My boyfriend and I have been dating for a few months now and everything’s great except one little thing. He’s a total right-wing conservative while I’m an hardcore left-wing liberal. He loves Donald Trump and I was more of a Bernie Sanders fan myself. But how much does it actually affect our relationship?
For starters, there are many discussions we choose to not have in order to save the relationship. When topics regarding politics come up, both of us get really defensive and sometimes mad at one another. There are many times that it feels like a chunk of the relationship is missing because we can’t talk about a huge topic. Politics seem to be in everything, after all.
As a feminist with very modern views there are many times that his very traditional way of looking at things makes me mad at him. While I retweet about feminist issues on Twitter, he retweets things about how feminists are “trash.” I’m starting to think we should just unfollow each other. We both view each other’s opinion as extreme because we are on completely different sides of the spectrum. Having completely different political views affects the way we have conversations whether it’s in person or over text. Sometimes he thinks that because he’s my boyfriend and the man in the relationship, he should have control. I argue that there should be no control in a relationship but rather we see each other as equals. He thinks it’s weird when I pay for our meal or swear, it’s unladylike in his eyes. Of course, I strongly disagree. He dislikes a shirt of mine that has a cartoonish sketch of boobs on it. I like the argue that the movement to free the nipple is one worth advocating for. Some of his views are racist, sexist and/or homophobic. It gets exhausting. I have to tuck away what I know and feel about whatever topic at hand in order to avoid an argument.
With all of this said, I know, my relationship sounds horrible. How is my relationship even alive and well? Is it alive and well for that matter? The old saying the opposites attract in relationships must be true. Often I don’t mind avoiding conversations about politics because there are so many conversations that are way more important. Things like where we want to go to college, or live when we grow up. What we want our careers to be like. Do we want to get married? Have kids? These are all more important than any election or political debate in my opinion. And hey, the 2016 election will be over soon and the Trump and Hillary memes that make us mad will all die down soon. Sure, there will still be issues that are important to me that I will want to talk about and he’ll tweet things that will make me mad but relationships are about compromise. Being polar opposites has taught me a lot about compromise and makes the times that we do have something in common even more special.
