Can a Relationship Survive Ideological Differences?
Image by CurvaBezier
By Carita Rizzo
The past few years have challenged even the most stable long-term couples, with more than a few discovering that they disagree with their partner on matters social, medical, political, or even racial. These are not low-stakes disagreements. Learning that your partner’s beliefs don’t align with yours when it comes to matters of, say, the role of police in society or public health can shake a person to the core. Can a relationship survive?
“There are going to be lots of conversations throughout a couple's relationship that would never occur to them,” says LA marriage and family therapist Ariel Landrum. “There would be no playbook for this pandemic, for example. It would never have occurred to couples to have a hypothetical conversation of, ‘In the future, if the world becomes dystopian, and we have an illness that is spread through airborne droplets and a vaccine was created, would you take it?’”
The world has indeed been dystopian, which is a big reason even smaller ideological issues can feel magnified. Our partners should be there to comfort us. Discovering you aren’t on the same page about something can be profoundly lonely and disconcerting, particularly right now.
“You had assumed you knew your partner, and you've learned this information about them that completely changes your view on who they are. You both are experiencing potential emotional betrayal because you thought you knew them so well and now you start to second-guess other things,” explains Landrum. “What does this mean about the relationship if something that is so integral to my value system is something that you don't value?”
The good news is that it doesn’t have to mean the end. When New York marriage and family therapist Rebecca Hendrix is faced with a couple in an ideological crisis, she stresses the need for each individual to be heard. Hendrix uses imago therapy to help ease the tension between parties. “Imago therapy is a three-part process where the first part is mirroring, the second part is validating, and the third part is empathy,” explains Hendrix.
For the mirroring step, if one person says, “I'm not sure about wearing a mask because I don't believe it protects us,” the other person mirrors it back, without edits or tweaks. Step 2 is validating your partner’s beliefs, in this case telling them, ‘What you're saying makes sense to me.’ Step 3 is expressing empathy — in this case: ‘I can only imagine that being pressured to wear a mask must make you feel really frustrated or angry.’ Then the roles are switched.
What Hendrix and Landrum have found is that validating beliefs contrary to yours is the hardest, because to many it feels like conceding. “It doesn't mean you're agreeing, it just means that you're looking at the other person and saying, ‘You're not crazy, I get you,’” says Hendrix. “If couples can learn to validate the other person, they loosen a little bit, and they don't have to be in their part of the boxing ring with their dukes up. The biggest gift we can give anybody is the gift of attention.”
Yet out in the real world, we have become so polarized that finding middle ground is increasingly harder. And since 2020, many are coming to an argument from a place of anxiety. “Most of the time, if one person in a couple is going through something, the other one isn't and can help keep the relationship above water,” explains Hendrix. “But the pandemic was putting us into this fight-flight-freeze mode, so when people are at an eight, nine, ten [level of anxiety], arguing is really hard. It's like talking to somebody when they're drunk — you know it's not going to go anywhere.”
To really hear our partner’s concerns, we should come to it from a place of calm. “Then you can say, ‘Okay, I get that. I don't agree with it, but I love you and we have all these other areas where we're compatible and we have a way of managing conflict,’" says Hendrix, who concedes that sometimes these conflicts do indeed mark the end point. “I believe in working on it to see [if a relationship can work], if given tools and not shutting down when we don't get our way. But if people get to a point where they can't get a level of fulfillment and connection in the relationship, and they're not happy, I don't know if it's worth staying together.”
Landrum adds that while we should be open to others’ beliefs, there are certain non-negotiables in relationships. “A couple of examples include wanting to have children or having an open relationship,” says Landrum. “These are areas that, when one person yields to please the other person, it often leads to resentment, anger, and shame. When a stance could directly affect their personhood, such as bodily autonomy, but wouldn't affect the partner’s, these are areas of non-negotiables for people. Knowing what your non-negotiables are when entering the dating world can make it easier to find a partner that aligns with your beliefs.”
Mia, 35, a Massachusetts native who a few years ago moved to rural Texas, worries that if she is unable to successfully date across ideological lines, she will soon not be able to date at all. On a recent date with a man she had met and hit it off with IRL, Mia quickly discovered they disagree on reproduction rights. “I wasn't trying to vet him. I just talk about stuff that means something to me, and the topic came up because Governor Abbott had just made a new law banning women from having abortions after six weeks and deputized people to turn them in to the police,” she explains. “He immediately said, ‘I think that the unborn child that doesn't have a voice, somebody needs to stand up for them.’” Knowing that her dating pool consists predominantly of men who are likely to disagree with her ideologically, Mia tried again to find common ground in terms of bodily autonomy. “There are people who are together where one person voted for Trump and one person voted for Biden and they make it work. I thought maybe I'd give it another try,” she said. “He was not interested in talking about it.”
“Even our friendships these days seem to require more emotional flexibility, with not just global crises coming between us, but life choices that put us on different tracks. ”
Although the relationship was over before it started, Mia’s love life in Texas doesn’t have to be doomed, if she and a potential partner — with whom her core values do align — find a way to express inevitable differences in a way that is passionate, not targeted. “A passionate person can want you to hear their message: ‘This is how it feels, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm reading.’ And they're also going to passionately listen [to the opposing view],” says Landrum. “You'll know you're having a conversation with curiosity because you will ask questions as opposed to questioning. Asking a question would be, ‘How did you come to the decision?’ versus ‘Why would you make that decision?’ The first one is open to learning. The second one is accusatory.”
Another question to ask yourself, whether in a long-term relationship or dating, is, “Why do I feel so strongly about this?” “Ask, ‘Where is that coming from inside of me? What is it about this one thing that's triggering me? Can I be curious about that?’” says Hendrix, who recommends being similarly curious about others’ beliefs as well. “Do they feel so strongly because of something that happened in their life? Are they flexible or are they rigid? If we slow everything down, we get information. If somebody has an idea that's different from mine, but is open to debate, it comes down to, ‘Do we have that way of managing conflict that works for both of us? Can we see each other's perspectives? Do we have open minds?’”
Even our friendships these days seem to require more emotional flexibility, with not just global crises coming between us, but life choices that put us on different tracks. To help bridge that gap, Landrum suggests using "I" statements. “When statements start with ‘You,’ this will instigate an argument, not a debate. ‘I’ statements help de escalate a conversation, especially when they are connected with feelings,” she says. “These may be used best when attempting to set boundaries around conversations. ‘I feel devalued when I am interrupted. I feel respected when I am not interrupted.’ Statements like these focus on the situation, the emotions that come up when discussing differing ideologies, and don't blame or shame someone for reacting.”
Self-regulation is critical when entering conversations of differing ideologies. “If you or your partner (or friend) are getting heated, unable to focus, shifting to name-calling, outright rejecting, or abusive language, then that's a sign that the conversation is no longer one about mutually respectful learning,” says Landrum. “It's important for couples to know the signs of dysregulation are for themselves and their partner. Is it clenching teeth or fists? Is it eye-rolling? Is it sighing? When this happens, couples should have a time-out signal that says the conversation needs a pause so both can regulate.”
Those in relationships should find comfort in the fact that agreeing on everything is not a prerequisite for a strong union. “We've been told that a great relationship is one where couples can fully predict each other or finish each other's sentences. Oftentimes the reason that's happening is because someone's given up lots of parts of themselves to make the relationship function,” says Landrum. “A relationship that has very strong foundations, and will continue to be strong, is where they enter saying, ‘I know that there's no way I'll know everything about you. My goal is to be present and not feel shock when I learn something new. And when I discover something, I will trust that we've built a foundation where we can create resolution and understanding.’”