I get that covid is a genuine and very real concern and I am not blasé about covid risks myself but my husband's anxiety is out of control. It's all he talks about and is reading the news constantly. He rarely leaves the house (he works for home). If we do go out as a family for a walk he gets very agitated, especially passing people. I remind him that it's incredibly unlikely to catch it passing people outdoors. His answer to all my reassurances are ffs whatamess there's a pandemic. Everything that comes into the house has to be antibac'd - including all post and food shopping (I even found him antibacing a garlic bulb...). I'm really worried about the effect it's having on our children (3 and 6 yrs). My 3 year old is always asking if he is going to catch the coronavirus if he does something wrong. We went for a walk at the weekend and husband shouted at them for touching a tree in case it had the virus on it!!! But the worst was this morning, our 3 year old blew a raspberry and a bit of spit landed on my husband who then shouted at him saying he could make daddy very ill! Shocking, we had a big argument about that.
We live in an area with quite low covid rates. He is 43, he has mild asthma but otherwise healthy. He is generally risk adverse and a bit of a worrier and it's often been a sticking point when parenting the children.
I just don't know how to help him. I've tried listening and being empathetic to his worries but this seems to egg him on. So now I'm ignoring it and when he mentions the news I say I don't want to talk about it. I've asked him to consider CBT but he says he doesn't have a problem he's just being sensible and it's a pandemic how else should he behave.
I know we're in very unusual times, but am I wrong to think this is not reasonable behaviour? Would I be unreasonable to give him some sort of ultimatum to get professional help?! Any advice would be appreciated.