DO'S AND DON'TS

He Likes Trump. She Doesn’t. Can This Marriage Be Saved?

In early May, when Dr. Thomas Stossel told his wife, Dr. Kerry Maguire, of his plan to vote for Donald J. Trump in the general election, she hit him with an ultimatum.


“If you vote for Trump, I will divorce you and move to Canada,” she recalled telling him. He tried to laugh it off.


“I’m serious,” Dr. Maguire told him.


Before this spat, through nearly 20 years of marriage, politics had never caused much friction between Dr. Maguire, a dentist who is the director of the children’s outreach program at the Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and Dr. Stossel, a hematologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.


(Full story at NYTimes.com)

Donald Trump Is Destroying My Marriage

Trump Is Destroying My Marriage

“Shortly after the election is when I became aware of it,” says Lois Brenner, a New York–based divorce attorney. “People were thinking about splitting up their marriages because of political differences.” She’d never encountered this before, but she’s since found herself litigating two such divorces. “After people got over their shock,” she says, “they started arguing.”


By now it’s a truism to point out that the election of Donald Trump and the #MeToo movement have prompted a wholesale realignment of American politics. But it’s also sent shock waves through heterosexual romance.


(Full story at NYMag.com)

For Couples with Different Political Views, These Expert Tips Are Crucial

As the saying goes, the heart wants what it wants. Sometimes, the heart wants another heart with different political views, which can be cause for some serious tension. According to a 2016 survey, 17 percent of Republicans and Democrats who are either married or living with their partner said their spouse or partner belonged to a different political party. And lately, opinions across party lines are particularly tense. "Even people who deeply love each other are falling victim to the 'politics of personal destruction' where it's not enough to disagree with someone but you have to destroy them and everything they stand for in the process," marriage and family therapist Gary Brown, Ph.D., told Women's Health magazine. 



Despite the alarming sentiment, relationship success is possible if you focus on mutual respect, empathy, and patience. Whether you're in a new relationship or have been partners for some time, take these experts's advice on navigating coupledom with different political views.

(Full story at LiveAbout.com)

Coping with Political Differences in Couples

Nearly one third of all married couples in the United States consist of individuals with conflicting party affiliations.If you and your spouse disagree about politics, you are not alone.


In March of 2016, over 18 million married couples across the United States were interviewed ( http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-republicans-marry-democrats/ ). The resulting data indicated that 55% of married couples are either “Democrats only” or  “ Republicans only”. The authors of the study refer to this as a “matched partisan pair”. Another 15% were identified as   "Independent married to Independent”, which was considered to be a “matched non-partisan pair”. This leaves the remaining 30% labeled as a "mis-matched partisan pair", meaning a "Democrat with a Republican" or an "Independent with a Democrat or a Republican."


(Full story at PsychologyToday.com)

In Love and Politics, 3 Plans May Alleviate Anger

These seem to be anger-filled times. As if love relationships were not difficult enough, political stress is damaging togetherness. From social media to families, we see and hear about the conflicts that are affecting our sense of justice and sense of values. 


One of today's most vocal political couples are Attorney George Conway—who denounces Trump daily on Twitter—and his wife, Kellyanne, who appears on talk shows to spew a defense of Trump. They remind us in some way of longtime married political consultants—for Democrats, James Carville, and for Republicans, Mary Maitland. Perhaps they are able to leave political differences outside the doors of their homes and embrace kindness and compassion within.


At the funeral services of Congressman Elijah Cummings, we heard these words from former President Barack Obama: "I tell my daughters... being a strong man includes being kind. That there's nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There's nothing weak about looking out for others."


Here are three plans for overcoming anger.


(Full story at PsychologyToday.com)

When You’re in Love With Your Political Opposite

You vote red, I vote blue. Debate is hot, and so are you.


Politically, these are rancorous times. Not only are our social networks turning into poisonous echo chambers, but partisan animosity is also higher than it has been in decades. So, just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Reader Center asked: Can love conquer all?


We heard from readers across the political spectrum, who are finding ways to bridge the partisan divide at least in their love lives. These are their stories, edited and condensed for clarity.


“Honey, we’re not going to get divorced.”


Debra Gaynor and her husband, Nisim Kaneti, have been married for 11 years and live in Forest Hills, N.Y.


We went to bed late on the night of the election. I was pretty smug until about 9 p.m. or so, when I realized that Hillary wasn’t going to win. I watched the returns until 1 a.m. and then rolled over in disgust and slept badly.


(Full story at NYTimes.com)

How To Love Someone With Opposite Political Views

Just two weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency, news hit of the first divorce triggered by the election results (or at least, the first to go viral).


In an interview with Reuters, Californian Gayle McCormick, 73, said she and her husband of 22 years decided to split up after he mentioned that he planned to vote for Trump.


Though her husband ended up writing in former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich at the ballot box instead, the damage was already done.


“It really came down to the fact I needed to not be in a position where I had to argue my point of view 24/7,” she said. “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that.”


Though an extreme example, the story highlights how hard it is to love and maintain a civil relationship when you’re at odds politically. Like the McCormicks, 30 percent of married households contain a mismatched partisan pair, according to data site FiveThirtyEight.


(Full story at HuffingtonPost.com)
The Home as a Political Fortress Study
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