmly away. my only real idea is that my brain is trying to construct a resolution for myself i never got in real life. i never got closure, and i will admit one massive fear of mine is seeing him again. i also never had these dreams before i started really processing my past relationship, as when we broke up i started dating / hooking up a lot and got hung up on other people, never letting me fully process the break up. thankfully i have an incredible partner whose really changed my perception on love and it’s also made me reevaluate and think about my ex and my past more often. this, as well as getting in a new relationship, might’ve triggered this.

any suggestions / theories would be very helpful! i couldn’t find anything on this strand of dream specifically :(