u/AWonkyGirl

Downloaded reddit soley for this situation

I’m going to try and shorten this as much as possible without losing the important context of the situation. I (18/F) was dating a guy (18/M) for about 2-3 months but had known him as a friend for 2 years prior to this which made our relationship advance quite quickly as (well I thought) we already knew each other quite well. Everything was perfect and we seemed so in love and I genuinely believe he is the first guy i’ve ever properly liked as someone who only forms attraction after knowing someone a long time. Long story short we somehow ended up talking about politics which he did say was a bad idea but as I do feel quite strongly about politics I insisted on him continuing after getting the sense that I did not agree at all with his views.

To summarise what I could not get over:
1.) He seems to think reform-like immigration policies will protect the nation because he believes that loads of immigrants are rapists and also choose the uk to exploit benefits rather than travelling to other countries
2.) He also seems to think this because he believes a vast majority of immigrants are muslim and seems to also think a vast majority of muslims are extremists and believe it’s ok to rap children - he is against all religion but seems to make excuses for christianity and judaism when it comes to extremist traditional scripture passages but does not provide the same grace to islam
3.) he doesn’t like the green party because be believes they want to eradicate the right wing (coz of this one interview where polanski said there is no place for the right wing in politics) and also because he wants to be in the RAF and they want to defund the military
4.) he seems to agree with the stance that people should get on with mental health issues because he has been through a lot of hardship and “hasn’t let it get to him” and that people exploit benefits e.g he told me he could go to the nhs claim he has anxiety and take benefits
5.) he denies that reform policies are rasist and made excuses for what sarah pochin said about advert, farage’s naz*sm accusations in high school and the fact they want to abolish equality acts (claims it’s just to make anti-immigration laws better)
6.) He supports the death penalty

This feels impossible for me to get over as a mixed woman who has had mental health issues including anxiety and has a younger brother with autism in a special ed school, a mother who works in DEI and aunty who works in abortion clinic who. It therefore led me to break up with him even though we still love each other because it’s hard to see how he can care about me as much as he claims to when his politics sidelines my rights and my family’s. I never thought i’d say this about someone with such views but admittedly I still think i’m in love with him and he claims he is still with me and doesn’t mind the fact i’m left wing but I fear he doesn’t mind just because my beliefs don’t affect him like how his directly affect me. I do believe he has good intentions behind his views e.g to avoid the rape of women and they are partly due to his upbringing i.e both his parents support Reform and his dad used to hit him when he cried as he was trying to teach him to be “tough”.

For the first week of break up we agreed to be friends as from the beginning of our relationship we said we would continue to be friends no matter what happened (we didn’t want to lose 2yrs of friendship by trying to be more). However he was still acting like a bf e.g complimenting me, staying up late to check i’m home safe from a night out. I would call this behaviour out and he would say he can’t help it. Since I could tell he hadn’t understood the extent of why we physically could not be together (partly my fault as when I broke up with him it was very sudden and I was crying and still processing what i’d just heard so was struggling to get my words out) we arranged to meet up and have a proper discussion and hear each other out - why I thought we couldn’t be together and why he thought we could. He thinks it is unfair of me to not try to work through the situation as he knows how much we both loved each other and how well our relationship was going before this (and also believes love overcomes politics). His best friend (who I was also somewhat friends with) thinks I was unfair to break up with him and wanted us back together but also that me attempting to stay friends with him (as I didn’t want to lose him entirely) was selfish and controlling . Once I found this out and also found out that 1 of my friends felt that she wouldn’t ever be comfortable around him again after hearing his beliefs, I unadded him and told him we can’t be friends. However, I am really really struggling right now after going no contact and I know he is too. I know time is supposed to heal but I know I still love him and he does too.

The main ?s: I need advice on whether I was right to break up with him or whether it was possible to work through the situation (including the potential of me somehow changing his views and he also suggested the possibility of me being able to explain and change them but I couldn’t tell whether this was a desperate attempt to not lose me), whether I should’ve gone ahead with the conversation and whether I was right to call it off and what steps I can/should take now (including the possibility of being friends as I still care about him too much or even being back together as we both clearly love each other).

If anyone has any more questions to ask about anything relating to the situation and our relationship that would help paint a better picture of what is happening i’m happy to answer them as I understand I have skipped over a lot to try and shorten this post. Thank you for taking your time to read this x