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If you're already married and things like that (and I'll ignore the fact that all of the examples are 3rd rail political-ish topics these days) haven't been discussed already, one might wonder what y'all did talk about before marriage.
That's what I was wondering. How would it be possible to go through a year or 2 or 3 or more of a dateship and relationship, without those things coming up? Although we did have one fairly recent example on this forum, of a couple that got married without ever once discussing whether to have kids. Somehow, it never came up in their relatively whirlwind romance, even though they later discovered, they were on opposite sides of the question. So I guess it's possible.
There are people out there, who don't tune into the news much, or if they do look at news reports, they don't pay attention to the issues they're not interested in. So it's conceivable, that a couple wouldn't have a conversation about gun laws, police, abortion, or gender politics. Although those are hot-button issues for some people, they just don't come up in the conversation for other people. Believe it or not, there are a LOT of people out there, who don't go around grinding about hot-button political issues all the time, or at all. People are too busy working, then spending their free time out enjoying life, and sharing experiences with their friends. They talk about pastimes and hobbies of mutual interest. If they enjoy nature: hikes, boating, etc., environmental topics may arise, and that may be the extent of anything remotely related to politics, that comes up for discussion.
A lot of people believe, that workplaces in Seattle and the Bay Area are hotbeds of political haranguing, but none of the ones I ever worked in had political topics come up at all.
So people are different. Maybe some spent their pre-marital years together talking about literature, film, hobbies, family, day-to-day life practical matters, what to do on the weekend, planning trips, complaining about work issues, etc. Just not tuned into couple-future-goals questions.
My wife and I overall agreed on things and those rare things we did not agree on we just agreed to disagree and dropped it. Neither ever tried to force their opinion on the other.
This is interesting to me because in my former marriages (17 and 7 years) NONE of those topics ever came up. It seems almost impossible that they didn't, given the current climate. I guess politics back then were just not germane to our lives....seems so odd. Nobody wanted kids so that wasn't an issue. Both had guns but I didn't even think about them, used them just a couple times. One hunted for our food so that was good.
I am having a hard time guessing what their views on police, gender and race would be. We never talked about that stuff. Since they were both from Michigan with blue-collar upbringing, I would hazard a guess that they would lean more conservatively on those topics than I would.
Current DH is from an affluent NYC family with exactly the same values I have. I don't remember discussing any of these with him either in the earlier days. I was apolitical until 2016 so didn't even read the news. I guess it's fortunate that as these issues crop up now, we are totally aligned automatically. I'm from SoCal so maybe it is a coastal "match"!
I only have one deep, dark strongly-held opinion that I know he'd disagree with, so I will never bring it up, lol.
I feel bad for people dating today, trying to navigate all these grenades lobbed at them.
I totally believe that many couples never discuss any of these topics. I meet a lot of shallow and superficial men. I really do not understand what people talk about who are married for years but never discussed any of these (important) topics. What do they talk about all day to each other? Just work stuff, nature, hobby stuff? Or do they just not spend that much time with each other? Do they not care about the other person's perspective? Do they have so many other things to talk about or do they not talk to each other much at all? It really is a mystery to me.
I have dated a lot of men here in Socal who are superficial and probably would never discuss any of these topics either but I bring them up and get them to talk and open up and dig deep. If you would ask them, they would describe me at "deep, intense, thinker" because I don't let them get away with "I don't know, who cares" answers.
I was just wondering about this - it was prompted by someone on FB asking what married people would advise someone thinking of getting married do to improve their chances of success and I said talk to each other about values and goals.
With everything that's going on these days, I doubt you can just assume your spouse is going to hold the same views you do - maybe they have different ideas than you about:
I don't think you can just assume that because you were "attracted" to someone and ended up marrying them that you're going to agree on all issues.
I am just curious as to how this is playing out these days.
