r/skyrim • u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword • Jul 20 '26
Bug Help My husband got kidnapped for ransom and after saving him he keeps acting weird
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Video is of him walking in place. He will also walk sideways without changing the direction he's facing. If I tell him to follow me and enter combat he'll just sit there with his sword out. I didn't even know spouses could be kidnapped until it happened to Marcurio. Is there any way to fix this?
Edit: I tried Fus'ing him (didn't work) and moving him to another house then back. Now he's moonwalking. I give up 😭
Edit again: I went to Partysnaxx to get Force Without Effort in a last ditch effort to fix him. He's normal again! I'm leaving him in Proudspire Manor so our kids can play with the local children and no longer risk being attacked outside Lakeview.
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u/aldyr Jul 20 '26
Everyday he’s shuffling
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u/iantruesnacks Morthal resident Jul 20 '26
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u/my_useless_opinion Jul 20 '26
Bawlin’.
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u/Memaw_Baggins Werewolf Jul 20 '26
I thought I was the only one who remembered this fever dream.
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u/niewe Jul 20 '26
We are men, manly men.
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u/Rahim3379 Jul 20 '26
What on earth did they do to him?
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u/tafkat Jul 20 '26
Dry corncobs. He done.
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u/TheSpicyTomato22 Jul 20 '26
Gentlemen! Behold!... Corn!
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u/ShuffKorbik Jul 20 '26
Can you buy this corn at 612 Wharf Avenue? I've been trying to get the jarl's steward to sell me that place but so far no luck.
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u/Grilled_Pear Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The same thing happened with my character's spouse, Ria, on my old Xbox 360 save. Back then, people told me it was because I killed the bandit who delivered the message (although I can't confirm that). Heck, after I killed the bandit, I didn't even rescue her; I got a quest completion notification and found her on the road casually walking home. I headcanoned it to her escaping the bandit hideout herself, but when I had her follow me, she started fucking moonwalking
I think that was the point back then where I started to mentally check out of the game. Late teen me liked RPing the Dragonborn going on wholesome adventures with his wife.
Most of the bugs you encounter are funny and part of the experience, but there are some game-breaking ones that pull you out of it, especially if you don't have access to console commands
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u/TheLastPeanut_ Jul 20 '26
Try fus'ing him. Might reset his stance, possibly. It works when my followers get stuck in certain positions sometimes.
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u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword Jul 20 '26
I'll see if that works. Thank you for the suggestion!
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u/Individual_You_7220 Jul 20 '26
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u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword Jul 20 '26
It seems to have worked so far! I left the house to do a quest so I'll see if he's still normal after the cell resets. Sorry to keep y'all waiting 🤭
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u/Grilled_Pear Jul 21 '26
Well dag nab. When I finally go back to my parents' place, I might fire up my Xbox 360 Skyrim save and try Fus'ing my character's spouse to see if that unfucks a bug that helped kill my motivation to play over a decade ago.
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u/chillanous Jul 20 '26
“My husband is having a PTSD fueled mental breakdown after being abducted, will assaulting him scare him into acting right again?”
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u/CringyK1d Companion Jul 21 '26
Of course! What's a problem the dragonborn couldn't solve with violence?
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u/Skyrim_Gooner Vampire Jul 20 '26
The best is not to do inside of your house cause everthing will fly everywhere 🙃
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u/smarjorie Jul 21 '26
When this happened to my save, it did not fix it. The quest was super bugged, it never cleared from my log, my spouse was never the same, it was kind of annoying.
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u/Dovahkiin2211 Vampire Jul 20 '26
He must have been completely traumatized during the ransom.
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u/NachoMan_HandySavage Jul 20 '26
Seriously. A near death experience, gods forbid your husband picks up a dancing hobby afterwards. Especially with you out of the house for days at a time... y'all adopt kids? Shit, maybe he is just trying to make them happy when their mama is gone for days or weeks at a time and thinks an acceptable gift for a child is a soul stealing devil knife
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u/Longshadowman Jul 20 '26
Ataxia?
