TL;DR: married Erik the Slayer. Kept him as a follower. Now he is a very repetitive sock puppet.

Ahem. Seriously though. I've had Erik as a follower for ages and ages now, to the point where I know pretty much all of his dialogue and what he says in certain situations. Now that my character's finally married him, though, he doesn't say any of those things. Most notably when I initiate a conversation with him, all he ever says is, "Still here." or "I'm right behind you.," which he never used to say before the marriage and is all he'll ever say now, as opposed to his usual bevy of greeting dialogues.

I'm also not getting any of his usual running commentary on places we visit/pass by, like forts or Forsworn encampments. Now he just stays completely quiet instead. As annoying as some of that commentary could get, it was also adorkable and part of why I kept him around, so having it disappear just because we're married now is...wrong.

He is in follower mode, and yes, I've tried sending him back to our house and then recruiting him as a follower again. Same problem. He's gone all pod person-y, and I don't like it one bit. Is this usual behavior for when you marry a follower, or has something gone and glitched out on me?

And if it is usual behavior for a married follower, is there a console command or a mod to fix it? Or am I going to have to roll back to a previous save and have Eira and Erik's romance remain forever unrequited?

The only follower any of my characters has married is Marcurio and he still makes all the pithy comments... IDK if they are all suposed to keep up the comments but I would certianly miss it if Marcurio didn't make his comments.

Spouses and Blades recruits are removed from the PotentialHirelingFaction so that you no longer need to pay them for their services. However, this also stops their commentary.

Erik the Slayer is not an eligible bachelor in the normal game.

Huh...I only had to pay Erik for his services once, the first time I hired him. Every time thereafter--I dismiss him every ten levels or so, disable him in the console, re-enable and then rehire in order to unstick his stats--he's always joined back up with my character for free. I thought that was normal hireling behavior. (Uh-oh. Nobody tell Erik how much Eira owes him in back wages. )

And is there a way to nudge spouses back into the relevant factions to get the commentary going again? Would I need to console him back into the CurrentHireling faction, PotentialHireling, all of the above?


"Normal"? In my TES games? Pffft.

Ahem. In all seriousness though, yeah, I know that. Or rather figured it out the second I got my hands on the Amulet of Mara. I'm on PC though, so I console'd him into the marriage faction ages ago. Didn't get around to marrying him until just today. From what you suggest the problem I'm experiencing has more to do with followers overall than it does my using the magical console wand, though.

After you dismiss a hireling, you have a one-day grace period where you can hire them back for free.

Sounds like you simply had the lucky chance of never letting that period expire, since it resets when they're hired back.

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PotentialHirelingFaction will re-enable the payment dialogue which will add the hireling back to the CurrentHirelingFaction; that will allow him to continue to use his unique lines.