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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel silly to admit this, but [b]I feel duped or almost lied to by this family[/b]. Granted this is my fault because I assumed in my liberal area of NoVA that everyone thought like us. Small minded and dumb of me I know!

I’m just angry I guess that my kid still has to grow up in a world where people hate me and who I love.

Spiraling through the stages of grief right now.

— op[/quote]

OP, please re-read your own post here. Try to step back from emotion and read it as if it were a stranger's post. Can you see how it sounds, to say you''re "angry" and in "grief" and that people (you mean, these neighbors) "hate" you--when they have, by your own admission, never once exhibited hate? And you are basing anger, grief and sadness at hate on a single car magnet? Can you see how you are extrapolating a vast amount of negativity about them based on nothing but an assumption of your own?

The bold, about feelling "duped or almost lied to" -- Did they say they're not religious and then they now admit they, what, sneaked off to church? They did not dupe or lie to you in any way at all. Unless you consider their cordial, neighborly behavior to be some kind of deception designed to draw you in and then--what exactly? Pounce on you and berate you? They have not done this.

You seem to be clinging to some kind of anticipatory defensiveness. I get that you have your guard up especially in today's polarized world (and I have an LGBTQ+ adult child, so...yeah, I get it). But you are contributing to the problem of intolerance when you turn your neighbors into a stereotype instead of seeing them as individuals, who have treated you in no way that dupes or offends you. You're seeing offense in advance of any offense actually occuring. You want them to see YOU as an individual and your child and partner as unique human beings. Afford them the same grace and don't make assumptions.
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