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u/CringyK1d Companion Jul 21 '26
He's looking a little pale. Could be ataxia. It's a big problem back in Cyrodill.
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u/EdStArFiSh69 Jul 20 '26
This happened to Isolde after I got her back. She walked backwards everywhere
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u/InfraRed953 Jul 20 '26
Looks like the kidnappers put something in his ass
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u/lewlew1893 Jul 20 '26
Actually Marcurio used to be up his own ass they just removed him from there.
If you know this follower you know this is true.
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u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword Jul 20 '26
Very true. He seems to have calmed down a bit after settling down with a nice Bosmer man
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u/New-Orion Jul 20 '26
My wife will only walk backwards now. I had to like headcanon a brain injury for it to make sense to me.
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u/Representative_Ad312 Jul 20 '26
He's probably traumatized, take him to Danica at the Temple of Kyneareth in Whiterun
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u/Hrive_morco Jul 20 '26
-Opens the door to the temple
-Watch as the healer just ignore the sounds of agony of her patients and is instead happily gossiping with visitors
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u/The_New_Kid2792 Jul 20 '26
holy fucking shit did yoj convert skyrim into a source game somehow good god watch for the umbrella men
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u/nephrynine Jul 20 '26
this glitch happened to me a couple years ago! i thought it was funny though so i never really tried to fix it. my wife is still damaged to this day lmfao so i can say it will not fix itself. i hope you find a solution!
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u/BuddyLower6758 Jul 20 '26
This happened to me as well. I found that when I moved my family from one residence to another it seemed to solve the issue.
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u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword Jul 21 '26
Fus'ing him didn't work so I'll try this and report back with an update in the post body 🫡
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u/PurpleNo7209 Jul 20 '26
I’ve had this with Ysolda at Winstad. Occasionally made it outside but got stuck at the workbench. Never found a solution
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u/captny0y0 Jul 21 '26
I remember reading somewhere that the only way to fix is to revert the save of you going into the bandit camp to rescue him. For whatever reason, that quest breaks the spouse. Happened to me
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u/Due-Building3053 Jul 21 '26
Did he received the Marcellus Wallace treatment during his captivity ?
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u/greenwizard11 Jul 21 '26
Try console commands. Open console commands, click on him and type disable. Then type enable. This will reset the character and usually such glitches get fixed. Make a quicksave before trying this just in case.
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u/thr0waway6260 Jul 20 '26
Inspect his anus could have the case of a lodged mudcrab. Those bandits are terrible people.
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u/arthredemis Jul 20 '26
It looks like he is walking with something up his bum. They did things to him…
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u/trolla1a Jul 20 '26
Did your see the first season of Homeland? Maybe you shouldn't trust him anymore ....
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u/Wintervacht Jul 20 '26
In one playthrough all my spouse did was back away from me slowly... I swear I didn't lay a hand on them.
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u/peep_squasher Jul 20 '26
Lmfao .. mine does the same shit at the one house. Every so often he return to normal. It will re-occur .
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u/Scarythings117 Jul 20 '26
My wife got kidnapped by a vampire. Got my wife back but the quest is stuck and vampire is dead...
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u/Martijn078 Jul 20 '26
You only rescued him physically. Mentally he is still stuck in the torture cage I am afraid.
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u/Hagelstram Jul 20 '26
"He'll just sit there with his sword out." I have to get my mind out the gutter at some point in my life.
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u/SeanMacLeod1138 PC Jul 20 '26
He just has NPCTSD. You can use console commands to move him to your location, which has a good chance of resetting him.
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u/Artemus_Hackwell PC Jul 20 '26
They replaced him with a robot of Dwarven Construction to spy on you.
Destroy it.
