Husband has got extreme views

[UnsureDifferences]

Name change on this to protect myself and family.
So my DH has over the past few years got more and more what I would call extreme views. He is into conspiracy theories, it started off by watching a few videos and being curious and now he full thinks that the illuminati are out to enslave us and talks about the earth being flat, which he is not sure about but goes on about it.
He is also fearful of immigration and is saying he will go on the marches and that we are being take over and that we need to be prepared.
I am an easy going educated person who leans slightly left and believes in science.
This is really getting me down as I am not sure I can be with him anymore if this is who he is now.
Aibu to leave him for having these different views. Or is it managable to continue on.
One part of me thinks it is similar to two people of different faiths being married, is this possible? Has anyone had a good relationship with someone with opposite political or religious views to them?
Any ideas as to what to do here.
Everything else is fine in our relationship

I couldn't sustain a relationship with somebody with unreasonable beliefs. I could be with someone who believed in God (although I don’t) but not if they believed that, for example, the bible was literally true, that the earth was made in 6 days, 4,000 years ago. So if they believed that scripture was allegorical rather than literally true. And the same about all the other religions and their scriptures.

A flat earther? Wouldn't waste my time on them. Neither would I waste my time with a brexiteer; the resentment would keep me awake at night...🤣🤣

I agree wholeheartedly!

Autistic people are over-represented in extremist movements though, including incel culture. Its not a reach to suggest it as a possibility.

You may find it tiresome when autism is offered as a possibility, but I find it tiresome when people complain about autism being offered as an explanation for behaviours which are associated with autism.

I wouldn’t be able to continue the relationship.

A close friends husband went like this during covid; it reached its peak when my mum died a traumatic, awful death due to covid which left me with PTSD. He proceeded to rant to me that covid isn’t real and she couldn’t have died from it - the friendship ended even with my friend because in my grief I was so hurt that her husband was saying such things and I didn’t want to continue a friendship with a woman (or man) who was married to someone like that.
We've not spoken since.

What are the six repeatable conspiracy theories please?

My husband is very similar. He has CPTSD and I think this triggered it. I’ve also recently learnt that he is a narcissist and possibly has bipolar disorder. He won’t consider the latter two. He’s very grandiose and won’t see doctors or have therapy because he thinks he knows better than everyone else or that they are just trying to sell under pressure of pharmaceutical giants etc. He’s basically a lost cause. It’s damaged my mental health so much that we’ve recently separated. You Tube is a great source of research. Look up Dr Ramini about narcissism to see if that’s a possibility. If it is then I would recommend leaving because things will only get worse.

I see a lot of people calling CT unintelligent. I think CT are a pernicious and dangerous movement. But its simply not true that the people who hold them are unintelligent. The CT I knew were intelligent people.

CT are a much more complex phenomena than that. To reduce it to ' lack of intelligence' is, well, not an intelligent thing to do.

Look at gender theory/ the trans movement. It is clearly not true that a man can be a woman. It is patently not true that it is a nebulous and undefinable sense of gender identity, rather than sex, makes one a woman or a man. It patently not true that sex is not binary. It is patently not true that it is safe or fair on women to get rid of sex segregated spaces and services. All the data is against these claims by gender theorists. Yet intelligent people still hold all these untrue, and demonstrably, untrue positions. Intelligent people will hold false positions when their motivation for doing so it high enough. We all need to be on the look out for this in ourselves.

I would worry about the effects on your children in the long run. I have a lovely friend whose husband went like this in Covid and has just got more and more extreme over time. He now spends hours on the internet reading this crap and has started making his own ‘content’ and is obsessed with how many people read it. He sends me the links and I delete them instantly.

He refused for their DD to get routine vaccinations. Not just Covid or MMR but any vaccines at all. He is now refusing for them to wear bloody sunscreen even! He thinks skin cancer is a government conspiracy. As they are getting older the DC are aware of his bizarre views and rants and they won’t have friends over or even let him give them a lift in the car in case he starts it up in front of their friends. It is awful for the whole family. I wish she would leave him but she just keeps hoping he will go back to how he was (he never had any of these ideas pre Covid)

He is not stupid either. He has a science degree from a prestigious university and a decent career. His work banned him from mentioning any of his views there and he has respected that.

I've been in this position too and very sorry you're going through this. I respect the fact that he has a questioning mind and that we shouldn't all believe main stream media but it was his constant negativity and bringing conspiracies into every discussion. I couldn't stand it but felt his opinions alone wasn't a valid reason for divorce - I felt I was being too judgemental! It helped me to do lots of self reflection on who I was, what my own values were, what I wanted out of the marriage and out of life - and did those aline with his - they didn't and we divorced, but I still have divorce guilt everyday!
I actually found this thread from the other day really useful in backing up my decision to divorce

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5394823-what-things-are-truly-important-in-long-term-relationships-or-marriage

I love that you think the left is intolerant, with the implications that the right is the natural home of open-mindedness and tolerance. There is someone selecting which facts to take into account according to whether they fit with an existing prejudice.

Perhaps someone who believed the Bible would be slightly easier to tollerate depending on the level they were consumed by it.
It isn't im my opinion, just what they believe but how involved they become - hence the wanting to attend protests, it means the behaviour is escalating which is why it is concerning. The mirage of conspiracies can be very strong, especially if it catches people at a point where they might be struggling for various reasons. It provides a focus away feom their internal struggles, a justified cause to fight for. It is a dangerous past. I knew intelligent people who were deeply unhappy inside without acknowledging it, becoming entirely consumed by conspiracies, spending all their time searching for more info to support the theories they sign up to. It's a downward spiral that can escalate very quickly. I personally wouldn't be able to live with that. Especially with the big red flag, he is not open to discussion but believes that is THE way.
I am sorry you are in this situation, it must be very difficult. If he is not opening to seeing a therapist I think you need to take steps to protect yourself and your children.

