Husband is unrecognisable

[phlebasconsidered]

My DH and I have always been different politically. We've managed it- it's fine to have different views. I'm left, he's Tory.

Or, he was. We have two nearly grown kids, 17 and 18. He's recently been spending more time in the back room watching stuff that i've pointed out is insane. You tube, Brit news or whatever that bilge is, I don't know where it came from. He's justifying his views by citing sexual assaults on white girls. He's basically transmogrified into a fucking idiot and I can't believe it.

We used to differ on economics, sure, but now suddenly he's a 53 year old fascist? I can't talk to him. His arguments turn me around. He's been radicalised- I recognise it from experiences in my profession. He says he's going to the march on Saturday. I've told him i'll go on the opposing one.

There's no way forward as far as I can see. As far as I knew he was still a loving family man but now I just see a big arsehole. He just circles around the phrases when I tried to talk to him.

I would just stand my ground and argue back- he's been a good husband and father till now, hitting mid 50s. But i'm in a job where if he goes and protests on Saturday and gets arrested, I will be compromised, asI work with children.

I need to distance myself. I'd really like to know i'm not alone I was hoping it was a bit of a mid life crisis, but I think he's just become a toral cock.

Wtaf am I meant to do. I'd rather he ran off with a younger woman tbh. I feel ashamed of him!

So, you think it's okay that 52,000 fighting age men have come in illegally in the past year? No papers, no ID, no idea if they are terrorists or have a criminal background?

HOW ON EARTH are you alright with this? Seriously?

They are not seeking asylum from dangerous countries - if they were, did they just leave their wives, mothers, sisters behind??

Come on now.

Wake up!

Your husband is right. Rapes have gone up by 800% in the last year, in towns where the asylum seeker hotels are.

If you think they aren't coming to your town soon, think again.

FWIW my DH was on the left for YEARS, and finally, even he is now realising this is fucking madness.

If I was him I'd leave you for being so fucking soft. Gah. Please, please, please WAKE UP.

Mark my words, 7/7 is coming again, and we welcomed the sleeper cells in.

He sounds like he’s turning into a knuckledragger

As a British Indian woman, who has seen and borne the brunt of a significant increase in racism in my everyday life since Farage and Robinson have been on the rise, it is thoroughly depressing that women will stand by their husbands who become fascistic in their politics. OP and some others on here talk about leaving their husbands only if they get arrested - so only if it affects them. So being racist isn’t actually a red line for you. It makes me genuinely fearful for my future and that of my mixed race daughter.

Agree.

History has taught us we should never ignore racism or fascism. It has to be fought (IMHO non-violently).

Playing devils advocate here, is it not extreme for Palestine supporters and their ilk to protest march every weekend? Is it acceptable for Pro Palestine marchers to racially abuse Jewish people? Is it acceptable to allow these marches to travel through known Jewish neighbourhoods?
No, of course it's not but somehow it's allowed and ignored.
If you're going to compain, disagree want with one side of an issue shut down, you must be prepared for the same thing to happen to the side you favour.
Fairness in all and all that. If you can't do this, keep your thoughts to yourself and move on.
Just my 2p's worth.

Why does he get to play it out loud if you don’t like it? Do you take turns with the TV? If not he needs to get himself a bloody iPad and headphones

People break up for all kinds of reasons. Where do you draw the line? Would supporting Andrew Tate fall under 'politics'?

Would overt homophobia fall under 'politics' or difference of opinion? How about your thoughts around abortion laws? How you talk about PIP and disabled people?

As I said, I wouldn't have ever married someone with vastly different political views. Me and my partner have some difference of opinions on some political topics and that's fine, but we're ultimately both very left leaning and politically aligned with each other. Some people don't care about politics. But I do. I do think a lot of people towards the left or centre of the political spectrum would be deeply unhappy to suddenly find out their partner supports Tommy Robinson, who, like it or not, non-supporters associate with significant racism and violence. I like to think my children wouldn't want me to stand behind a movement that was responsible for standing outside hotels full of people from war zones and setting them on fire.

For me, my political beliefs reflect a lot of my worldviews and moral outlooks. I wouldn't want to date someone with hugely different morals or worldviews. It's not 'just politics'. I respect different political views in wider society like the workplace, social settings, etc, and love a healthy debate, but there's no place in my marriage for anyone who supports the likes of Tommy Robinson/Trump.

Of course racism is never acceptable. Harassing, abusing or attacking people is never acceptable.

Peaceful protest is a fundamental right. Peaceful protest in support of human rights is surely essential in a civilised, humane world? Peaceful protest on the basis of racism should surely be peacefully challenged in a civilised, humane world.

That's really odd, because I live in an area which has a large non-native Brit population and there's been no discernible uptick in rapes and kidnaps by foreigners. Probably because the native population, white men, have got that area cornered.

Where are your statistics for this? Link some sources that aren't the Daily Mail/Express and their ilk.

Quite. Hasn't made the media at all, has it?

I get the issue. We can all have opposing views - my adult DC has very different views from me (much more left wing). It def comes from social media and since uni, we are all pretty centre left in this house so it hasn’t come from us. We v rarely talk politics or discuss other matters (gender) and that’s how we navigate keeping good family relations.