For me what someone believes is much less important than why someone believes something. For things that are emotional land mines I really want to understand what is motivating their thinking. When I was a fundamentalist Christian one of my friends was dating an abortion alternatives counselor. His girlfriend had an abortion at 17 and strongly regretted it and the regret she had over abortion was the reason this woman subsequently become a Christian. My brother and sister law used IVF to conceive and as part of that process they implanted I think 5 blastocysts and 3 implanted and then the doctors were recommending a reduction (abortion) of at least one of those. As a result my sister in law became strongly proabortion.
As long as I can actually respect the underlying reason someone believes something and if I think we can come up with a workable work around her underlying concerns regarding the emotional land mine, the fact that I don't see exactly eye to eye on something wouldn't stop me from dating them.
That said if someone has too many emotional landmines, I probably am not going to date that person either. I am not a big fan of all or nothing thinking. The world is complicated and most issues are nuanced so the people who are too emotionally brittle are just too difficult to deal with long term.
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Originally Posted by Special_Guest
I have always wondered at what point these sticky topics and beliefs should be discussed. I have never gotten far along enough in the dating process to get to this point, but I too wondered how people were handling this. I can’t really see discussing them on date #1, but at some point they need to be discussed, as some views are deal-breakers. I never knew that some people were never discussing them. WOW!
I have tended to discuss these issues as they came up. If finding someone on the same team is important to you though on any of these issues than I would probably bring that topic up fairly early in the process.
I totally believe that many couples never discuss any of these topics. I meet a lot of shallow and superficial men. I really do not understand what people talk about who are married for years but never discussed any of these (important) topics. What do they talk about all day to each other? Just work stuff, nature, hobby stuff? Or do they just not spend that much time with each other? Do they not care about the other person's perspective? Do they have so many other things to talk about or do they not talk to each other much at all? It really is a mystery to me.
That is so incredibly odd. I’m with you Oh-Eve. Being married and living together for years and not discussing these things? What in the world are they talking about? What are they doing?
Having limited relationship experience, I often wonder what the day to day flow and activities of a long-term relationship looks like for couples, including what their conversation is like. Maybe I will make a separate thread discussing this.
Many of these issues didn't exist until recently, so there would be no way to discuss them before you got married. That is the entire point of the OP. Things are very different these days, and all kinds of issues have popped up that people never had to consider before.
Honestly, none of those are really "new" issues. Really? Guns, vaccines, race issues just popped up in the last 5 years?!?
Regardless, political issues, religion, child rearing, etc. are generally touched on during premarital counseling if not before then. If not, the same conflict resolution skills would apply.
That's actually what happened with my first long-term partner. I did a complete 180 on my views of religion and politics. We were never married though so things weren't messy when we split; we also parted amicably too.
Many of these issues didn't exist until recently, so there would be no way to discuss them before you got married. That is the entire point of the OP. Things are very different these days, and all kinds of issues have popped up that people never had to consider before.
None of those things you specifically mentioned are really new, even vaccines. There were anti-vaxxers decades ago. The only thing that's pretty new is the mask thing with the covid. But most people are going to know how their partner stands on that if you know your partner as you should if one is married to another person. If you can point out an example of something new in what you listed. Police, gender and race politics have all been issues for decades, so has gun control abortion and vaccines. Nothing is really new. Some things are a bit more prevalent in the news, but like I said these are things that partners should know about each other by discussion and just being aware of his or her personality. All those things are generally left or right leaning topics and one should know if their partner leans strongly in the one direction or the other or if they are more in the middle.
For example, all the things that have come up more strongly in the news recently like the race and police stuff, I know what my husband would think about those things because I know my husband. If a partner understands his or her spouse, they'll generally know how he or she will stand if something comes up more prevalently in the Media. But those issues are definitely not new things that have come up; they're topics that have been around for decades.
My husband and my first long conversation covered most of those topics right off the bat. We agreed on religion, politics, race relations, etc. so we knew we’d enjoy dating. I can’t imagine having an easy relationship with anyone, long term, if we didn’t match on big issues.
As for new hot button topics cropping up, we’ve managed to negotiate those well enough. It’s not always easy, but we have managed to fall back on our common values to sort things out.
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What are they doing?
