AIBU to worry about a growing political divide in marriage?

[Whatsahappening]

Changed accounts
Is there anyone else dealing with real political divide in their marriage?
I don’t want to go into all the back story but I have a husband who seems so fixated on migrants and drifting into right wing political views that I couldn’t be any further from.

I’m not a complete lefty but I focus solely on the things that matter more so (I feel) what is impacting women’s rights, my children’s upbringing and I am a huge empath and have really struggled with the current world events such as the genocide(s) happening within the world and genuinely fall to bits about it but the only passion I see from my husband is how enraged he gets around the ’impact’ the migrants have coming in this country - Which my view as a woman, is we have a far bigger problems within our own societies, within our own men/people in this country committing horrendous crimes, especially against women and children, yet not a smidge I hear around this!
There’s so much I could share on the matter but I fear it could be counterproductive.

I genuinely love my husband and we have had battle after battle recently.. I am insisting on couples therapy as we are arguing about this stuff in front of our children but I really need help from those going / been through this and can help with a resolution?

I know he has his own mind and should steer how he chooses but I need to figure a way that I won’t put so much emotion into this, that it could really pull on my marriage.

Thanks!

Why do you class someone with different views to you as a "bigot"?
Maybe you should try looking in the mirror !

And THIS is why people CBA with ANY debate with lefties any more.

First sign of anyone being concerned about the influx of 1000s of undocumented young men a month, who have zero in common with us and who share zero values with us, and they're racist. 🙄

Nothing to see here. Just tedious and predictable leftie hot air,,, 💤😴

@HaveCreditWillShop Thank you - Totally it, though I’m trying not to rally straight toward the racist point, as in every other way and angle in life, he just isn’t that :/ I guess, that’s part the reason I’m trying to get my head around some of these view points and focus.

I just wish that his views were based on some cold hard facts but nothing presented is ever well backed up.

Exactly. It's both hilarious and frustrating in equal measures that these lefties can't see how ignorant and bigoted they are. I literally cannot be bothered to argue with them. They call anyone who doesn't agree with them RACIST. It's embarrassing.

Funny how so many Remainers 'lost friends' during Brexit. Couldn't bear people not thinking like them. AND NOT AGREEING WITHE THEM!! Go figure. 😆

@Whatsahappening by constantly arguing your case, you’re feeding his ability to remain down the rabbit hole.

My H went down the rabbit hole during Covid, he swung from being hyper vigilant with wiping everything down to the whole thing is a hoax etc… the hoax narrative would drive me mad, especially when he refused the vaccine. In the end I knew this was completely out of character for him. I told him let’s not discuss this topic as we don’t agree and if he did bring it up, I’d say yes dear and change the subject. The topic was given no oxygen to survive.

The discussions stopped and we got on with life happily.

This ^
Shabana Mahmood is facing electoral challenges in her Birmingham seat from Independent candidates opposed to Labour's Gaza Policies.

It's crazy that a situation 2,000+ miles away is now encroaching on UK politics.

Its not always that easy not to discuss it. If he's typical of those with these views, then he's probably a bit of a ranter who never misses a chance to go on about it.
You only have to look at this thread to see what that looks like. The OP is asking how to handle the difference of opinion, and straight away people use it as a chance to rant about 'fighting age men' rather than advise on managing political differences. Its like an obsession.
If this is what the OP is having to contend with, then that's incredibly difficult.

Sorry @ThatSunnyCrow, I don’t think even entertained ending a marriage?

I’ve come on for advise on how to stop it becoming a problem… Just as anything finances / attitude / behaviour can all contribute to a problem, we are two people that have found ourselves in a real differing of opinion over something that is actually quite big and we both have strong debates when discussing which can lead to arguements. Never mentioned I was going to bladdy leave him, I just want to improve our communication! Jeeeeez…

I feel sometimes people read and truly build a whole narrative themselves. It’s a bone of contention yes, as many things are. I want to be able to figure a healthier way.

Urgh my husband was being fed all that shite through his algorithms on X. Every day would be a new “have you heard about this?!” rage bait story which was absolute bollocks. After a couple of weeks he deleted the app because he realised he was literally being fed lies and was making himself look silly by buying into it.

I didn’t say you had said that but other posters have.

Thank you! I think there is something in that… Not giving it oxygen is a good visual :)

Can’t EVEN with this.

