I love my wife dearly but she is a brainwashed Evangelical Trump supporter

My wife got ‘saved’ in 1974 during a period in our short marriage when we were separated. It was of no concern to me at the time but now she had been deluded by her Evangelicalism into supporting the evil monster, Donald J. Trump. I am a secular humanist and a progressive Democrat. I absolutely abhor Trump and everything he stands for. I am a software engineer by trade. but I became simultaneously unemployed and disabled in 2010. My wife’s continued support for Trump and her implacable desire to watch Fox News is the source of enormous adversity in our relationship. Although largely recover my disability presents many unique challenges. The stress of our adversarial relationship is hurting me physically and psychologically. What can I do?.

I have seen something similar happen to my mother in the last 3 years (not the saved part - she always was saved, as I am - but the transformation from anti-Trump to pro-Trump.)

The only advice I have is:

  • You probably can’t talk her out of it. Every attempt by me to talk my mother out of her conspiracy theories or the false prophets that she follows just makes her dig her heels in. (The weird thing is - my mom condemns my aunt for believing false conspiracies, yet embraces them herself, just a different kind)

  • See if you can negotiate a silence. You can’t make her stop supporting Trump (no matter how much facts and logic you throw at her, which is like throwing water on an oil fire) but at least you can try to avoid conflict.

  • The best way to fight a fire is to deprive it of oxygen. Try to avoid politics, if she says anything about Trump or the evil Democ-RATS just mmmm-hmmmm, try to find interesting things to catch her attention and distract her from politics, focus on things you have in common. Find good TV shows to watch every time she gets the urge to watch Fox.

I profoundly appreciate you taking the time to give me your advice. You have helped me to realize that it is usually I, not her, that initiates the toxic interaction however, I cannot help but react with disgust every time Trump and Republicans engage in despicable fashion which is often. Despite the truth of your comment [quote=“Velocity, post:2, topic:956477”]
You probably can’t talk her out of it.
[/quote] I love her too much to give up on trying to change her mind. Now the conspiracies are a clear and present danger as she refuse vaccination.

OK yes, where physical danger is present you cannot ignore it. Offer her some incentive or whatever argument you can but she must get the shots.

Oof.

Welcome to the board, and to Hell, simultaneously.

I’m really sorry. Horrible predicament.

And – as is so often said here – you can’t reason a person out of a position that they didn’t reason their way into in the first place.

I wish you infinite peace and unlimited patience.

I sympathize, @damarp; I have a 19 year old son who has very different political views than I do which I think are very wrong and toxic. He used to be a hardcore trump lover; he’s toned that down somewhat as he’s become more Libertarian in his beliefs, but he still thinks trump was a great president and that the election was stolen from him.

@Velocity has very good advice-- you’re not going to change her mind with facts and reason, she’ll just dig in more. The best course for your marriage and sanity is to agree not to bring it up as a topic of discussion on either side, and to focus on what you both do agree on. There must be a strong base of commonality there if you’ve been married since 1974 or before.

If you can’t stop trying to convince her otherwise, then that’s a choice you’ll have to make with the understanding that it will take a toll on both of you.

I understand this, and I am sorry that you have such a terrible situation with someone that you love. But, paraphrasing a quote I’ve seen a lot in recent years, “you can’t use logic to argue someone out of believing something which they didn’t use logic to come to believe.” (Edit: @DavidNRockies said the quote better while I was writing my post. :slight_smile: )

We’ve had an awful lot of threads on this board which have amounted to, “Help me convince a person that Trump is bad/they’re wrong about COVID/they should get vaccinated/etc.”, and they are all pretty sad discussions. While I won’t say that it’s impossible to convince someone who holds these kinds of beliefs to change their minds, in most cases, you are dealing with someone who is now viewing the world through a very particular set of deeply-held beliefs, and who has likely rejected any source of information which conflicts with their beliefs.

See what I mean ? :wink:

If this is causing you real physical or mental harm, I suggest contacting a professional immediately to discuss your options. See the professional alone, and explain what is happening. No amount of arguing is going to make things better. Start to prepare for the worse (divorce) and hope you can find some acceptable middle ground. I would stop engaging her when you get upset and simply leave and go into another room to watch whatever you want to watch. She will soon get the message that the status quo is no longer acceptable to you and that you have other options. Think about what spending the rest of your life with this person is going to be like if nothing changes and take action. You deserve better.

