Update on my political disagreements with my husband.

[angledge]

I should've written this two weeks ago. I had a huge crying blowout with A*, not long after I posted my last post here. I more-or-less spewed that rant at him, particularly the part where I said that it hurt to know he didn't believe in climate change. He was... bewildered, to put it mildly. And he stopped me in my tracks by pointing out that he had never heard my arguments on climate change... because we have an agreement in our marriage that we do not discuss politics.

I felt a little stupid at that point.

So then I said, I would like to tell you why I believe in climate change & why it's the major driver of my voting decisions. But in the interest of fairness, is there a single topic that you think I'm misunderstanding that you would want to explain to me? And he said, I'm not trying to change you.

I felt a little horrible at that point.

We do have an agreement - no politics. He's abiding by it & I'm not. He knows I don't share his views & he loves me anyway. Why am I struggling so much to embrace that same attitude?

Comments

[shirenomad]

You're struggling because it's NOT politics to you, it is literally your job. You know what you do is based on fact, that it is proven, and yet your husband, by categorizing it as political in the first place, is saying that "everything you do at work is bogus" is a valid position. A position he holds, and is actively blocking your attempts to talk him out of.

If you were a doctor, and he considered vaccines (or other medical procedures) political, it would be the same problem. Same if you were a geographer and he didn't want you to try to convince him that the world wasn't flat. Or, to flip it around, if you were a Christian preacher, and he were an atheist, it would be unsustainable for him to say "I don't want discuss politics" and say that belief in Christ was political.

I don't know what A* does for a living, but he might grasp your frustration if you ask him what he'd think if you considered the importance of his position a matter of opinion (or an outright con) and didn't want to be told otherwise.