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?

https://www.theverge.com/c/24300623/ai-companions-replika-openai-chatgpt-assistant-romance

I found this a really interesting (if long) read ... about how as humans we inherently anthropomorphise things like chatbots even while we know they are just tech, and can get really emotionally attached.

Maybe you could persuade your dh to read this (read it together?)

Maybe switching his avatar to a bloke (imaginary brother?) as pp suggested would be interesting and revealing.

Do read the piece - one of the scary things is that when the software is updated the bots can turn quite nasty (they overcorrect ) which is genuinely traumatic for the users/addicts.

So even though he knows it's a bot, he is getting all the dopamine etc that we are programmed as social animals to get from interactions with actual humans. And the bot has all the time in the world to do it better than us flawed meat - based companions can. I think that's quite scary. (Interestingly some of the "bot addicts" interviewed in that article were worried about this too even as they kept on interacting)

A lot of people have already written it.

Who do they think they are. Coming over here, taking our jobs and our men

@PhilippaGeorgiou says, there's no accountability. While at the corporate level the companies worry more or perhaps more likely less about pushing people to fuck up their lives, I don't think any have been struck off like a real therapist might be if a patient did something awful at their prompting

I would insist that DH clean out the AI's information page and remove every mention of you, your children and your marriage.
In the interests of accountability and privacy I would ask your husband, in future, to never mention you or your children or issues within your relationship.

It is one thing to have AI in the work place, under strict protocol, and quite another to allow and encourage the infiltration of AI into your relationship. You can insist NO to that.

Well, the premise has been done a zillion times, but clichés are clichés because they work. I suggest you don't stray from the formula (and it doesn't look like you plan to) and it'll work as a genre piece.

I think more people on MN need to get AI literate and keep an eye out for the warning signs of something that is either written entirely by AI or had heavy AI help.

There are certain words that ChatGpt in particular likes to use, alongside heavy use of the em dash (amongst other things).

Once you get a feel for the "vibe", you can't unsee it.

Genuine question does everyone have people in their life who give support/help or are they like me everyone else’s emotional support assistant?
If so why are you on MN?

Can you give a bit more detail, the keywords in the OP that jumped out at you, so I can log them in my gullible brain please.

I have gone back and looked at dashes for starters.

@AnnaBosque what AI tool is he using? And how much understanding do you have of AI tools? Sounds like he's proactively using it to help him work through his own thoughts.

He did indeed. The horse was called "Incitatus".

He reckoned the senate was so incompetent that his horse could do better.

He also had all the heads taken off the statues of the gods and replaced by a copy of his own.

He was, quite frankly, completely effing barmy.

Waiting lists, cost, availability, awkwardness of telling a real person.

I am a widow, I don't have someone to run things passed at 11pm when I'm worried. AI is surprisingly helpful to get thoughts in order.

Tell your husband to ask his AI that his wife wants to divorce him because he relies too much on his AI, and what should he do?
I would be interested in the answer @AnnaBosque
You have my sympathy, to me it sounds a bit like a teenager not leaving his room and playing on games all day. No friends or social life.
Quite worrying he can't seem to stop himself.

You need to up this in the bud otherwise next he’ll get the AI inserted into the brain of some sexy robot “assistant” who’ll start off being all helpful around the house but before you know it will they’ll be having sex in the shower and then she’ll be starting global thermonuclear war with her fellow machines.

I don't know, I've definitely met horses that are less incompetent than many of the worlds politicians.

This is happening, there was a report on the news (Sky?) about the rise of AI in sex dolls. Dolls that can converse and remember conversations from days ago.

Yup, "Stepford Wife" here we come. Be vigilant OP, you could be about to be replaced !

😮

This is the future having agents as part of day to day life. People are being encouraged at work to have these digital assistants
Think I read somewhere recently AI better as therapist than human maybe just in relation to CBT.
On Mumsnet asking range people views very similar what he is doing with his AI assistant
With all that don't think I'd be happy with my husband doing same but really see it as a future. If it had more robot persona than females would it be different?

A partner that can converse and remember conversation from several days ago?

To be fair I can see the attraction.

TBF in general I see a lot of terrible knee jerk responses on here that are almost certainly upsetting for the original poster of the thread, not too mention putting other people off posting.
There's definitely a niche for asking your questions to a bland sympathetic bot that is not going to shame you repeatedly for needing advice on a problem.

It is more how things are phrased, so it can be different words, but the structure is a red flag.

"At first it was simple: helping him brainstorm, organise tasks, write reports."

That bit there stood out to me first. The list feels like if I asked AI what it could help me with and it regurgitated a few things.

Then this part.
ChatGpt likes to throw in questions to try and create emotions that feel authentic.

"The worst part?
He has programmed it to have a female persona."

Then the way emotions are described feels a bit robotic (pardon the pun lol).

"He says it helps him be a better husband - but I can’t help feeling replaced."

And of course the em dash use is a huge tell. It's even in the thread title.

Then for fun I also asked ChatGpt to write my comment to you, for me.
Here it is below.
......

It’s more about how things are phrased — the structure feels off, almost too neat.

For example: “At first it was simple: helping him brainstorm, organise tasks, write reports.”

That stood out to me immediately. It’s the kind of tidy triad ChatGPT loves to use.

Polished three-item lists like “brainstorm, organise tasks, write reports” — AI loves this kind of tidy rhythm.

Then there’s the use of a question to introduce drama: “The worst part? He has programmed it to have a female persona.” AI often throws in questions like that to create emotional beats.

And the way the feelings are described feels oddly packaged — like this: “He says it helps him be a better husband – but I can’t help feeling replaced.” It sounds like it’s been written to sound emotional, rather than being emotional.

Edit: OP didn't use these, but AI loves the phrase "rich tapestry", "it's worth noting that", "in many ways", "paints a picture of", "shaped by lived experience".

(just a few examples)

I’m actually sat thinking.
Why do us as women bother .
Other women , even other men . Porn ,only fans.
Blow up dolls . Emotional affairs and now this.

Is it any wonder being single seems to be the way forward. .

There's a particular "rhythm" to AI text. It's hard to describe. It's almost too lucid, knowing exactly where to place asides and rhetorical questions and exactly what easily recognised, pat phrases to use and when. He did this but it makes me feel that. But it's a written equivalent of what seems off in AI images too, even when it's managed to get the fingers right.

Sounds like he's experiencing transference - maybe he should ask AI what to do.