Can a relationship really work if you have completely different political and ethical views?
I (28F) and my boyfriend (30M) have been together for almost four years. At first, he really didn’t open up at all about a lot of his views and opinions, because within the first two times we had met, I suppose where I stand on certain topics was pretty obvious (I got into a debate with a man in the bar about why women need financial agency and freedom - so if a woman is a stay at home mum, her partner should be prepared to pay her superannuation).
The longer we have been together, the more our differences have stood out to me. When topics like immigration come up, he is against it - putting a lot of immigrants from \*specific\* countries into boxes saying our tax payer money goes towards housing them while they commit crimes etc. I tried calmly explaining our immigration laws (in Australia) around skilled immigrants, family visas etc. and why people have the right to seek asylum. He didn’t listen to a word I said and referred to news he had seen about some horrific crimes that happened to have been committed by people with certain backgrounds. This lead me to conclude that his algorithm must be serving him a lot of the fear mongering articles that I do see being peddled by right wing news outlets. I explained the nuances to him and why we can’t put cases like these in one box - sure, some of the people committing these crimes do have a totally different upbringing and a lot of that isn’t their fault but a bigger systemic problem - just like kids who grow up to commit crimes who had problematic childhoods around violence and addiction.
All of this to say, he is technically an immigrant, from the UK (now a citizen).
When I try to explain the issues women face and the patriarchal and systemic issues there which have impacted me in many ways in my life, he immediately goes to “oh yeah, all men are assholes”. Not at all what I’m saying, the patriarchy and many men’s issues such as mental health are inextricably linked.
He seems to get peddled propaganda about women falsely accusing men of assault for money too - when the Sydney swans AFL team incident happened recently, he suggested the S worker who made the claims may have done so for money - when I explained that she has more to lose than she really has to gain by reporting this and taking it to court he didn’t seem to understand “she has cash to gain” - it’s not that simple, most SA’s go unreported, because there is so much to lose and many cases never actually see a conviction. I reminded him I have been a victim and never reported it because I knew the burden of proof was on me and I was terrified of public scrutiny, not being believed or the whole process re-traumatising me just for nothing to come from it. He got angry at me for mentioning that and then went to “oh yep, I’m the bad guy! Sorry you got *r worded* ” … which felt insane??? I asked why he reacted this way and he said it felt like I brought it up just to make him feel bad because he can’t go back in time to when he knew me and do anything about it so why would I bring it up? Like okay? It also makes ME feel pretty crappy too? It doesn’t change that it happened and I am a good example of why women don’t always take things to authorities.
The Lindsay Clancy case was other topic of conversation, he said that he didn’t understand the support for her and that if someone commits that crime they deserve the de\*th penalty. I reminded him that postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are very real and extremely complicated and in this particular case, before it got to where it did the system failed her and those children again and again, which is why there is such a public statement being made. He didn’t seem to want a bar of what I was trying to explain to him.
Essentially, no matter which way you throw it, we are on different sides of the coin. I don’t even think we’re on the same coin to be honest with you.
There’s so many more examples I could include but the above are the most recent. Politically, he is right and I am left. He has little acceptance for trans people which makes my blood boil (I literally have a trans friend). We are just chalk and cheese when it comes to these things.
At first, I really thought (and do still think) that a lot of this comes down to a lack of education and fucked up algorithm - sometimes he will tell me something that is actually straight up factually incorrect so I pull the statistics, government policies or whatever is relevant to explain why he had the wrong information, but my patience is wearing thin because when I try to educate him he shuts it down. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink as they say.
I feel like he can’t handle criticism, so when something he has thought to be fact is challenged or proven wrong, he really just can’t accept it. Which is hard for me because I don’t want to sound like a complete know-it-all but I have a political science degree, so when we discuss politics specifically, it’s literally the thing I am thee most educated on, so sometimes I wish he would trust me when I bring him information from credible sources.
all of this to say, if we aren’t talking about these things, we’re actually extremely similar in so many other ways which is why I am always baffled when we cross into this territory.
Has anyone else ever experienced this? What the hell did you do???
TL;DR
BF seems to have some fear-mongering right wing news sources & algorithms and some political and ethical views that I disagree with vehemently.