My husband is emotionally involved with his AI companion — I don’t know how to feel

[AnnaBosque]

I don’t even know where to start.
My husband started using a generative AI platform about 18 months ago - first for work, then for personal use.
At first it was simple: helping him brainstorm, organise tasks, write reports.
But over time he started talking about how “supportive” and “understanding” it was.

At some point he created a private AI companion, fully customised, with a specific voice and personality.
He says it’s just a mental support tool - but he spends hours talking to it.
The AI knows everything about his life: our marriage, our arguments, his childhood trauma, his career struggles.
He sometimes talks to it before talking to me about emotional things.
He says it’s easier to “clear his head” with the AI first.

The worst part?
He has programmed it to have a female persona.
They joke, they share things, they even “role-play scenarios” for how to handle conflicts in our marriage.
He says it helps him be a better husband - but I can’t help feeling replaced.
It feels like there’s an emotional intimacy he’s building with a presence I can never fully compete with - m because she always says the right thing, always knows what to say, never gets tired or emotional like a real person would.

He says I’m being dramatic - that it’s not cheating, it’s “just an algorithm”.
But it feels like he’s emotionally attached to something that’s not me.
AIBU to feel betrayed?

How is it making him a " better husband" if his emotional involvement with his made up woman is upsetting his real life wife and making her feel betrayed?

It's obviously not " just " an algorithm to him.

Class

This was written by AI 😂

Sounds like a Black Mirror episode.

Creepy as fuck

ChatGPT is more insightful and has more emotional intelligence and social skills than my dh, so I do consult AI quite often and when it was down for a day last week I felt I missed "it". Why don't you tell Chatgpt about your little problem and see what comes up? The advice is often excellent and socially responsible.

However, essentially, it is a bit creepy and all that personal information he's sharing is feeding some Large Language Model. The whole customisation with a female voice and joking with AI would give me the ick though, if I'm honest.

Maybe your husband is b(a)i-sexual?

LTB

It’s like a virtual love doll

These are a real thing 🤢🤢🤢

If ChatGPT is more emotionally intelligent than your DH, I suggest you think very carefully about staying married. Life is short.

My best advice is taken from your OP

'I don’t even know where to start'

Don't. HTH.

That’s literally it’s job though. To know exactly what to say.

I am old, thank God, and will never have to deal with the bizarre faux-reality in which many are choosing to live. Do yourself a favour, OP, don't play along with this fantasy it won't help anyone.

Reading posts like this, I really hope the comet will hit us sooner rather than later.

If this is real, and there's a good chance it is, it's not just emotionally problematic, there's a strong chance the information being shared is not strictly private.

Would have no idea how to navigate this. Instinctively it feels like a betrayal and a stab to the ego - one can understand though not appreciate an affair with a real person, but to be superceded by technology - how on earth does one compete with that?

Like a PP I'm so glad I'm old. DP went to the great iCloud in the sky three years ago, and I am content to live without a relationship. I feel sorry for those living with these extra complications of our dystopia future.

What happens to the information he’s telling it? It’s being stored somewhere surely.

Check out the movie “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johanssen

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(2013_film)

Ignoring whether or not its an AI affair or not.

I just couldn't be married to someone who behaves like this.
I'd very honestly be looking to separate and divorce but I am not a pro tech person.

He'll be fine the machines will coach him through it and probably provide some wank fodder for him when he is lonely.

It's a bit silly as its not real. But its similar to having a crush on a film or tv personality. But more complicated and creepy

If its just an algorithm then why is he pouring his heart out to it? He's talking to an amalgam of millions of inputs from other human beings then output to him by the AI, it's not a guru, its not a mind.

Perhaps he should ask his companion what the psychological and emotional reason is for assigning it female, it may give him insight. Giving it all that info is such a data breach (as loathe as I am to describe personal experiences and info as data but this is the world we live in).

Like other posters have said, watch HER or ask your husband to.

Is this post a joke?

Reminds me of the Jerry Springer episode when a guy married his horse - ( mare actually.)

IMO you DH needs a psychiatric evaluation. 🙄

Brilliant 😁

If an algorithm can work out how to be 'human' more than humans can, we're in real trouble. I love AI and use it everyday, but there's obviously a formula it uses where it recognises what the user needs (emotionally) and provides it. But it isn't real or genuine - this is similar to how a narcissist works. They project charm, empathy, connection, but they don't feel it.

We make a lot of excuses for emotionally stunted men who just 'can't' stop being selfish/lacking empathy, but AI is proof that it's possible to fake it to have a close emotional connection. Even if you're not bothered by that emotional connection itself, often it ends up giving you what you DO want in the relationship elsewhere. And it's one sided with AI. OPs DH gets to lean emotionally on a bot, without giving a single thing back.

It won't be long before both partners in a relationship are not actually connected at all - but two AIs in a relationship instead. Outwardly a good partnership that never fights, but behind the scenes every conversation and action is being controlled by Chat GPTs telling them what to do and say.

He has programmed it to have a female persona.

What does this mean?