Being a liberal or a conservative doesn’t automatically make anyone a respectful, kind, thoughtful, and supportive human being or partner. It’s a great mistake that our society has in more recent times ascribed this meaning to being of one political affiliation over another. I wish it were that easy to be a solid human being with strong values and integrity but it just isn’t.

I don’t think it is inherently an issue to be of opposing political views. In fact I think it can be really interesting. I do think your core values need to align though but this is above and beyond politics. For some politics is the end all be all, but not for many.

My DH and I have different political opinions and I think we have a strong marriage that we continue to work on everyday. I am also a POC from an immigrant household and he is white and grew up with a lot of privilege. A lot of issues that have come up in recent years have actually helped us have some tough conversations and develop more empathy and understanding for each other.

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Anonymous wrote:Depends on how much conservative (more center or middle would be ideal. )- and find out his views on children, abortion. Been married to a conservative last 16 years and have to say they make great husbands and fathers long term.

please. Conservative men don't believe in equal housework and childcare.

I grew up in a conservative household.

Liberal men are much more aware of women's rights than conservative men, who really don't care much about women's rights.

Also, the highly educated tend to be liberal.

Totally disagree. “Conservative” can apply to a lot of different types of people. My parents are what most people here would call conservative (observant Catholics who are pro-life, don’t support gay marriage, etc) and have an equal marriage. My dad respects my mom’s career and has always been her #1 supporter, encouraged her to go back to school to get her masters, etc. He was and is an incredible, hands-on father and now grandfather. I saw this dynamic in many of the households in our social circle growing up, which was made up of highly-educated Catholics like my parents (ie conservatives).

My highly educated observant Catholic parents are not conservative at all, are pro-choice and support LGBTQ+ rights and the environment. Your Opus Dei circle does not the Church make.

That said, OP, the people saying "this can work" are pointing to examples from generations past and a time when politics was not so very polarized. Look at the women telling you "I cannot speak to my spouse anymore because he has been radicalized by Fox News" (and then for a laugh, the conservative man saying "conservative men are live and let live in relationships" because he doesn't realize terrorizing your wife into silence is not peace), because that's the current situation.

I'm having a hard time believing that a person who works in women's rights would even post this topic, though.

OMG, drama much? The idea that your garden-variety Fox-watching conservative is “terrorizing his wife into silence” is some sort of bizarre feminist fever dream. How many married people do you know? The idea that any of the married guys that I know could or would “terrorize” their wife into anything is beyond absurd.

Women's lived experience = drama. Shocking.

I don't mind people having republican views. To each their own. However, if they were pro-Trump, pro Marge Green, pro Tucker Carlson, etc. I'd stay the hell away and judge them harshly.

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Anonymous wrote:Depends on how much conservative (more center or middle would be ideal. )- and find out his views on children, abortion. Been married to a conservative last 16 years and have to say they make great husbands and fathers long term.

please. Conservative men don't believe in equal housework and childcare.

I grew up in a conservative household.

Liberal men are much more aware of women's rights than conservative men, who really don't care much about women's rights.

Also, the highly educated tend to be liberal.

Totally disagree. “Conservative” can apply to a lot of different types of people. My parents are what most people here would call conservative (observant Catholics who are pro-life, don’t support gay marriage, etc) and have an equal marriage. My dad respects my mom’s career and has always been her #1 supporter, encouraged her to go back to school to get her masters, etc. He was and is an incredible, hands-on father and now grandfather. I saw this dynamic in many of the households in our social circle growing up, which was made up of highly-educated Catholics like my parents (ie conservatives).

My highly educated observant Catholic parents are not conservative at all, are pro-choice and support LGBTQ+ rights and the environment. Your Opus Dei circle does not the Church make.

That said, OP, the people saying "this can work" are pointing to examples from generations past and a time when politics was not so very polarized. Look at the women telling you "I cannot speak to my spouse anymore because he has been radicalized by Fox News" (and then for a laugh, the conservative man saying "conservative men are live and let live in relationships" because he doesn't realize terrorizing your wife into silence is not peace), because that's the current situation.

I'm having a hard time believing that a person who works in women's rights would even post this topic, though.

OMG, drama much? The idea that your garden-variety Fox-watching conservative is “terrorizing his wife into silence” is some sort of bizarre feminist fever dream. How many married people do you know? The idea that any of the married guys that I know could or would “terrorize” their wife into anything is beyond absurd.

