There’s only one type of year that brings more drama than a “Desperate Housewives” season finale, and that’s an election year. And the drama doesn’t just stay between the candidates. A presidential election also causes relationship drama for those lucky enough to be dating a member of the opposite political party.
My boyfriend Ben and I are some of the lucky ones. I’m an avid supporter of one political party, while Ben is a die-hard fan of the other. Now, usually our political difference are no big deal, but during an election year, it’s all whole other story. It’s like our opposing political views are being rubbed in our faces 24/7. There’s political drama on Facebook, on the news, on commercials, in newspapers. It’s everywhere. And it feels like we’re swimming against the current, trying not to drown in our political angst. But sometimes, we give in to political temptations and it goes a little something like this:
“How could you support that?!” “You know his stance on immigration, right?!” “Do you know you’re backing a liar?” “Why do you want a dumb wall?” “How can you trust her to keep our country safe if she can’t even keep her emails safe?” How can you trust that cheese puff?! How can you trust a woman who can’t satisfy her man?!”
We can throw the low blows all night long, and some nights we have. I can’t even tell you how many nights we’ve gone to bed angry, incredulous over each other’s political beliefs.
We’re secretly both convinced if the other will just listen to why we support our candidate, then the other will simply change their mind.
Well, that hasn’t worked yet. And to make matters worse, we each think the opposite party’s candidate is the worst of the worst, or as Ben puts it, the “anti-Christ”--I know; he’s a wee bit dramatic.
So here you have it--two people who’ve been dating for three years, and who generally agree on most topics (religion, football teams, family values and so on) with the exception of politics. Go figure.
Ben and I have had to been extremely careful not to let the election crumble our relationship like the crumbly presidential runs of Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders. So, after a little incident when I bought a political bumper sticker for my car--which I must note, Ben REFUSED to let me put on my car--we decided to come up with some ground rules:
1. No political paraphernalia (ex, bumper stickers, t-shirts, flags, etc.)
2.No checking each other’s Facebook accounts.
I would hate for Ben to see my news feed, stuffed with his political arch nemesis’s photos and statuses.
3.No checking each other’s emails.
again, I would hate for Ben to see my inbox, filled with donation pleas from the hated politician.
4.No checking each other’s phones.
I can’t risk Ben reading my ranting text messages, complaining about how ridiculous his political beliefs really are.
Basically, I hide my phone from him. Because--let’s be real--our political truce only applies to each other’s face. Everything is free game behind the phone screen and the computer screen.
At the end of the day, it’s the politicians that we can’t stand, not each other. I’m not going to lie, it’s been rough having such a popular subject that we can’t talk about with each other. But we love and care about each other enough to respect each other’s beliefs, well…to each other's face at least.
