To think that my DH and I are growing apart due to political differences?

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DH and I met 15 years ago. We were both fairly liberal and centre in terms of politics and subsequent discussions were amicable. Fast forward all those years and he’s turned more to the right, whereas I’ve gone more to the left.

We differ now about almost everything: Brexit, refugees, unions and strikes. I feel that he’s become a real Tory bore to be honest. Has this happened to anyone else? Obviously we do try and be respectful of each other and have good debates about politics but fundamentally I feel that we aren’t as close as we once were. He’s a lot older than me too and he has become cynical, grumpy and argumentative whereas I’ve got a lot more energy and vitality to me. Sometimes I really crave a decent left wing professor to spend my evenings with. (Partly joking about that, but you get the gist)

That is absolutely not the premise though. I am not saying that having a different view on any big issue makes someone not a decent person. Fwiw, DH and I differ on lots of issues, big and small. However, we share the same basic values which mean that we inevitably share similar perspectives on certain issues.

I am not talking about people having different opinions. I am not talking about people having views that I just think are wrong. I am talking about people holding views that I personally find immoral.

Now, I am not asking you to agree with me that voting Tory is immoral. If you feel that it is morally acceptable to inflict so much unnecessary suffering on the most vulnerable in our society, then I respect your right to hold that view. I just wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with you. But the point is that I consider that choice to be an immoral one, and therefore it would not be tenable for me to stay married to someone who held those views.

You say that you would respect your spouse/partner even if they held views that you considered to be immoral. I find it extremely hard to believe that this is actually true. Sure, you may not care if your partner votes Tory or Labour or whatever, because unlike me, you might not regard this as a moral issue, but there must presumably be a line somewhere that you would draw to say, no, this is not OK, I cannot tolerate this. No?

For me, someone voting Tory has crossed that line.

This makes me laugh and makes me embarrassed that I once used to fall for Labour =good Tories=bad.
The longer you live, the more you realise that all politicians are as bad as each other.
Most people who vote Conservative are paying a lot of tax willingly and yet we are accused of standing by and doing nothing.
Did you notice the levels of support (furlough etc) during covid from the Tories? I really do not think Margaret Thatcher would have provided as much support. They kept the social fabric together and we are now dealing with the consequences of such largesse. It was the right decision though so I will give Johnson and Sunak credit for that.

'For me, someone voting Tory has crossed that line.'
How can democracy function if everyone took your view?

You just need experience of social services to understand.

Sure, you may not care if your partner votes Tory or Labour or whatever, because unlike me, you might not regard this as a moral issue

At long bloody last! This is precisely the point I’ve been trying to make. No, I don’t regard it as a moral issue.

That's not a counterpoint at all, I deliberately picked some instances where differing viewpoints could be opposed on the most serious "moral level" possible.

You've quite literally repeated the premise.

I do appreciate that you somehow still believe in "tories vs labour" in the current year, though. You got that across, for what it's worth.

So, there is literally no moral line that your partner could cross that would ever make you rethink your relationship?

Wow.

You're right, I did just repeat the premise because I mistaken assumed that everyone has some kind of moral standard that they wouldn't be willing to compromise on in a partner. I stand corrected, and accept that some people don't think morals matter.

Yes, I completely understood that from the beginning. I was merely making the point that, while it might not be a moral issue for you, it is for me. And as such, it matters to me.

Exactly. And it isn't just the anti-democratic tendency of it ( we have the secret ballot to cancel that out ) - it's the sheer entitlement people feel to judge others morally based on them voting with their own conscience.

We could certainly all do that - but people with any common sense understand: everyone has to make the decision themselves and do the right thing as they see it, which most people do.

This public monstering of other people based on a kind of external caricature you made up for them is bloody idiotic tbh. Exactly the same people who would have been doing the same to minorities a few decades ago.

I don't think democracy relies on people marrying people whose views they consider to be morally reprehensible?

I am not arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to hold whatever views they like. And within the parameters of the law, they are free to express those views freely and vote for whoever they like. That's democracy.

It isn't antidemocratic to express the opinion that I have moral objections to those views and that I would rather not spend too much time with the people who hold them. That's also my democratic right.

Yes, everyone has the right to make up their own mind about how to vote. I have not once argued against this, and I never would. I believe in democracy even though I sometimes despair of it. I do not seek to impose my choices on anybody.

But equally, everyone has the right to decide what is important to them in a life partner, and that's what this is about. It isn't about forcing a partner to vote in a particular way. It is about assessing the extent to which you are compatible as a couple. For some people, shared values are important. For others, they clearly don't matter.

Ultimately, this is my personal choice about my relationships. I'm not asking anyone else to make the same choices. Frankly, I couldn't care less about your relationships, and I don't understand why you're so bothered about how I conduct mine.

So why did you say it wasn't the premise, then? Was that just chaff to confuse the issue?

There will be issues that come up during the course of a lifetime together, ethical discussions that were not even discussed at the beginning. At times, they will be deep matters of conscience, rights or life and death, and perfectly reasonable people might land on opposite ends of the issue.

Are you suggesting that it is impermissible for people you know, or even a partner, to take a view you consider immoral and express it? If they consider MAID fine and you think it's murder, then open discussion emdangers the relationship? They have to be careful not to have immoral views? Not to shake the "assumption"? Have you made this obvious?

