My first relationship recently ended over politics. But it wasn’t just politics. Ending a relationship over politics is never just about politics. What are one’s political views if not a reflection of how they perceive and navigate the world around them? Or a reflection on one’s morals and values? My ex’s and I’s opposing views also exposed cracks in our relationship that I hadn’t realized existed in the early stages of our partnership and also showed that we do not deal with conflict well together, which is a major key to having a stable, healthy, relationship.
a literal conflict of interest
Tuesday, November 5th, Election Day, my now ex-girlfriend and I went on our last date together. We didn’t know it was going to be our last, but we had coincidentally decided to go to the same restaurant we went to on our first date. We didn’t talk about politics, and I didn’t ask her who she was voting for. Although I had made it known who I was voting for, I didn’t have a clear idea of who she was going to vote for. However, I wasn’t expecting her to tell me the next morning that she voted for Donald Trump.
I was crying to her over the phone the morning of November 6th over my disappointment over the outcome of the election, and frustrated at what she initially deemed as an “over dramatic” reaction, she said to me “I’m going to be honest, I’m having a hard time sympathizing with how upset you are, I think this is a really good thing and I’m glad he won, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I voted for him myself.” I was devastated and shocked; both because she had never spoken to me like that and because I wasn’t expecting a Puerto Rican lesbian like herself to vote for Donald Trump.
I immediately reached out to the people close to me because I didn’t know what to do. I had so much love for her, and I still do, but that is kind of a dealbreaker for me – both her choice of who to vote for and how she handled telling me. We ended up not speaking to each other for a few days and then planned to meet up. We broke up on the date of what would’ve been an anniversary for us.
understanding her perspective
I knew my ex-girlfriend came from a completely different walk of life than me. Our upbringings were drastically different, and that was evident throughout the entire relationship. I knew that her political views were more conservative than mine, and for a while, navigating our differences was something that was quite enriching for me. I learned more about the cultural and socio-economic circumstances that led her and her family to develop some of their views. I respected our differences, and I still respect a lot of them. I believe if you understand how some people develop different opinions through their personal experiences and cultures, we can get closer to understanding and having more empathy for each other, and creating unity and positive change is much more possible.
While this way of thinking is productive and should be used, it is exhausting to constantly have to practice in a romantic relationship. There are certain opinions she has that I cannot justify to myself, understand, or respect, no matter how much mental gymnastics I do. I shouldn’t have to break down our differences in my head in a romantic relationship because it is frankly exhausting. Sometimes differences, even cultural differences, can be too much for a relationship to withstand. And that is ok. That doesn’t mean I am intolerant or overly sensitive for standing by my morals and the standards I have set for who I befriend or date, and it doesn’t mean that I think she is a bad person.
what i learned
My ex and I didn’t deal with many conflicts before this event, so we hadn’t learned how each of us deals with disputes. The opposing ways we handle emotional topics were exposed. We didn’t work through this in a cooperative manner, and the way we deal with these issues isn’t compatible. So, while the particular topic of political differences happened to be what triggered the end of our relationship, there may have been a different issue that revealed the cracks of us later down the road, had she not told me who she voted for.
I’m still dealing with a lot of guilt over how our conflict was handled. I had a few people tell me not to “let politics get in the way of (your) relationship.” I am not a bad person or bad partner for sticking to my morals and values. A difference like that is too major for me to maintain a healthy relationship, and it is a good thing that I know my own boundaries and where I stand on these issues.
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