DH has completely changed

[GeorgiaDe]

My DH has completely altered his worldview/ opinion over the last few years. It was gradual, and only now am I coming to realise the full extent of it. We've been together for 15 years.

He believes in the great reset, believes there will be a nuclear war, covid is a hoax and the vaccines are killing people. He's stockpiled around £3k worth of food/ camping equipment/ knives. Our spare room is full of this stuff. He's also invested thousands into cryptocurrency.

He believes that inflation is all part of the "plan" and all the world leaders are "in on it" together.

I can't take it anymore. He disrespects my opinion by continuing to talk about it daily, even when I've expressed that I do not share the same opinion and don't want to argue about it. He tells me that "I will see when the time comes."

Every time there's news of a celebrity death/ unexplained death of a young person, he blames the covid vaccine. He threatened to leave me if I got it, although changed his mind when I made clear how serious I was.

Aibu to feel at the end of my tether? It's so draining.

I'm sorry OP, that sounds hard.

Could you go together on a camping holiday off-grid, ie without the daily torrent of bonkers vids? You could sell it to him as getting used to the equipment he's bought, and learning to cope if the internet really did go down.

Bit of detox for him and reconnection with the physical world and with you?

Not a cure-all, but maybe a first step?

What a nightmare OP. Your partner sounds desperate and paranoid, and as if he couldn't cope with the messiness of life where awful things happen without being part of a plan, good or evil.

Any idea what started this - at the emotional level I mean? Did the stress of lockdown set him off? Some personal setback?

I'm asking because getting the hang of the emotional dynamic behind the conspiracy nonsense seems the only chance to solve the situation. If he isn't receptive to this, I'd seriously consider leaving, sad as it is.

I love a bit of comfort prepping, and it all comes in handy anyway during power cuts, road trips, scout camps, hiking, averse weather, etc. But he does sound anxious and unwell and either you need to be able to persuade him to seek help or you need to gently decouple IMVHO. It’s not a good situation.

Please don't abandon him. It sounds like he needs psychiatric help. His Great Reset scenario is probably masking something else that he is going through (mid life crisis) or a mental health crisis, a mild psychotic episode.

I would contact a medical professional like your GP to speak to them about him. Try to do it without your husband knowing to see what advice they can give you. Maybe he needs to be on Antidepressants.

None of us really know what will happen in the future and it is probably a fear for the future that has made him cling to these beliefs.

Much love.

My brother has gone down the rabbit hole. He is very intelligent. But he’s fried his brain with too many of the wrong YouTube videos. He started by thinking Jordan Peterson was an interesting guy, then moved onto the covid vaccination wasn’t safe, stopped working and then told us he’d found out that there really was a conspiracy against Trump orchestrated by Hilary Clinton.

I know there’s nothing can be done to change his mind. He also thinks my husband and I are imbeciles as we don’t agree with him.

It seems to me you only have two choices. Some kind of agreement which allows you to live together, respect each others view and agree how money is spent, or plan to leave.

I’m sorry to hear this has happened to you. Luckily my brother is single.

Maisa, the kind of prepping you would need to do to survive society collapsing is so far beyond our finances and comprehension it’s not worth doing. We are talking mad billionaire territory, There is no need for it, as the worst you can usefully expect is a version of the 1930s depression.

This is so sad. I work with someone with this type of paranoid mindset. It's very hard.
I couldn't share my life with a man like this. Though it's an illness I know.

I think it was set off by the lockdown. He had to sell his business and wasn't used to being at home 24/7.

But, surely that was the same for most of us? I'm still working from home now and haven't been drawn into this mindset.

He doesn't talk about this stuff with other people (apart from his mum, who seems to have been convinced that he is correct) 😳 However, she is an anti-vaxxer in general, not just in terms of covid.

Could you temporarily sabotage his tech somehow to see what happens? Whether he would step back from the brainwashing?

Sorry to hear this - I work in this field, it’s not at all east for friends and family.

First off, this doesn’t necessarily mean MH issues, but it’s worth checking for signs of genuine paranoia. From what you’ve described it doesn’t sound like that, but if it is then there’s more specific pathways to help.

More likely from what you’ve said is that he’s fallen into a trap that literally millions have, which is partly to do with the way the internet works, partly to do with the speed of comms, partly to do with bad actors (as they’re broadly called in security policy terms) taking advantage of credulous people - sometimes it’s for profit, sometimes for profile, sometimes if it’s government it’s more complex - and partly to do with a feeling of insecurity in the world (COVID as the pandemic was bad enough, but the disinfodemic is perhaps longer lasting)

If it’s any consolation, he’s one of literally millions globally that have been shown to be more susceptible to being hoodwinked, and the sad irony is that he thinks he’s actually the one who is thinking clearly.

The bad news is that the best psychological science shows there’s no easy fix. We have some ideas, primarily from cult deprogramming, but honestly we’re in the Wild West with this stuff - the internet (and dark web) moves too quickly, bad actors are far more adept at exploiting it than good actors, and there’s no resource or money to help fix it.

