I (f43) and my husband (m44) have been married for nearly 20 years and together for 24. We are deeply in love and have an amazing relationship. I love him so much it hurts and I know he loves me too. However, since COVID, he has changed so much. He believes all the vaccine conspiracies, listens to all the conspiracy theory podcasts and has basically drowned in the COVID rabbit hole. Not to mention the political beliefs and just overall, what I consider, off the wall opinions.
We’ve fought about this over and over again. I tell him he can believe what he wants (because changing his mind is a losing battle) but he has got to stop bringing it home to me.
Tonight he mentioned again, about how someone was forced to take the vaccine and now they’re blind and paralyzed. I got upset and told him to stop with the COVID BS. He yelled that I was being stupid, was pissed that I didn’t believe him and would think it was a conspiracy theory and has now rolled over in bed and is refusing to talk to or touch me. We’ve been through this so many times the last few years and I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m losing so much respect for him and it seems this isn’t going away. It’s absolutely ruining my marriage and I feel so helpless.
We’ve talked about this so much and it gets better for a while then he’ll mention something again and we’ll argue and the cycle starts again.
I’m sure people will ask, and yes, I think if I pushed it, he would go to counselling, and I’ll suggest it (maybe insist upon it!) but, in the meantime, what do I do? I don’t want to lose my marriage – if it wasn’t for this, we have no major issues. But it’s hard loving a man you’re slowing starting to not respect.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
TL;DR My husband (44) of 20 years is a conspiracy theorist and I (f43) don’t know what to do. Marriage is wonderful otherwise
5 comments
He has lost trust… Trust in politics… Trust in science…. Trust in the media… Trust in people…
I can’t blame him to be honest… There has been many breaches of trust by all these organizations so second guess everything is natural.
What do you do… Stop trying to change him and ask for him to respect you and you will respect his beliefs. You might have to grey rock him.
He has to trust again and heal from what hurt him… So yeah therapy is a start but being in the community that doesn’t push ideals and respects people. This way he can slowly learn to trust again.
You can’t change him… Being defensive doesn’t help… So listen and be respectful. People change with trauma… Understand it and respect it and know he won’t be the same person again cause the trauma he suffered from
You can’t control his point of view. The best you can really do is set boundaries and tell him how you feel and argue the point.
If I really wanted to save the marriage , I would research the conspiracy theories , and the credible refutation of the conspiracy theory. (Nobody was forced to get vaxed, they may have faces consequences for refusal like losing a job, but they were not forced), and I would try to “win” decisively the argument and change their mind.
I would also research the conspiracy theorist phenomenon itself as well and try to show him how he got sucked in, how he’s not crazy he’s just fallen prey to propaganda , and that he can choose to accept it and save face, or he can eventually lose his marriage.
Google can go a long way here.
But that may not be possible. He can reject any source and refuse to concede the point , or he can just concede one point but still believe every other point is correct. You can’t make him.
My dad is one of them , but more about how climate change isn’t real and if it’s real it’s a good thing. He also doesn’t believe his trans grandchild is actually trans (that trans actually exists).
It’s a problem.
This is similar to a spouse finding a new religion that they insist the other spouse join. But you can’t, because it makes no sense. You have some big decisions to make.
Politics since 2016 has been the cause of many divorced so you wouldn’t be the first. Dudes (and the occasional woman) go off the deep end and can’t be brought back.
Just thank him for being right 😜