House Divided
November 1, 2004
by Brendon McCullin

As much as I recognize the importance of this presidential election, I can’t wait for it to be over. Either way, one-way or the other. I still care who wins, of course, just not nearly as much as I want it to be done.

Perhaps then my wife and I can go back to having normal conversations where we don’t have to tiptoe around all current events, since seemingly the only thing happening at present is the election. See, ours is a two-party household, with my wife playing the Tucker Carlson role (minus the bowties, thankfully) to my Bob Begala.

It was Jesus, and much later Abraham Lincoln, that pointed out that a house divided cannot stand. Easy for them to say – Jesus didn’t really delve into partisan politics and Mary Todd Lincoln wasn’t even allowed to vote. Woody Allen said that “the heart wants what it wants” and that ultimately trumps political convictions. It just doesn’t make it a smooth ride.

My wife is the conservative and I’m the liberal. She comes from a Midwestern family that is staunchly Republican. I’m from a family of middle-class East Coast Irish Catholic Democrats. We disagree on just about every candidate up for election and plenty of hot button issues, just as we have the entire time we’ve known each other.

When I met her, my wife was an Air Force lieutenant, doing her second stint in the service after originally serving as an enlisted person. Conversely, I was never in the military after realizing at a young age that I wouldn’t last five minutes in that environment – I would’ve either been kicked out or shot or possibly both.

She believes in the necessity of military operations, including going into Iraq when we did. I want assurances that no diplomatic stone has been left unturned before the military is used. That doesn’t, however, mean that I don’t support the military. I supported it in a very personal way while my wife was on active duty. I bristle every time someone seemingly suggests that being a Democrat and understanding military issues are mutually exclusive. Both of us understand the issues, we just view them differently.

If that’s not enough, I’m for legalized abortion and my wife is not (I refuse to use those idiotic Pro-Choice and Pro-Life labels). My wife, more religious than I, believes it to be a sin. Me, being just this side of agnostic, believes it’s a huge grey area that’s best left to the individual. Actually I think that it’s a smoke screen issue that gets used by political parties to redirect people’s attention from issues that we might actually be able to reach a consensus on, just like the whole gay marriage brouhaha, but that’s a subject for another day.

How do we manage to function, then, when we have so many fundamental disagreements? Luckily, we’re both more towards the center on plenty of other issues. We both believe that the healthcare industry has gotten out of control and that it’s not just because of one condition (lawsuits, insurance company greed, HMO’s, etc.). We both think drug companies get away with way too much. We both feel that there needs to be a better balance between helping corporations remain profitable while also ensuring that they employee people in this country.

So, it’s not as if we can’t discuss anything, we just can’t discuss a lot of things. Sure it can make for some awkward silences during things like, say, presidential debates, but like plenty of things with marriage you learn to work around it. There’s also a standing rule that if one of us just really needs to blow off steam about the “bleeding heart hippies” or “tight-ass rich white guys” then the other will hold their tongue and not answer back.

It might be easier if we had more common ground, but it might also be easier if we were both dumber and I wouldn’t really want that. And there is a positive side; someday when our son grows up he’s going to have to decide for himself what his political beliefs are. He’s not going to get any easy answers from us.

After Britney Spears said last year, “I think that we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that,” I found myself wishing that she had been made to think more about political convictions by her parents. Of course, I usually find myself wishing that Spears would think at all, so maybe that’s a bad example.

Still all things considered, life in our household is easier in non-election years. But even when things are tense, the bond of marriage comes before any political issue. And it’s not like we don’t have a template to work from. After all, if James Carville and Mary Matalin can manage to stay married while working for opposite sides of the political spectrum, then we should be able to make it work.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take care of the Bush-Cheney sign on our lawn. My wife’s time is up; time to flip it over to the Kerry-Edwards side.

(Brendon McCullin is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)