This is so true! Im a teacher for one and have loads of liberal and lefty friends whom I love to the core, but myself, a straight up tory!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
breath of fresh air in the suffocation of judgement :)

it’s exactly that and so funny you’ve mention ‘fighting age men’ it’s exactly what he stated today ><
… But absolutely yes, I need some solace in removing these views from tarnishing thoughts and feelings.

What does that mean ??

Umm, okay - I ask that you please base your opinion on my post.
Other people build their own narratives.

If he’s that great can’t you reason with him. The numbers arriving have fallen off a cliff in the last decade, they’re a tenth of what they were.

people need to ignore the daily mail, ignore reform - it’s all actual fucking lies.

I did. You didn’t like it. Seems to me you want to convince him he’s wrong (which I think he is). But if Brexit taught us anything it’s that people don’t like being told they’re wrong, they don’t come round to your way of thinking, they dig their heels in and become even more determined to vote for what they want. Hence my suggestion to just stop talking about it.

What's lies, specifically ?

I feel strongly about politics but I find it hard to relate to that causing issues in a marriage, because surely the relationship should trump any abstract confict?

Can you not treat your husband as an object of interest who you might learn from, and agree to disagree on certain topics where you find you have little common ground?

I would say that if women’s rights are an area of interest for you, the topic of migrants and the treatment of women in their countries and how this has in the past translated to their treatment of women here and may do so in future must surely be of some relevance for you?

Maybe left wing views are just less annoying? You don't get your average mainstream leftie screeching about NOT seeing immigrants as the root of all ill, do you? Or working themselves into a tantrum about NOT wanting to cut peoples benefits?
Because not selecting a group to rant about isn't as annoying as selecting one.

maybe because he isn’t actually a racist and genuinely thinks that men from societies where there is a high level of control over women means that if they see a woman walking around outside they think she’s fair game whether she’s interested or not. The problem here is a theory of mind gap, you can’t empathise with his position because you think anyone objecting to male refugees must on some level be a racist and thats the only explanation. He can’t understand why you would be (in his view) be willing to put women and girls in the UK at risk because you have more empathy with men than you do with women (theorising here).

I don’t want to litigate your disagreement with your husband but to me It’s interesting how big the gap is between how women in those countries see their countrymen and how western white women (I’m not white) see them. It’s fascinating, I know several women married to Egyptian men for example who are otherwise perfectly normal blokes (not particularly controlling etc) but would never ever let their wife walk the streets of Cairo alone due to the level of street harassment, they genuinely fear for their safety. Hell my egyptian friend doesn’t like travelling without her husband in a lot of areas.

Massive cultural gaps exist they are very real and they have a real world impact on women. On another thread somebody seemed to float the idea that chrisitan arabs would be fine with sex outside of marriage or a child out of wedlock. It’s amazing to me that people don’t get how different value systems are and that they are very very real. Look at India, women are genuinely murdered over dowries. Many places practice FGM because fundamentally a woman being able to experience sexual pleasure is basically at risk of becoming a whore. I was on twitter and there was a saudi man complaining that girls were now going to coffee shops and actually laughing in public (shocking I know). Now imagine how that man sees women who walk around wearing shorts with bare arms and their hair out.

Ofcourse there are plenty of lovely normal arab men who aren’t weird about everything but people often carry their cultural norms with them. A lot of times they can be positive, deeply family oriented, giving to charity, public behaviour, gulf arab men often have the loveliest of manners towards women in public. BUt sometimes it is very dark and the attitudes towards women are often frankly shocking.

Actually the original quote is bang on in my view! Censorship comes from leftwingers rather than rightwingers, do you not think?

What do you think he’s getting out of this OP?

I totally get your frustration with guys who never raise a squeak about violence against women and girls usually, but when they’ve found eg a Somalian guy has done it all hell breaks loose. Surely it cannot be that they truly think rape is ok if done by a good old white British guy, but you’d think that was the case with the relative amounts of outrage. It’s sick IMO.

But in terms of your question, I would try to think what is in this for him. Is he feeling past his prime and a bit threatened by the idea of young men generally and this is just one aspect of it? Has he found an online community he enjoys being part of which amongst other things involves sharing these views?

I do also think it’s worth giving people some credit - as we all know we have enough violent men in the UK already and none of us actually want to import more. I think the difference of opinion/accuracy is a) the idea that successive governments just aren’t bothering to try to prevent illegal immigration b) the belief about how many immigrants v Brits of the same age/sex are violent, and of course c) people’s piss poor understanding of the difference between immigrants/asylum seekers/illegal immigrants. But the first bit could be common ground if you’re looking for it.