He's a woman...

I have a family member like that, probably easier to manage than a DH. I used to challenge his views and we would often have heated debates. I then just started ignoring him and quickly changing the subject as I realised we were never going to agree, he rarely mentions it now. If you want to make the relationship work, maybe come to an agreement that you won't talk about his conspiracy theories.

Going on a ‘march’ against migrants in hotels would do it for me. The demos outside the hotels.

That is not expressing a political opinion, it is designed to target and intimidate migrants. Couldn’t be in the same house as someone so vicious. Someone prepared to be in a crowd, some of whom, as we have seen, are prepared to set fire to buildings that have people inside.

Hi, I’m a honours degree educated, believe in science and slightly left leaning person… who is still worried about illegal immigration.
To be educated, believe in science and left leaning does not make your viewpoints more morally superior to anyone else’s, I think as a society that is something we have forgotten.
I currently live somewhere where illegal immigration is not a prominent issue, however, I have no right to discredit those living in areas where it is, and are worried enough to make their voices of concern heard.
If your husband is still a good man, a law abiding citizen, doesn’t put you down for your obviously differing viewpoints, and can have peaceful discussions about topics… what’s the issue?

It’s not just about being full or not though, for many people. It’s the huge and undeniable demographic changes all across the country, which people were never consulted about. Many people may delight in becoming a diverse country, but equally many do not, and their opinion is equally valid.

And if he joins a baying mob outside a migrant hostel?

Their opinion is an opinion.

This man is talking about ‘marches’ which is behaviour that directly targets and intimidates human beings . (All the ‘marches’ I have heard of have been to gather around hotels, not to parliament..)

This

I think it's interesting that he hides these views from the kids (for now). It would suggest to me that there is a part of him that knows they are ridiculous and embarrassing.

I can relate a little bit. DH and I used to be aligned on most things but over the past five years we have drifted apart politically. I have moved left of centre and he has moved right. He isn't some flag waving lunatic but less tolerant of anything he considers to be 'woke' and his heart seems to have hardened. It definitely started with Brexit. When they first announced the referendum, DH was debating how he felt - right at the start before it was so contentious. He was weighing up what it would mean for his small business, what he thought the impact might be on the economy and so on. Before he had made up his mind, the vitriol started about anyone voting leave being a racist and that really hit him hard. He was disgusted by the way it became acceptable to shame anyone who had a different view and how he didn't even feel he could debate with anyone about it whilst he made his mind up. He had to keep his considerations a secret because the 'thought police' would 'out' him. In the end, fwiw, we both voted Remain but the damage was done. He felt disconnected from society.

I find some of his views frustrating on the surface, but when I listen to him explaining himself - I can see how he has arrived there even if I don't often agree. I have struggled with our differences but luckily, he is still rationale and not full of hate or paranoia. He is still warm, kind and open minded enough to debate with me and listen to another view.

Social media is so fucking dangerous in situations like this. Your DH's algorithm will be insane by now. He is no doubt in an echo chamber of like-minded people feeding each other this bullshit. My best suggestion is that you ask him to balance his information sources, and try reading different news/social/commentary stories. A way to do this might be to offer to read something that has convinced him and in return, he reads something from you. You will at least see what he is reading so might be better positioned to challenge it, and he will be exposed to rationale thinking.

Personally I couldn't live with someone who had fallen down the rabbit hole, primarily because the further down they go, the more they view everything through the lens of conspiracy and extremist views and they absolutely will not shut up about it.

It is often, but far from always, the uneducated and those unable to think critically who fall into this collective mental illness which is an big problem of the times we live in.

Only you can decide if you can go on living with this situation, I certainly couldn't, and of course you would not be unreasonable to leave him for it.

My own brother has lost his mind
down this rabbit hole. It started when he was young and saw some social media crap about 9/11 being an inside job and how 'the world's best engineers say that buildings don't collapse like that'. He went from there to telling me that the Holocaust never happened and it was 'only' a million Jews who were slaughtered. I didn't speak to him fir a long time after that. At the heart of all if this stuff lies vile anti-Semitism, even if this is not always apparent.

Barring some kind of Damascene conversion he will continue to get worse and more extreme.

@Yellowbirdcage

PP says Brexit and losing the Dublin Agreement means we can no longer return migrants. A fact check will tell you we rarely used it and took on more people from the EU than we ever returned under it.

Yes, but the problem wasn't with the EU and our membership, it was the failure of a succession of UK governments of both hues to exercise the powers that we had under EU legislation. Other EU members were exercising these powers successfully. Our governments didn't want to take the blame for difficult decisions that they made and so allowed the EU to carry the can. That dishonesty and lily-liveredness bit them (and us) in the bum later

That goes a lot further than sharing your views with your family. Not all gender critical people are joining baying mobs against trans people. Not all Christians are protesting outside abortion clinics. Many people with extreme views are just quietly getting on with a normal life.

I was being hyperbolic— I’m sure there are core common conspiracies - most have a standard overlap. Flat earth, QAnon, Covid etc, the kids in a pizza shop in Washington being abused…..

If they were conspiracy theories so many people wouldn’t have become so aware of them…. Hundreds of thousands of people watch these videos and think they’re enlightened.

It’s like people hearing voices - mostly God, the Devil etc. They don’t hear voices from their kind aunt. There is a commonality to the mental ill health.

www.irishtimes.com/culture/six-common-conspiracy-theories-and-why-it-s-pointless-to-argue-with-them-1.4531139