Political Views and Relationships

I’m sure after reading any sort of Facebook posts from me, you’ve discovered that Dennis and I are on slightly different levels when it comes to politics. Or you haven’t because my life doesn’t remotely matter to yours, which is far more likely than anything haha. I like how full of ourselves we get sometimes to assume everyone wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I wonder what Cassie is wearing and what she thinks about the morning after pill.” Anyways, my fiancé and I have been dating for three years now and are on different ends of the spectrum. Not complete opposite ends, by the way, we agree on a lot of topics. We are also both registered independent.  But he will occasionally argue for his side, and I will argue for mine.

This is where people have expressed their concern for the relationship. As someone who is friends, and good friends at that, with every political party I can say I'm not extremely concerned. I know I don’t know everything and I’m not some sort of special relationship expert. But I would be far more concerned if I only hung out with one political party, refused to hang out with another, and then refused to date someone with slightly different beliefs than me. CNN actually did a pretty good article about this 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/health/kerner-politics-sex/index.html

I’ve read many different studies on what married couples fight about most often, and they are all-in-all brought down into these five:

1)   Finances

2)   Sex

3)   Housework

4)   Work

5)   Children (if applicable)

There are enough things in our future marriage that we will be fighting about (like everyone does) that will be far more important than what he believes about embryonic stem cell research. And no, I’m not saying that we’ll never fight about politics. That’s just one of those differences that we’ll have to put a red light up about. But we’re not afraid to talk about it. Why? Because I’m sure as heck not going into marriage with a wall built up between us. For example, I don’t walk into marriage afraid to bring up certain political issues out of fear that we’ll start a huge fight and/or he won’t love me any more. While this seems like a negative thing, the good news is, I need him in that area. He keeps me open to opinions and helps me realize the other point of view. He also keeps me sane. Without him, I’m sure by now I would have been chained up naked to a tree somewhere trying to keep some random company from tearing it down. Without me, he may not have ever made his gay friends at work. What would be a concern is if one or both of us were so set in our ways that we refused to open up our eyes to the other individual. Then we would have a problem. If he thinks I’m being too closed-minded, he’ll tell me. And I respect him for that. Seriously, I listen to him when he thinks I need to change something in my life. We don’t name-call, judge each other, or assume other facts about each other. We both have similar MCAT scores and GPA and enjoy a good discussion from people who are very similar in intelligence (as weird as that sounds). It’s actually pretty fun for us. Trust me, I would much rather be talking about politics than whatever Betsey Williams did at work that day that was just oh-so-bitchy. In fact, having differing opinions keeps the conversation flowing.

Others having different political viewpoints than me does not make me hate them or think less of them in any way. The only time I get annoyed is blatant name-calling. There’s no reason to be hurtful, and it’s probably a good sign that you’re losing that debate anyways if you can’t think of anything better to say than to call someone an idiot. We all have different belief systems for own personal reasons. However, if you think I’m being an a-hole, inbox me. Really, I’ll take it. Having discussions is what the greatest philosophers and leaders of history have done. Of course, people can go overboard and not shut up, myself included. If you have more than fifty comments on your status or if you’re putting up the same status as a bajillion other people, it’s probably time to end the discussion. Otherwise, I really don’t see anything wrong with discussing beliefs, politics, or whatever bugged you that day. It’s a heck of a lot better than “today I saw a bunny.” Debate can be good. Name-calling is not.  Being pugnacious on a daily basis might not be as good either. I’ve had to catch myself quite a few times putting four or five negative statuses up in a row bashing whatever thing I saw at school. It made me come across as hating my university and hating my life. Same thing with politics- it can turn many people away since they see you as more of a threat. As a Christian, Timothy urges us not to engage in unfruitful controversy, which can include many debates I’m seeing. It’s really up to you to decide whether what you’re talking about is going nowhere and is unfruitful and tearing people apart, or whether it is something that should be discussed at that particular time. Above all, learn to be optimistic as well. The world is not ending tomorrow because so-and-so was elected to whatever position.  

What’s most important to me in my relationship with my fiancé is that we respect each other. We have always been best friends and talk to each other about everything. But when it comes to the honeymoon stage, the lovey dovey feelings do not last forever. I will always listen to what I have to work on, what he wants out of the relationship, and what is important to him. That’s pretty dang rare to find in a couple. We all think we are right all of the time. But opening ourselves up to a differing opinion and understanding each other’s viewpoint is really not as bad as it sounds. Part of the reason I’m so used to doing this in other areas of my life is because we have different political views and I’ve already made a habit of putting myself in his shoes. I listen when he talks about finances, work, whatever because I’m used to doing so and respect him. Sometimes I’m wrong.