I think the outcome of that might not be what you think it is. Certainly people will seem to agree with you on the big issues, so there's that :(

I said it because you seemed to be implying that I was saying that any disagreement was unacceptable. For the sake of clarity, I'm not arguing that.

I think there is room for healthy debate and disagreement on complex ethical issues, and that's fine where both partners perceive that the issue is not clear cut. But where it is clear cut for one partner and they act on those beliefs in a way that is likely to impact other people, then I think it becomes difficult.

If, for example, I had an abortion and my partner believed that that made me a murderer, I don't think there would be a future in that relationship. I would not want to stay with someone who thought of me in that way, and I doubt that they would want to stay with me.

I believe that the vast majority of people - clearly not all - do have lines that they would not cross.

some people don't think morals matter

No, some people aren't you, and that's a different thing. Most people have their own conscience and view of the world, and when considering their position (or their vote) try to do the right thing. This idea others are these morally low "creatures" if they take a different view on the big issues is destructive both because it's hostile to them, and because it short-circuits any mental effort to understand why a good reasonable human being might totally disagree.

You think you're expressing moral superiority but you're actually exhibiting ossified absolutism.

And no, contrary to what you are trying to imply here, I don't feel the need to impose my opinions on my husband in any way. We are able to express ourselves freely and honestly, we are able to debate and disagree. There are no attempts to control on either side.

Our relationship is founded on shared values. To put it simply, that is one of the things that we like most about each other. Despite coming from dramatically different backgrounds and having very different approaches to lots of things, we have the same fundamental ideas about what is important, how you should treat people, what's right and what's wrong etc. We both consider those shared values to be incredibly important. So if it started to emerge from our various discussions that our values were starting to significantly diverge, then that would be a problem for both of us.

So assuming your partner isn't an idiot, it stands to reason you don't know what they really think about that issue. Or any other ethical deal-breakers.

If we accept personal ethical standpoints, making up one's own mind as something inherent to thinking, feeling human beings (because it is anyway), we should probably accept that good reasonable people can reach different conclusions, and that these things may still be up for discussion if we want them to be... and not leap to considering people immoral, murderers etc

I disagree that most people try to do the right thing when they vote. Lots of people freely admit that they vote out of self interest rather than conscience.

That's entirely their choice but it does not accord with my values or what I would look for in a life partner.

As for being absolutist, well, yes, maybe to some extent. I do believe that there is such a thing as right and wrong. It's often complex, but I don't really buy into the relativist position that anything goes. Like I say, most of us will have lines. We just draw them in different places.

And with that, I'm off to bed.

I’d process them more quickly so they can go on to become useful members of society and add worth and diversity to our economy. At the moment we are paying to house them like animals. They want to be able to work, support themselves and become a part of the community, stop treating them like the shit on your shoe. We desperately need teachers, doctors, care workers, hospitality….the list goes on, and their English is usually better than the majority of the British work shy who cannot string a sentence together and are basically unemployable.

Hey now.

In the 1990s/2000s I wouldn't have cared if a partner voted Tory (although the NHS was in a absolutely shocking state in the 90s before Labour turned it around). John Major had a lot going for him, not least he paid a major roll in the NI peace process, I also felt he had integrity.

This lot of Tories though, I don't know how anyone with any decency can vote for them.

It's happened between my brother and I. He has done quite well for himself and it seems to have completely changed his views. I find it hard to be in his company now actually.

Thing is, I've done quite well for myself and the older I get, I'm in my 50s, the more left wing i become. I just can't ignore the extreme poverty and dismantling of public services under the Tories.

Yes I can understand that. He is more of an I'm alright Jack kind of person.

Can I just throw something in here to all the 'Labour is good/Tories are bad' proponents?
What if your best friend said she had been spending a lot of time hanging out in the Feminism section of Mumsnet and she now thought, like JK Rowling, that the Labour Party's policies are a danger to Women's rights (how can you protect women if you cannot define them?) and child safeguarding (Tavistock scandal, kids being trans'ed in schools etc).
She has looked into it and finds that all the parties in England (Labour, LibDem, Green) want the electorate to believe that 'transwomen are literal women'.
Only the Conservatives do not say this (and some of them do e.g. Mordaunt but it is not policy) and they are now rolling the incursion of anti-science 'gender identity ideology' back in many areas and did not proceed with self-id when they looked into it.
This is your best friend's principled reasoning for putting her X against the Conservatives in the marginal seat you live in?
How do you react? Do you call her a bigot?
Or do you accept that she may have a point?

Assuming you have kids you want to help get on the property ladder, you may find projecting forward to your lump sums from private pensions (not state pensions) at say age 60+ that the Labour party's 'politics of envy' policies are distinctively unattractive for you personally. Or you may not?
Whilst happy to pay higher income tax than we do at the moment to help wider society, I am not keen to be prevented from helping my children get on the property ladder as Labour has mooted with restrictions on how much you can gift your kids within your lifetime etc.
Nor do I want to have to pay an annual wealth tax on my mortgage-free property.
Just a thought. As you age you have more to 'conserve' usually.