Here is my opinion for anyone who is in this sort of situation:

I would find it very difficult to still be in love with someone who has had fundamental principles of life for the past 47 years (!) that I don’t at all respect, indeed that I find repugnant. (Also, I’m not clear why it is relevant that you were temporarily absent when she was “saved,” would you have been able to prevent it?)

I presume that you did not try to argue her out of evangelical Christianity during that time, or perhaps only at the very beginning before you gave up. I further presume that you stopped fighting it because you were not obliged to witness or participate very much in those activities. Now, my guess is, you are being forced to watch a lot of political stuff on TV that triggers your strong antipathy, leading ineluctably to arguments and bad feelings.

Therefore, I recommend you buy a 2nd TV and find a place in another room to watch what you like.

To add to what Kenobi said, the other thing that makes such conversion near-impossible is that conspiracy theorists typically set an extremely high bar for their opponents and an extremely low bar for themselves.

My mom and aunt are like this. It doesn’t matter if you produce 99 arguments for your side, all they have to do is come up with one thing in their favor and they win (in their minds.)

My mom: “The Moderna vaccine turns you into a human magnet. I know this because a friend showed me a video of herself with a spoon sticking to her skin.”

Me: “Mom, it’s physically impossible for organic material, such as human flesh, to be magnetic. Only a metallic thing can be a metal.”

Mom: “Are you saying my friend is lying? SHE SHOWED ME A VIDEO OF A SPOON STICKING TO HER SKIN!”

Me: “It’s not possible for a human to be a magnet. I got vaccinated and I’m not magnetic”

Mom: “SHE SHOWED ME A VIDEO!!!”

Sounds like in your mind, and/or in hers, a bunch of things go together: the Evangelicalism, the Republicanism, the Trump worship, the vaccination refusal. These often occur together, but they don’t have to. For example, there are Evangelicals and/or Republicans who are happy to get vaccinated. You might have better luck trying to influence her if you just focus on matters that present a danger to her health and well-being, instead of lumping everything together and trying to get her to change her mind/identity about everything.

I mostly agree but I can’t let myself think it is impossible. With an acquaintance, yeah…close to impossible. But, with an SO I would hope there is room to nudge them to a better place.

With an SO you have time to lean into them and keep the pressure up (loosely speaking). It can be having discussions about the news in the morning over coffee or discussing the news over dinner. Lightly laughing at them when they say something ridiculous. Trying to change the channel off of FOX News and watch a movie or TV show together. Get them away from their source of news craziness (whatever it is)…go for a walk, go to a (normal) bar. Whatever. Don’t get into fights (indeed avoid them) but discuss what is going on. You become their source of reasoning and not the crazy news.

I am NOT saying any of that will work but if you care about your SO (as the OP seems to) then put in that effort. It will take time. It may never work. But it is someone you love so give it a go. At worst you are just hanging out with each other and you love each other so win no matter which way it goes.

One thing is sure…it will take time. You cannot talk them out of it in one night (as others above have noted).

Speaking of evangelical Christianity specifically:

I don’t know if this is the case with the OP’s wife, but a certain false dichotomy is often present with evangelicals: This notion that you can either trust in God for protection, or get the vaccine, but not both.

The best way for the OP to win the wife over on the topic of vaccines would be to convince her that that attitude is actually in fact presumptuousness, like a driver refusing to wear a seat belt and saying “God will protect me” but then getting wrecked in an accident.

For some reason, this reminded me of when our longtime neighbors “came out” to us as gay. My tactful response, “Thank God. I was afraid you were gonna tell us you were Republicans.” :smiley:

I often wonder how couples make it when they disagree strongly on major issues like religion, politics… The issues between you and your wife are sure doozies.

I suspect the most likely area in which you could expect to find success is:

You cannot control how she thinks/acts, but you can try to control yours. Good luck.

What I don’t get is why evangelicals like the OP’s wife have so embraced a man who is so irreligious, while opposing Democrats like Obama and Biden who are church-going. It’s almost as if they’re all hypocrites.

You can pray, really.

You can ask her also about the children that were separated from their parents, what was the reason behind keeping the kids in such deplorable conditions? Why did we, under Trump, make the children suffer so much? IDK if that will help but it was the defining moment for me that took Trump out of political context and put him in an evil context.

Because it’s about team.

Why do sports fans cheer for their asshole prima donna narcissist rude quarterback, but boo the opposing team’s decent, well-mannered, polite quarterback? Because team.

:thinking:

My fervent dedication to TRUTH demand that I challenge every FALSITY. I can never forswear my dedication to TRUTH. Alas, I fear divorce may be my only course of action.