To not have gotten up in the middle of the night to kill a spider!

[DwangelaForever]

I know I'm not but this is to prove a point to hubby! He is in a mood with me because just before he came to bed last night (around 1am or so) he went to the kitchen to get a drink and came across a massive spider.

He then came in to bed and proceeded to wake me up and ask would I go and get rid of it for him . Bare in mind I am 25 weeks pregnant and sleeping in this heat has been very hard so I wasn't too pleased to be woken up!

Obviously I said no and went back to sleep, he was gutted and has carried on being annoyed with me this morning (he's also annoyed that the spider has now gone missing and says he's not safe - although he is arachnophobic so I do have a slight bit of sympathy for him) but all in all who was being unreasonable

You did the right thing. If we didn’t have spiders we would be in a lot of trouble.
All these comments about burning the house down or other such nonsense whenever anyone mentions a spider really irritates me. In the U.K. we are lucky that our native spiders are not dangerous.

Australia however...

Spiders are good to have in the house this time of year. They're natural pest control.

All this burn the house down on here irritates me as well. Bunch of pansies

My husband is fully aware that i will never be able to divorce him because he is my spider catcher and i am petrified of them .
He would always get up and deal with it as he knows the terror i would feel if it disappeared and he couldnt then find it. He is my hero at those times !
I would be v upset if he didnt because unless you are a sufferer you have no idea of how it feels so

I hope you mean catch and release rather than kill.
I'm terrified of the scuttley little bastards but I don't like to hear of them being killed.

Poor dude! I feel for him. Arachnophobia is not a joke. He must have been very frightened indeed to have woken his sleeping (and pg!) wife to ask her - please, please - to kill a spider.

He should get a Spider Catcher (search Amazon) . It’s enables you to catch and remove spiders whilst keeping them at arms length.

@Oysterbabe yes I would just have removed it to the garden, not a fan of killing insects!!

Dh would have gotten up and removed it for me, as he knows I'd be unable to settle or sleep, and would be stressed about it's whereabouts the next morning.

Just like I do things for him.

I don't choose to be irrationally scared of them; it's been circumstances from childhood I think. But it is a real thing and not just a silly thing.

I can see both sides. But look at it this way:-

Spider 1 Husband 0

Yay spider!!

YWHBU to kill the poor thing. Downstairs at 1am is their time. It's not like it rappeled down from the bedroom ceiling onto his head.

My husband is scared of spiders and occasionally I have to move them for him but I won't kill them!

I was petrified, but DH was more petrified so I am now the official family spider dispatcher. I've actually become pretty good at it!

I'm terrified of them and would be upset if my husband left a huge one that went missing.
Bring pregnant doesn't make you incapable of helping him out, especially when you know he has a phobia.
It was mean of you.

I saw a really fast bugger on the edge of the ceiling last night, I couldn't be arsed to remove it and neither could my husband. I'm hoping I haven't eaten him overnight. Killing spiders is wrong and I'm not particularly fond of them.

Sorry OP but I’m with your husband. Being terrified of spiders myself I know what it’s like, if my partner did that I wouldn’t be able to stay in the house (it sounds stupid I know but that is the extent of my fear)

@Mookie81 I didn't say it did, the fact that I've barely been able to sleep in the heat all week and he felt the need to wake me up though that's what annoyed me! As @borlottibeans says 1am is the spiders time and he was going to bed anyway, no need to wake a sleeping pregnant lady

People who wake spouses up to catch spiders in the middle of the night should not be pandered to.

It's not cute, it's irritating.

I would just have removed it to the garden, not a fan of killing insects!!

Well done you.

The spider, though, would not feel safe, because spiders are not insects. They kill them.
Yes, I am that person a biologist.

Tell your husband I told you that the spider was a garden spider who was lost and has since returned to the garden. Definitely.

@DwangelaForever I respect people's phobias; they are very real and truly terrifying: not cute, or silly or weird. I've been pregnant myself twice and both times my final trimester was spent during a massive heatwave. But I would not resent my loved one waking me out of fear, asking for help. We're all different but I don't think you've understood what a phobia is! Maybe you should do some research on phobias, arachnophobia in particular, before judging.

@diodati

You're an enabler then. Part of having phobias is facing them (to a certain extent) so that they don't affect others.

So while I wouldn't expect OP's DH to catch the spider himself, he sure as hell shouldn't be waking up his pregnant wife in the middle of a heatwave.

Maybe you should do some research on managing phobias, arachnophobia in particular, before judging OP.

There's only one way to conquer fear, mostly passed on by another adult when the sufferer was a child.
Small children aren't scared of spiders until someone tells them to be.

YANBU but he was. A grown man who the spider would have far more fear of.

I catch the spiders in my house. I am training DD. She has seen me catch them in my hands and has no fear. Once we had a 7 legged spider. I let it stay in the house as I didn't think it would make it back in the wild.

So relieving to read all the sensible posts about spiders and phobias.

In this weather, flies and other insects spread diseases very quickly. I'm glad to have a few spiders about to get rid of them.

FFS get rid of the phobia, not the trigger!

Oh thanks Glad for your helpful and insightful comment ! I cant believe non of us have tried that !!!
I have spent a lifetime and tried everything to overcome the fear and believe me i want nothing more and if it was that simple we would all have done it long since !
If you do not suffer from a phobia ( any phobia ) you do not get it .

My DP always gets rid of them for me as he knows I have the worst phobia and will have a panic attack. He never kills them as he loves them. He’ll get them in a glass and put them outside.
I once had a big one run behind the fridge and he spent 20 mins moving the fridge out and searching for it. Don’t think he was best pleased but he still did it to calm me down.

What have you tried?
Several zoos run spider courses.
Hypnotism.
Mindfulness.
If it's really serious your GP can refer you for NHS treatment. I know someone who had therapy at the local hospital for a fear of dogs. She now has a labrador.