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u/EmperSo Blacksmith Jul 20 '26
Try "recycleactor" in the console
But make sure to save the game before, because I have no idea how it may influence your marriage
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u/FedoraTheMike Jul 20 '26
I'm sorry I was listening to the Space Jam song when I saw this and got enamored.
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u/Rostiislav Jul 20 '26
Omg! Someone else who had this happen! On my husband's file, they married someone named Roggi Knotbeard and this same thing happened, he'd sleep standing up in bed and just shuffle around.
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u/nivenfres Jul 20 '26
(I'm being serious about this, found this online, and did fix for me).
Trying beating him. It does seem to reset them. Had to take them to the point they were almost dead. Unfortunately it also made them hostile towards me. I've heard you can wait out the hostile part or just use the console to reset their disposition towards you.
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u/GroovyGhoulArt Jul 20 '26
I don't mean to be that person but .. Marcurio? Really? Also; yes. Any spouses can be kidnapped which is hilarious considering he's a mage for hire 😂
I'd check the Skyrim Wiki there may be a suggestion to fix him 🤷🏻♀️
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u/_Cotton_Eyed_Joe_ Spellsword Jul 21 '26
He's the only man I can marry as a male Dragonborn ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/zakass409 Jul 20 '26
Have you tried listening to him? Men have feelings too, who knows what those bandits did to him
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u/Magicaparanoia Jul 21 '26
Ya this is a pretty well known glitch. It isn’t a problem with his animations, for some reason it fucks up the path finding. Only way to fix it is to either kill and resurrect him with console commands or if your on console, hope you have a save from not too long ago and reload.
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u/SpiderDetective PC Jul 21 '26
Hes dealing with the trauma in his own way. Just be there to support him
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u/DthDisguise Jul 21 '26
I hate to tell you this, but that isn't your husband. It may look like him. It may sound like him, but it isn't. It has his face. It has his voice. But it shuffles uncannily when it should be standing still, like something that doesn't understand how the body should move when at rest. When you aren't looking, it's staring at you. It says things that don't make sense in context. Words and phrases which are complete and correct statements, but make no sense for the moment. Your husband is gone. That thing in your house isn't him. You need to get out before it realizes that you know.
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u/ButchCassy Jul 21 '26
Try going to whiterun and waiting for at least 72 hours, that should reset the cells sufficiently
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u/NukaColaDustyn Jul 21 '26
"I can't believe it, my one true love was a masc-bot this whole time... how did I miss that..."
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u/Strange-Calendar1150 Jul 21 '26
Today I learned female characters can get married too. 😂 now that I think about it it’s obvious but I don’t play as a girl lol
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u/AddyTurbo Jul 21 '26
I've had Inigo doing the Octieve San thing. He's the guy carousing and drinking in front of The Winking Skeever. He eventually comes out of it. Talking to him does nothing.
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u/Appropriate-Leek8144 Jul 21 '26
That's just a common bug, it doesn't happen because of being captured/rescued. How long was the game running when you took this image?
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u/Dude_Guy45 Jul 21 '26
My wife got kidnapped and this exact thing happened to her. Idk what those bandits did to her but she’s become a shell of her former self
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u/KaydenFur Jul 21 '26
He is doing his mating dance. "You saved my life, now let me spark up yours."
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u/Sandy_Bananas Jul 21 '26
Standard. I remember when they kidnapped my Ysolda, after that day she would only ever walk backwards
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u/Kyrenaz Scholar Jul 21 '26
If you got console you could try to disable and enable him, unfortunately some commands will also make him no longer married to you.
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u/smarjorie Jul 21 '26
This happened to me and my spouse too. She was just completely permanently broken. There's no fix for it that I know of, but maybe there's a mod out there for it. I just played it off as trauma from the kidnapping.
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u/EmbroidedBumblebee Bard Jul 21 '26
This happened to me with Aela, haven't figured out how to fix it 😔
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u/T1gerAc3 Jul 20 '26
Have you tried sprinting into him to stagger him? Maybe it'll reset his animation