Anonymous wrote:What does conservative/republican mean to him/you? My deal breaker issues are aligned views on abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, and systematic racism is a real thing. If he's going to disagree/debate with me on those, I'm going to feel like he thinks me/my friends aren't human and/or don't deserve fundamental human rights and not be able to be rational about him in other areas at all. Other issues that I feel strongly about but am less emotionally close to personally like gun rights, the role of law enforcement, taxation, the role of government, immigration policy, etc it would depend how far on the republican/conservative spectrum he was and if we both were able to respect each other and our respective opinions on these subjects.

NP. The above post is a good yardstick for thinking about this. Things don't have to be as black and white as "all conservatives are bad." My DH is in law enforcement and those who know him on the surface would assume he's conservative, and he is, in many ways. But he also is a huge believer in personal privacy and individual agency, and thinks it's insane for "conservatives" to be anti-abortion--he sees abortion as an intensely personal choice where government has no business at all, and he does not see it as a moral wrong, either. He is sort of the same about LGBTQ+ issues; he doesn't "get" the fuss but that's largely because he says, again, it's simply no one's business how anyone else chooses to identify or partner or love. And again, he does not see a moral wrong in anyone being LGBTQ+ either--he's got Christian faith but is not a religious conservative. He was against gay marriage, figuring people could "just live together if they want," until I laid out for him the idea of people being unable to make medical decisions for or even visit a partner who was in the hospital, if they were a couple but unable to marry, etc. It makes a huge difference that he has a close relative who came out as lesbian and that at first floored him, as she'd been married to a man, then he made real efforts to understand how she had sublimated that side of herself for many years.

Oh, and he hates Trump with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. He hates liars and frauds, and from the very first time Trump even mentioned running for office, he loathed Trump because, as he puts it, "Regular people have been fooled into thinking this man understands their lives and cares about them when he doesn't and never would." Yeah, he despises Trump and the whole Fox News world. Thank God. He says he's independent now, not Republican. He, like me, is old enough to remember the days of centrist Republican lawmakers who believed in bipartisanship and who were sometimes fiscally conservative but socially more liberal, or at least believed privacy was more important than legislated attacks on personal decisions like abortion.

This is a sad thread.

I have a family member who is super left and married to someone moderately right (libertarian, conservative anti-trumper). They work it out somehow-and sometimes their views overlap, they are both free speech advocates for example. She has lost a significant number of friendships-either because people cut ties with her because of him or because they said negative things about him and she cut them off.

Do you believe that a person who votes R or describes themselves as, conservative also prescribes to the most extreme views of the party? I sure don't. I date women who claim to be liberal Ds and some of them have been as extreme as the most extreme while most have not. You have to figure it out. Being a fiscal conservative, in favor of things like, border control are things we should all agree on. If you can't agree on at least some topics and your views on nearly everything are polar opposite then it won't work.

I'm not for: Trump, banning abortion, denying gender differences, etc. Not all of us are. I'm certainly not an election denier. That said I won't be voting for a D for president unless they really nominate someone good. I don't see that happening next time around.

That said, I'll admit right now I will lie or kind of lie by omission to get laid. Politics don't matter to me in the bedroom.

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Anonymous wrote:Depends on how much conservative (more center or middle would be ideal. )- and find out his views on children, abortion. Been married to a conservative last 16 years and have to say they make great husbands and fathers long term.

please. Conservative men don't believe in equal housework and childcare.

I grew up in a conservative household.

Liberal men are much more aware of women's rights than conservative men, who really don't care much about women's rights.

Also, the highly educated tend to be liberal.

Totally disagree. “Conservative” can apply to a lot of different types of people. My parents are what most people here would call conservative (observant Catholics who are pro-life, don’t support gay marriage, etc) and have an equal marriage. My dad respects my mom’s career and has always been her #1 supporter, encouraged her to go back to school to get her masters, etc. He was and is an incredible, hands-on father and now grandfather. I saw this dynamic in many of the households in our social circle growing up, which was made up of highly-educated Catholics like my parents (ie conservatives).

My highly educated observant Catholic parents are not conservative at all, are pro-choice and support LGBTQ+ rights and the environment. Your Opus Dei circle does not the Church make.

That said, OP, the people saying "this can work" are pointing to examples from generations past and a time when politics was not so very polarized. Look at the women telling you "I cannot speak to my spouse anymore because he has been radicalized by Fox News" (and then for a laugh, the conservative man saying "conservative men are live and let live in relationships" because he doesn't realize terrorizing your wife into silence is not peace), because that's the current situation.

I'm having a hard time believing that a person who works in women's rights would even post this topic, though.

Anonymous wrote:Conservative, like old school Reagan type? Or a "Conservative" as in current GOP politics?