V different when it’s your dh w extreme right wing views and you have to ‘fancy’ him. Is there anyone in the wider family who he’d listen to? Going on a march is extreme and something you really have to feel passionate about. If he’s changed that much there are def grounds for divorce right there.

Thankfully dh and I have v similar political views - if he suddenly changed it’d really affect us as well.

Absolutely they are susceptible!!!

I’m so sorry to read this OP.

Sounds awful. I couldn’t live with that.

yup,, been thru it with my DH... very nice gentle person. Now a raging lunatic who is Trump follower, who follows many conspiracy theories and has called me names to his mates because I have "drunk the Kool Aid"... and am a sheeple. It's sad... my DH has just turned 60. I wonder if indeed it is the new "midlife crisis". It's weird... it's like flicking a switch and waking up with a stranger. One who sees the bad in everyone and everything EXCEPT in themselves. Sorry you going thru this OP.

I'm having a bit of this with my BF. He watches GB news and reads DM and listens to podcasts on YouTube. However, he also watches BBC and Sky news. He has quite strong opinions on immigration and all that is going on. But when we talk, what he says sounds reasonable. He doesn't go to protest or whatever and I do think you should be critically thinking of immigration. So for me it is not what he says but more like when it comes up. I'm in an observation mode if it crosses some line.

This.
Ironic that the OP who believes lefty propaganda castigates her poor H -whose thinking skills she denigrates- for being ‘radicalized’
No wonder the H orders to sleep
on the sofa -I wouldn’t want to sleep with someone who scoffed at my perceived lack of ability to think and not allow me to have a differing opinion.

Agreed. I don’t think being “university educated” is the kudos so many people think it is.

Anyone can go to uni and get a degree, some of the thickest people I know went to uni. It’s also a place of pure left wing indoctrination and radicalisation the last decade or so.

But most of you probably believe it’s only the right who can be radicalised for some reason?

Quite honestly, much of the left sound like they have been programmed. Same mantra over and over, like a robot. Then you have this huge software malfunction when someone has excellent points that your ideology can’t argue its way out from.

I'd imagine people who grew up with the Internet are less likely to fall for scams and send money to the USA veteran working on an oil rig.

There was a study that showed teenagers are more likely going to believe online conspiracy theories than adults. Gen z and millenials were the age group that struggled the most to recognise AI generated headlines. Tiktok is the most used news source for young people and it is not regulated at all. While this is not exactly misinformation, young men are more targeted with alt right content and gen z has gotten more conservative so they are affected by media content.

That figure was last accurate during the 1991 census. It rises in every census, and was 17% in 2021.

And the reason is that country WANT immigrants!
It needs it to fulfill all the jobs it can’t find people for- doctors and nurses being the most obvious ones.
The country also needs all those immigrants to keep the natality rate - theyre the ones having babies - wo which they would be an even bigger need for immigration…..

Strange isn’t it that nothing has really changed in last few years and yet these people now feel the need to go on these kind of marches - all this crappy stuff regarding the downhill trend of the country was happening under the Tory’s too , they created it, but it’s only now they aren’t in power that certain of the public ‘feel the need’ - it’s as if there is some funded right wing agitation trying to set the agenda, an agenda that the Tory’s actually caused. It’s the same when Labour do anything remotely positive, it’s hugely under reported because the vast amount of the printed and online media has a right wing ownership.including all your little local Facebook pages, mostly owned by the same people owning the Mail/Express. They know what gets clicks - I’m not a massive lefty, I’m in the middle, sometimes vote Labour, sometimes Lib Dem depending where I have lived but I am political enough to know that people like Farage will stop at nothing for power, he is in thrall to the US, doesn’t give a shit about whether his ideas would actually work or the fall out from them he just likes the adoration and feeling of power and agitation - put them in power and they couldn’t run a bath - see local councils for details. I used to think a lot of working class people who did well were actually very sharp in years gone by and could sniff a snake oil salesman a mile off - not so much these days.

This. You are significantly more likely to be adept at critical thinking if you want to university, because that is what they teach. It's not a guarantee, of course. And folks that didn't go to uni can also be good at critical thinking. They are just less likely to be.

@MoveOverToTheSea There is a shortage of jobs for British trained nurses and doctors this year.

As this thread demonstrates critical thinking is in short supply - and that includes many people who went to university.

You are correct on a lot of points, no “side” (if there are even sides anymore) is immune and I have hired some master’s grads from top unis who couldn’t even spell so on an individual basis uni isn’t a guarantee of anything, but I stand by my view that is is on a population basis.

As you seem interested in the topic of left wing bias at universities - I found this article interviewing the president of Harvard really interesting (you should be able to view as it’s a gifted link from my subscription). It goes into detail about the craziness of anti-semitism on Harvard campus and equal craziness of Trump orders and how Harvard pres, who is Jewish, tried to deal with it: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/alan-garber-harvard-trump/683592/?gift=l3etE8t-9bMhQTpeMqUMdlZQ2wJMjaikfb6eOY4GiG4