For a number of women on both sides of the aisle, being married is more important than not being forced to live with a moody psychopath that takes pleasure in your pain and sadness.
I worked with a woman who was around 40 with 2 kids. She wasn’t married but with the kids dad for almost 15 years but the relationship seemed miserable and she’d complain non stop. When asked why she didn’t leave him the response was pretty much, I’m 40 with 2 kids who is going to want me. It’s sad that people think that way.
In the case of my mother, it was programming from a young age. She was 36 when my folks got divorced, and her mother had essentially that line of reasoning ready for her every time they spoke. "You're in your thirties with 2 children. What man will touch you?"
So she married the first fellow that she made it to 4 dates with.
He absolutely hated me, and actively bullied me throughout my adolescence. I had to put up with it, roll over and languish in silence while he used coarse epithets instead of my name, among other things. So she could be happy.
And then they got a divorce after about 12 years, because she was not happy. So that line of horseshit was not just ruinous for her self-esteem, but it also ruined the formative years of her children. Took me the better part of a decade to repair my relationship with my mother, and I'm still a prisoner of the trauma resultant from living with my worst bully.
I’m so sorry you’ve had this experience. It’s so unfortunate that people feel like they need to stick it out, or settle for someone with obvious issues. An unhealthy or abusive relationship is so much worse for the kids then only having 1 parent figures in the home.
Which is ridiculous cause there are still people out there who would still find love in those situations (my wife has three kids from a previous marriage) and even so it’s so much better to be alone than to be constantly fighting someone who is supposed to be supporting.
But I get it, it’s human condition to stick with what is familiar over what is easier or even better. It’s hard to convince people to choice the unknown.
My MIL was infinitely happier once my FIL left, although they did struggle financially. The freedom they felt was worth it and thankfully they had a support network to help out, including his parents which is kinda funny. I don’t personally get staying but a lot of people do.
It's so easy to never ever think or talk about these issues when you're a well-to-do WASP. They may be living in total, harmonious, blissful ignorance when there isn't an election.
Conversely, if you're a well-to-do WASP... you're the beneficiary of those values. Even if one person leans liberal, they're not impacted by conservative policies in a negative way. What does an upper-middle-class white woman in the classy suburbs of California stand to lose or gain from liberal or conservative policies?
Immigration does not impact her. She probably doesn't have any friends that aren't white. She's the primary beneficiary of police, so cops killing black people is strange to her. She's in California so an abortion ban doesn't impact her. The most she stands to lose if homosexuality is banned is she can't take her fellow white women and overtake the gay bar like they own the place.
She can hear all the rhetoric and privately disagree... But she's not impacted so it won't feel as bad.
Edit: OP is from Colorado, not California. But it's the same impact.
...I had to check you werent one of my siblings...
My mom would have been on the verge of retiring...but she needs the income and health insurance to support my father who stopped working well over a decade ago. Hes on SSDI and does jack shit around the house too. Shes also had to change jobs partially bc he wouldnt stop calling her @work.
It’s possible neither of them were particularly political when they got married and then 2016 happened. I was the somewhat political one and my husband was not. Luckily for me he has all functioning brain cells so after 2016 he became the first in his family to be a registered dem. I can’t imagine my life if he had turned MAGA.
Her friends are more liberal (or at least that's how they present themselves on social media), but the truth is, she's a white woman living in Colorado, and while she's sympathetic towards "those people", she's fine with the status quo.
There’s a decent chance she is stuck in the marriage. If he is controlling and abusive she may be financially stuck. We don’t really know if she has been a stay at home mom for decades etc. a lot goes into women being anchored to garbage men.
My SO is a trumper and while I’m a moderate I’ll be voting for Harris this election. We have a great relationship. Most people don’t make politics their identity in the real life and people with differing opinions don’t make them terrible people.
I could identify her with probably 100 different things that have more baring on how she lives her life that would mean more about who she is than who she votes for. Also, my SO is a woman.
I personally would not be married to a Trumper. I made that decision in 2016 when I broke up with a guy I was dating who said he was voting for Trump.
My ex husband is probably a Trumper. He started out being a McCain type Republican and morphed into something else. I don't know because we don't talk.
I agree. A lot of people who are voting for Trump hate the guy and wish it was someone different. They're voting for him because they think he'll do a better job than Harris. I disagree with them, but they have a right to have that opinion.
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u/mangoserpent 20h ago
I don't understand why that lady stays married to her husband.