Hey all. Getting right to it:
Last November, a majority of my wife’s family voted trump. I immediately made known my disgust and that I had no interest in maintaining relationships with any of them. My wife is equally appalled, but family is important to her and she chooses to compartmentalise it for the sake of their relationships. That’s her call. Typically, her mother comes to stay at our house for an extended period as we live far away, and this year I tolerated her being here for the sake of my wife.
But now, thinking about the next visit and how bad things have gotten, I can’t even stand the thought of having her in my house, let alone being in the same room as her. I really don’t want her here at all, but I will again tolerate her for my wife’s sake. However I think it’s likely that I will make myself pretty scarce during that time.
So the ethics question is - given that I expressed my distaste after the election but still remained cordial, is it ok, ethically speaking, to become more resentful as the consequences of their actions become more apparent? Or, given that what has happened since is pretty much out of everyone’s hands, am I locked in to the level of hostility I showed immediately after?
I guess the distilled version is - a person does X, I express disapproval. Is it ethical to express MORE disapproval as additional unforeseen consequences of X become apparent?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Edit to Clarify - My mother in law is not MAGA and I don’t think she’s enjoying any of it. She thinks we can “just not talk about it” and everything will be fine. However she has become more racist and judgemental (anti-trans etc) in recent years. Hates Joe Biden and Kamal Harris but can’t or won’t say why. Thanks for the responses so far and I’ll try to respond, but I’m about to start work shortly.
Sorta. Anger and resentment tends to fester continually so ensuring you make your grievances known one way or another can help. If you do want to make it known, but cannot have a healthy dialogue, I personally recommend you write it out, and once you have it dialed in you can send it or hand it to them if you wish.
Personally though, I’d def say that making sure your sweetheart of a wife knows how your feelings have been and continue to move is just as if not more important. Has she mentioned the how and why she managed to tolerate politics given everything?
She feels much the same as I do, and I know she struggles with it a lot. For me, the moment I found out, they all got moved into the category of trump supporters, who I have no time for. But for her, it’s obviously a much bigger deal. I don’t press her on how she should handle it, just support the way she chooses to.