I can tell you after 20 years of marriage to a man who was a Conservative when we married (I'm a middle of the road Dem, not a Progressive and a Joe Manchin-type probably represents my ideals best), but has since gulped the Fox News kool-aid and is now an election denier, thinks Jan. 6 was no big deal, Tucker Carlson is right about everything, it can be a nightmare. I can not discuss anything political with him because he's grown so extreme.

Holy crap. I just posted almost the exact same thing. This is so true to my experience.

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman that is pretty progressive and liberal and works in gender equity. I've been on a few dates with a conservative/republican. He's super respectful, but do any of you see any long term issues or have any experience? We are both agnostic.

Conservative here: sadly I think the world has become too polarized. Men, in general, tend to be live-and-let-live on political issues in their relationships, but IME women often tend to see political disagreements through the lens of “our values are not aligned” and all of your progressive female friends are going to react the way a lot of the people in this thread have, which is going to cause problems.

Oh, absolutely. When I look at conservative male politicians and all the laws they’re enacting right now, all I can think of is “wow, they really are a live-and-let-live bunch! Boy are they ever reducing the role of government in my personal life!”

Umm, reading comprehension check? I was talking about how men with conservative views think about political differences in the context of relationships. Obviously “live and let live” mindset is seldom found in politicians of any sort, as that field tends to attract those who want power over others.

that's because liberals aren't the ones trying to control men's bodies. If liberals forced men to have vasectomies, I'm pretty sure men would not want to date liberal women.

Yes, all those liberal politicians and their famous reluctance to tell conservatives what to do. Lol

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Anonymous wrote:Depends on how much conservative (more center or middle would be ideal. )- and find out his views on children, abortion. Been married to a conservative last 16 years and have to say they make great husbands and fathers long term.

please. Conservative men don't believe in equal housework and childcare.

I grew up in a conservative household.

Liberal men are much more aware of women's rights than conservative men, who really don't care much about women's rights.

Also, the highly educated tend to be liberal.

Totally disagree. “Conservative” can apply to a lot of different types of people. My parents are what most people here would call conservative (observant Catholics who are pro-life, don’t support gay marriage, etc) and have an equal marriage. My dad respects my mom’s career and has always been her #1 supporter, encouraged her to go back to school to get her masters, etc. He was and is an incredible, hands-on father and now grandfather. I saw this dynamic in many of the households in our social circle growing up, which was made up of highly-educated Catholics like my parents (ie conservatives).

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman that is pretty progressive and liberal and works in gender equity. I've been on a few dates with a conservative/republican. He's super respectful, but do any of you see any long term issues or have any experience? We are both agnostic.

Maybe. When my husband and I met/started dating I would say we were both moderate, with him being right-leaning and me being left-leaning. Over the years I'd say he went more right and I went more left, but more in the vein of James Carville and Mary Matalin. We simply believed in different avenues to address social and economic issues. Then he went all in for Trump. That was truly a shock and created a rift that I don't think will ever truly heal. We can't discuss anything remotely political anymore. When I post my experience on here I usually get some combination of people calling me a crazy leftist (I'm not) or suggesting we just "don't talk about politics." But I would not have married a person who refused to acknowledge that Heather Heyer was murdered at the Unite the Right Rally, or who seems to legitimately believe Biden didn't win the 2020 election and all the surrounding conspiracy theories, among other things. If I could have seen ahead to 2016 I would have left the marriage years earlier.

So I guess I'd say - have the hard discussions. It's one thing to think that program like affirmative action may not be the best way to address historic inequality. It's another to claim it doesn't exist and deride anyone who thinks it does as "woke" when using woke is a slur. I started out with the former and am now living the latter.

He is probably holding back a lot of insanity to keep you interested. Get away, run!

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman that is pretty progressive and liberal and works in gender equity. I've been on a few dates with a conservative/republican. He's super respectful, but do any of you see any long term issues or have any experience? We are both agnostic.

Conservative here: sadly I think the world has become too polarized. Men, in general, tend to be live-and-let-live on political issues in their relationships, but IME women often tend to see political disagreements through the lens of “our values are not aligned” and all of your progressive female friends are going to react the way a lot of the people in this thread have, which is going to cause problems.

Oh, absolutely. When I look at conservative male politicians and all the laws they’re enacting right now, all I can think of is “wow, they really are a live-and-let-live bunch! Boy are they ever reducing the role of government in my personal life!”

Umm, reading comprehension check? I was talking about how men with conservative views think about political differences in the context of relationships. Obviously “live and let live” mindset is seldom found in politicians of any sort, as that field tends to attract those who want power over others.

that's because liberals aren't the ones trying to control men's bodies. If liberals forced men to have vasectomies, I'm pretty sure men would not want to date liberal women.