Everything I’ve worked on suggests that friends and family are actually the best at deprogramming, but only if it’s safe - if the other side isn’t volatile or won’t be in the future. The best thing to do is probe how he came to these conclusions himself (emphasising ‘himself’) - he needs to question the ‘evidence’ he’s seeing on YouTube, and step one is to acknowledge that he hasn’t actually had an original thought on any of these subjects - he’s just parroting others. What are the motivations of these others? Often it’s money through advertising or product, look at Alex Jones FFS). What are their qualifications? Probably none. What is their background? Why should he believe them? Why doesn’t he do his own thinking on this? If we can get him to that point then the scales start to fall from their eyes in some cases and they can be brought back. There’s a lot more to it, happy to discuss sometime if that would help.

It’s really hard OP, and it shouldn’t have to be on you, sorry about that.

You can't help him, he is too far gone now. I would divorce.

I know some people who have become like this the past couple years (all middle aged men). You really cannot reach them anymore. It's ok to leave.

There are actually support groups for people in your position, thats how big a problem it is now

I don't claim to be an expert in this

I had to distance myself from a good friend because of similar stuff - and some people think I'm a CT, so I'm not as far removed from my friend's views as you are (I'm guessing) from your DH.

My friend has lost a lot of friends and her family are in despair.

All I can think is that she gets something from all this that she can't get elsewhere, or she enjoys it. (She has a masters' in psychology but doesn't do it for work.)

Before all this happened, I found her interest in mindsets a bit..too much. She doesn't want the world as it is, she spends hours online going from one conspiracy rabbit hole to another. Loves and is quite obsessed with The Matrix.

I'm just sharing this because....is it possible your DH enjoys it all for whatever reason but if he knew he would lose you, he would drop it?

Then again, he might have just lost the plot. i think a lot of people have and I don't blame them. But I have to say, I think you should leave him, even if a trial separation.

Thank you for this. I really don't want to split up, I love him, however, this is constant and it's so so draining.

In terms of day to day life/ speaking to other people, it's not something he brings up all the time. However, with me, it's constant.

We can't even have a conversation about anything without this featuring somehow.

Tinytinseltown, that sounds really interesting and useful advice.

The thing is until he's ready to admit he's gone too far and or seeks help if he needs it then there's really nothing you can do. Much in the same way with addicts - they're aware of the devastation they're causing their families but the hook is too strong. They will never get clean until they want to of their own volition; and sometimes this moment happens when they've lost everything.

Wondering if counselling is an option?

OP "But, surely that was the same for most of us? I'm still working from home now and haven't been drawn into this mindset."

everyone reacts differently though. Lockdown broke me, I didn't think it would. My sister was fine, she is really outgoing and so on. You just don't know.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. I really appreciate it.

Yes this is basic paranoia, it just happens to be settled on this subject. It could have happened about any subject

Unless he accepts that he needs to address it, then he wont address it. Even if he had counselling, whats to say he would change his outlook

I think you might just have to accept that he has developed a paranoid personality over the years and that its effects are destructive for your relationship.

I very rarely say that on here, far too many pithy comments about dumping partners without working things through but paranoia is almost impossible.

He wont see the need to seek help because he isnt distressed by it as such.

Sort your own finances out, stop the house sale and prepare to be on your own.

My DH is just the same! Listens to podcasts which confirm his views! He also has stockpiled food and has just bought a generator as he is sure there are going to be power cuts! Also un-vaccinated and blaming the death or various young sports people on the vaccine (without any evidence that they have even been vaccinated). Am also fed up with it. He thinks I should take all my savings out of the bank and buy gold. I actually think wfh with no social interaction has sent him bonkers.

I really feel for you OP, my DH nearly fell into the rabbit hole.

I can't remember how exactly, but I told him enough or he leaves, thankfully he didn't lose all grips on reality and read himself out of the rabbit hole too!

He now realises how stupid he sounded.

He needs to stop watching and reading things and try to get back to reality somehow.

It is good to discuss the Alex Jones story. The scale of misinformation is easy to understand when you glimpse the hundreds of thousands of dollars he was raking in daily. Start to talk through what the content creators get out of this neutrally since arguing against the subject matter can cause people to get more deeply embedded.

Great post @Tinytinseltown I work in an adjacent area and this is my understanding as well, it is extremely difficult to pull someone back when they have gone this far. You can't really reason with them, they are simply living in an alternate world as it were.

This is why I respectfully disagree with @Charlize43 you would not be abandoning someone in a mental health crisis -- this is simply who he is now. I don't think any woman should waste her life shackled to a man so divorced from reality.

Where's he thinking of moving you to? Not somewhere isolated and away from your social support, is it?

Collect evidence of the crypto and other stashes, plus any particularly unnerving comments or acts and get out before it goes worse than it is already.

I believe in what he is saying. I never thought I would but after extensive research that is the conclusion I have come to unfortunately. We have to allow people to make their own decisions and exercise their own discernment. Equally your partner needs to respect your views and not bombard you with it l. Where it began for me was realising the lies in mainstream media it all unraveled from there. People think we are all being brainwashed but we have to assess sources ourselves and come up with our own conclusion. I guess my point is don't think he is crazy alot of people share his view although he doesn't seem quite extreme.