Disagreeing about important values

[ScottishDiblet]

Hello,
Is anyone else in an otherwise “good” marriage where you don’t agree with each other on key issues or values? For examples we voted differently on Brexit and we both feel really strongly about it. I’ve really tried to see his point of view but sometimes I think we must fundamentally be too different. And yesterday I re-tweeted Hadley Freeman’s article about trans issues and this led us into a discussion where suddenly my DH said he didn’t think gay people should necessarily be allowed to be parents. I find this statement really shocking and completely disagree. I find it hard to debate topics like this because there are so many emotions involved. Are we just too different? On other things eg right to die we do agree.

I think it depends on how committed you are to being with someone who shares your values or if you can brush it off to an extent. For me, it would be a dealbreaker. My dh and I are very similar in terms of values and beliefs. I couldn’t have even dated anyone with conservative values. My profession is in a typically very progressive field, many of my close friends are gay and trans, can’t avoid taking a stance on key social issues because of my work, so someone who doesn’t also support those things literally wouldn’t support me and my career. So no other option. Thankfully my dh is as progressive as I am.

But my mum is fairly liberal (not as much as me) but my stepdad is very conservative (they live in the US and he voted for Trump!). They disagree but it works for them because my mum won’t rock the boat and largely just defers to him. She won’t talk about it with him and is pretty much just happy to concede to whatever he says as she doesn’t like conflict. It works fine for them, but I think it only because she prefers to keep the peace rather than express herself. But they’re happy with that.