DH voted leave but can't articulate why

[DifferentViews]

Sorry if this has been done before, but i need to get this off my chest and perhaps get new insight or come to a better understanding, so i can discharge some of the anger i feel.
So, i voted remain and he voted leave. Up to a point, i am prepared to accept we have different political views and can move on.
Talking to him last night, i asked, knowing what he knows now, would he still have voted leave and he said yes.
Cue a long discussion as to why and really he has no real idea what he was voting for, or what he wanted. Its just so woolly...he wanted change, but can't articulate what that would be.
It was just a knee jerk reaction to not liking the current situation and wanting things to be 'different'.
Its just made me so angry that he would still vote that way again in spite of all the evidence that things wont be 'better' out the EU.
His argument is that we don't know whether it might be better, so that gamble is worth it, but i am really struggling to see his point of view.
Please, can someone give me some idea how i can come to terms with this, so i am not consumed with impotent anger at him? Thank you.
Ps this is not meant to be a goady post against those that voted leave, if you have a well thought out argument and honestly believe it, that's great.

StroppyWoman
The thing I don't understand about a Leave vote, it why disbelieve the vast majority of experts in their fields?

These would be the experts from the remain side? Not the ones from the leave side?Also aren't these the ones that have said that they may have been harsh in their estimations(para)?

It feels like Climate Change deniers claiming there are two sides to the argument.

Seems to me that main ones denying the other side of the argument are remainers.

As an outsider steff13 you don't get the impact in the country.

Not all leaver voters are racist. However, many racists have taken comfort from the leave vote and feel validated by it. Racist attacks have risen in the U.K. as a result (in part) of the leave vote.

Racist views and attitudes which may have been thought previously but were unspoken are now being discussed openly. Many, many posters discuss family members now being open about racist views and attitudes.

As a Remainer it is easy to look at the casual racism that is popping up and blame leave voters because many racists will identify this way.

Lots of leave voters are not racist. Lots of people voted for leave for reasons not in the least racist. Many people feel the EU FOM was racist and we will have a more open immigration policy but this subtlety was lost on many. What was more apparent was that lots of racists did vote leave and feel empowered by the result.

As you can imagine this is extremely distressing and destructive. Family's are being torn apart.

Do Remainers feel morally superior - I certainly feel that racism is wrong and any succour or comfort sent to racists is wrong.

Ok Kennehora. Yawn. Have a nice day.

Voters don't need to be able to articulate why they voted in a certain way, but normally a referendum is held to ratify a course of action which has been planned in detail (and where the government holding the referendum is behind the change). This time, there were a huge multiplicity of possible courses the government could take in leaving the EU, so working out what motivated the vote was probably quite an important step in working out what to do next, if there is to be any semblance of the voting pubic actually having a say in an important part of national policy. Discourse and debate and rationality are important parts of democracy as well as free and secret ballots.

Why would you vote on such a huge decision if you were going to emigrate and have it not affect you?

TBF to Britwife, I did similar. I voted in the GFA ref just before I was due to leave NI. I did it because I believed it was best for NI. However it was a properly, legally binding referendum. With rules about each side having to be truthful during the campaign and had set a clear % majority in order for change to occur.

It was very unlike this "advisory" referendum which had no rules, is not legally binding and is a debacle that has severely damaged this country. The Conservative leadership sacrificed us for the sake of their party.

Well we can't do anything about it, so not sure why posters keep opening new "stirring" threads?

@StroppyWoman at 16.03 there is so much wrong with your post that I don't even know where to START,

And

@BritWifeInUSA

I haven’t read all of the comments so this may have been mentioned before.

I voted to leave for 2 major and one minor reasons.

Firstly, the EU as it is now is not what we agreed to join. When my grandparents voted in the 1970s in the referendum it was to join the “Common Market”. It was a trade agreement. They voted to join. I would have done too, had I been a voting-age adult at the time. I have no problem with being part of a trade agreement.

But over time the Organisation changed behind our backs without our involvement or agreement. This is not what my grandparents signed up for. I think if any society or club of which you are a member changes the aim and rules of the club, you have the right to leave. If the majority of the British people want to be members of the EU, I will accept that.

But we should join by mutual decision. Not join a trade agreement and then suddenly find ourselves involved in something completely different...

Secondly, I have an issue with people who don’t live in a particular country, don’t pay taxes there telling the people that do live there and pay taxes there how to run the country. Laws that impact on the lives of British people should be made in the UK by the UK.

My minor reason was that not being a member of the EU never harmed Norway or Switzerland. They benefit from the trade agreements without the shackles of bureaucracy that the EU involves. So why not leave?

I didn’t vote based on immigration. I didn’t interpret the leave message as a promise that the NHS would get £350 million a day - I saw those adverts as a way of helping people to visualize how much it costs and what sort of things we could do with that money in the UK.

Excellent post. 👍🏽

Actually I think the op is abusive

FFS .

Why is it that so many MNers seem intent on completely minimising and undermining the word "abusive" by using it so flippantly? It's so incredibly insulting to victims of actual abuse. The OP asked her DH why he voted leave because she didn't understand his decision. Maybe he didn't like being questioned about how he voted or maybe he wasn't bothered, we don't know. But even if he didn't like it, even if he was actually quite upset by it, that still doesn't make it abuse! Just because someone says or does something that another person doesn't like, that doesn't automatically make them an abuser! It's not a word that should be thrown around so casually and it's becoming an all to frequent occurrence on these boards.

How on earth is it abusive that a spouse wants to know the reasons why their partner voted the way they did in the most important vote of our time? if tout can't talk about that with your chosen life partner, what the hell?!

