This year’s presidential election is one of the most important of our time, and emotions are running high. You’d like nothing more than to hammer a campaign sign smack in the middle of your front yard. The problem? Your spouse wants the other guy to win. Can you navigate through the red-blue divide this election season without damaging your relationship? And what about that other touchy subject – religion? What if the man of your dreams is no believer, but you are? Check out LifeScript’s eight tips to keep politics from wrecking your relationship...
He’s Jewish, you’re Catholic. He’s a Democrat. You’re voting Republican this year. Could your differences be a deal-breaker? No question, it’s tough to grow a loving relationship when your belief systems are poles apart. But it’s not impossible, as some celebrity couples have proved.
Republican strategist Mary Matalin and her Democratic consultant/pundit husband James Carville seem to make it work. They’re well known for their fiery on-air political debates, but their pugnacious public persona doesn’t seem to hurt a marriage that’s known to be strong and supportive.
The same goes for California’s First Lady Maria Shriver, a Barack Obama supporter married to Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who backs John McCain for president. How did they handle the campaign sign debate? Pillars in front of their Brentwood, Calif., home sport dueling signs.
“I think there are great benefits to having kids grow up understanding that we do not live in a one-party system,” Shriver told the New York Times. “That there are two ways at looking at an issue. To be patient, and to compromise, those are good lessons not just in politics but for life.”
And it’s an excellent lesson in marriage, says licensed therapist Nicholas V. Tornatore, Ph.D., of Brooklyn, N.Y. When differences are handled well, they can actually enhance your partnership and your life, he says.
Differences, be they political or religious, “will definitely test the strength of your convictions and symbolically represent the trust in other values in other areas of your life and relationship,” Tornatore says. “How are you willing to deal with differences about the environment, where you want to live? What about finances?”
Relationship expert Alison Armstrong agrees. Armstrong, who leads national workshops on gender relations (www.understandmen.com) says the 2008 presidential election has, for the first time, put her and her husband on opposite sides of a campaign.
Her husband is an ardent McCain supporter. She, meanwhile, cruises around with a bumper sticker on her car proclaiming, “Republicans for Obama.”
Yet the disparity in their political allegiances has done nothing to harm their relationship, Armstrong says. Her husband, she says “supported me fully in giving money to Obama’s campaign because it reawakened my passion for politics when he came on the scene. So he’s totally supporting my self-expression and passion and meanwhile praying Obama doesn’t get into office,” Armstrong says with a laugh.
Tornatore and Armstrong offer these tips to grow and protect your relationship in the face of challenging differences.
1. Be honest about what’s important to you. “If you’re not totally honest with yourself and your partner, the issues that are hidden in the interfaith or political factor will come up in the marriage [and] will begin to default the marriage because they weren’t looked at truthfully in the beginning,” Tornatore says. Discussing the issues up front will likely make it easier for each of you to respect and support these differences in one another, he says.
2. Know what to expect from your partner’s family, especially if strong religious beliefs are involved. Even if your parents love your chosen mate, they may demand you consider someone else because of their own strong beliefs with a particular faith.
“The couple has to inform the parents that even if they don’t want to agree to this union, they must accept the fact you’re going to go ahead anyway,” says Tornatore, a Catholic who has a Jewish wife. “The couple should state (to the parents or other relatives) that this is a mature, loving relationship and that neither of them is looking for denial of the other’s faith,” he advises. And then, he says, you have to follow through by putting the relationship first.
3. Don’t dismiss your partner’s opinions. “Anytime you have conflicting values, opinions or needs, the mistake people make is invalidating the other person,” Armstrong says. As women, we tend to “either invalidate what the other person needs, telling them, ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’" Or you may do the opposite and subordinate your own opinion and needs. “We’ll think what’s important to him matters more,” she says. “He’s the breadwinner; he’s the boss so what he needs matters, mine doesn’t.”
Neither works, Armstrong says, because you’re left with the residue of self-sacrifice and resentment. Instead, adopt the position that both of your opinions are valid, that you both have good reasons for believing what you believe, she says.
“So you have to consciously begin from the position that we’re both sane, intelligent people, and we both have the ability to gather information and truth.” And never, ever resort to name-calling, she says.
4. Separate differences in politics and religion from the person. It’s not likely that a couple will share similar beliefs and be in agreement on all issues – especially when it comes to politics and religion. The key factor to keep in mind, Tornatore says, is that you most likely didn’t fall in love with your mate for their religious or political beliefs. “A political dissention does not involve a question of loving a person. It just represents a belief system,” he says. “Don’t discuss religion and politics unless you’re mature and really willing to deal with the sense that there are strong emotions involved and that you may not come to agreement in the end.”
5. Expect serious soul searching. “Be sure that you absolutely discuss what aspects of your religious beliefs cannot be adjusted,” Tornatore says. For instance, if you or your mate comes from a family who disapproves of interfaith relationships “the strength of your relationship will be tested and validity of your convictions and faith will be tested,” he says.
Expect that and talk about it. “Interfaith couples should take the time to discuss with one another and understand the strength of your beliefs and goals regardless of any body else’s opinion,” he says.
6. Know when not to compromise. It’s important to show compassion and consideration toward your family members and their desires about your religious, spiritual or political choices, Tornatore says. Ultimately, you must stand firm and protect your goals and desires as a couple, especially in the religious realm, he says. Ceremonies, practices and religious events in your home are yours (and your mates) to determine and those choices must be honored. “Because if you’re going to adhere to compromise with a parent, that parent could be manipulating – through faith – the goals of the marriage, and they have no right to do that," he says.
7. View your differences as a learning opportunity. Celebrate these potential relationship challenges as a gift for growth. “Respect that difference in your partner as a symbol of trust in the relationship, the partnership and in yourself,” Tornatore says.
The difference in political opinions allowed Armstrong and her husband to support and celebrate her reawakened political passion to such a degree that he even supported her financial contributions to Obama. “It’s a cool opportunity to learn about each other, to find out who each other is and find out what really matters,” she says.
8. Agree to disagree. Not every belief you hold will be held by your partner, and that’s just fine. “A political dissention does not involve a question of loving a person,” Tornatore says. “It just represents a belief system.”
Don’t discuss religion and politics unless you’re willing to deal with the strong emotions involved, and in the end, you may not come to an agreement. “At that point you say to the person you love, ‘We’re just not going to be able to have a resolution, and we should let it go because we have passionate differences and we’re not going to come to an area of understanding’.” And using the word “we” is key, Tornatore says. “Include yourself in the fact that you can’t come to resolution.”
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