@CeciledeVolanges

Voters don't need to be able to articulate why they voted in a certain way, but normally a referendum is held to ratify a course of action which has been planned in detail (and where the government holding the referendum is behind the change). This time, there were a huge multiplicity of possible courses the government could take in leaving the EU, so working out what motivated the vote was probably quite an important step in working out what to do next

This, with spades on. This, 100%. We literally DO NOT KNOW what Leave voters were voting for! To Leave, yes, but to go where? And how much prosperity, safety and autonomy did they sanction us to sacrifice, for how long, to achieve it?

Thank you for putting it so clearly.

That's why I keep asking. Not "to be goady". Not "because nothing will be good enough". But to understand what we are actually supposed to be doing about that Leave vote.

@americandream unfortunately BritWifeinUSA's posts has several factual inaccuracies in it. These have been pointed out by several posters.

Norway and Switzerland have the majority of EU bureaucracy.

The EU was not changed 'behind our backs' Thatcher signed the SEA and JM signed Maastricht. Both treaties were debated and voted on in the HoC.

Ive read and re-read my op and i cannot see where i have been abusive.
At no point have i said he couldn't or shouldn't have voted to leave, i have not harangued him or even argued with him. We had a conversation where i asked why he would still choose to vote leave, knowing what he knows now and even though he was clearly trying to articulate his feelings, he could come up with no coherent answer.
I felt angry that such a monumental decision could be made with no clear opinion, (not that he has to share it with me, but he was clearly trying to join in the conversation by offering his thoughts on why he voted as he did).

I think gamerwidow summed it up well earlier
I'm very much a remainer but he has given you a reason which is that in his opinion the 'that gamble is worth it and everything will work out better in the end.
It's not an opinion I agree with but it is his vote to use as he chooses. All you can do is present the evidence that actually we do have a pretty good idea of what leave will look like and the odds for the gamble are extremely poor. If he doesn't accept this then that is his right.

And a few others have tried to help me come up with ideas as to why he did as he did - that his opinion was based on his feelings etc.

Those that have offered advice have helped me, so thank you.

He was generally dissatisfied and thought things might be better if we tried something else. To you it seems like a poor reason. But I think many people will have voted this way based on general dissatisfaction with the way things are. Probably mostly nothing to do with the EU at all.

Honestly, how is it NOT a poor reason when you've just said that it was probably nothing to do with the EU at all? It was a vote on leaving the EU ffs!

I'm not angry at anyone who voted leave. I'm angry that people can live through the last 3 years and still think that we'd be better off on our own, being run by Westminster and those shower of fucks, enjoying our "sovereignty" with no oversight.

most people vote in every election pretty much on their gut feeling

@BritWifeinUSA

I didn’t interpret the leave message as a promise that the NHS would get £350 million a day - I saw those adverts as a way of helping people to visualize how much it costs and what sort of things we could do with that money in the UK.

Yes. That was the big lie.

The lie was never that the money would go to the NHS - most people understood it just as you did - that that was one possible use of the money we would save.

The lie was that the money would exist at all after Brexit.

The truth is that what we "save" in EU contributions is dwarfed by what we lose across the economy through impact on GDP.

Our GDP has already gone down by more than our EU contribution and will go down further when we leave.

(BTW £350M a day comes out as 128BN a year. I have no idea how that relates to the UK 2018 contribution which was about 13 bn post rebate - would very much welcome clarification here)

Ive read and re-read my op and i cannot see where i have been abusive

You haven't, OP. Utter nonsense. Don't give it another thought.

DH and I both voted Remain but if he had voted leave I would absolutely want to understand why that was. If you think someone that close to you is on your wavelength politically it can be unsettling to find out you differ on an issue of such importance. It's only natural to want to understand their reasoning and just as natural to feel frustrated if you discover that the don't appear to have put much thought into their decision!

I was very surprised to find out my DM voted Leave. Like a previous poster on this thread, she has said she would have preferred a third option to 'remain but reform' rather than the binary choice we actually got. She had her reasons though, which she shared with me and although I don't agree I have tried to understand. We're very close and I really don't want to fall out with her so we stay away from the subject now as we both know neither of us will change the others mind.

LTB

Why is it that so many MNers seem intent on completely minimising and undermining the word "abusive" by using it so flippantly? It's so incredibly insulting to victims of actual abuse.

I agree - the word "abuse" is becoming meaningless on MN. It's distasteful. Unfortunately, when I read a thread that references an abusive ex nowadays, I'm automatically sceptical. I hate feeling that way, but I can't help but wonder if the "abuse" consisted of something like asking her not to smoke while pregnant with his child (yes, I have read threads where that has been described as abusive).

It's like "grief" and "mourning", both of which now get used at the drop of a hat. There was a thread a while ago about a woman who was hysterical because she'd wanted her husband to tell her the baby's sex after the birth, but the sonographer blurted it out during a scan. She walked out without even checking if the baby was healthy, and cried so much she had to be taken a quiet area usually reserved for bereaved couples. One poster actually told her to "grieve for the loss of the moment when your husband would have told you the baby's sex".

Have asked for this thread to be moved to the Brexit posts.

americandream post 16:39 your post with copy and past from BritishwifeintheUSA is exactly why I voted to leave, said much better than I could articulate.

Have asked for this thread to be moved to the Brexit posts

Have you been through the front of AIBU and requested other posts that aren’t in the “right” place be moved?

@Aeroflotgirl as I said previously it's interesting that you support Britwifes post when it has been pointed out several times by several posters it contains factual inaccuracies.

These are the reasons several posters voted leave and they are wrong. Clearly, not true.

The post has several points in it that are factually incorrect and this causes no concern in leave voters. This is one reason why remain voters get angry and upset.

The truth is now irrelevant to some people.

Ooooh, he sounds dreadfully working class, OP? (shudders)