Why It’s Time to Ghost or Escape Your Toxic Conservative or Republican Spouse 2l6d5

(Note that the recording is for the podcast and the transcript has been edited for clarity) In the wake of the 2024 election, our eyes should have been opened to the reality of what we face. It’s important that we recognize the cruelty and the authoritarian impulses of conservative ideology and patriarchal thinking. This is a belief system that is based on causing harm without any thought of consequences. It’s a desire for punishment in search of a crime. Those that espouse these beliefs do so without thought of the pain that’s going to be inflicted on the innocent. I know there are a lot of people right now during this holiday season that are worried about visiting friends and family that they disagree with politically. My advice is: Don’t go! Do not visit them. Do not let hateful people into your life. In fact, you should do more than skip Christmas. You should take the further step of separating yourself from any relationship with an authoritarian conservative. Even a relationship with a spouse. It’s time to it to yourself that these are toxic people. These are people that, although they claim to be your allies and they claim that they have your back, they won’t even do as much as cast a vote to ensure that you have access to health care. They won’t even perform that minuscule act. They don’t care. Relationships with authoritarian conservatives are all transactional but they never give you credit for the value you contribute. The second hardship befalls you, they aren’t going to help you out. They don’t nurse you through bad times. Instead, they cut you loose like an anchor and move on. That’s what they do. They do that, even as they expect and demand that you make every sacrifice to accommodate them. But when you suffer hardship, they’re going to interpret it as a sign of your moral failure as a human being. They’re going to conclude that you deserve to be in pain, and that it’s tough love. They’ll believe this as they stand aside and do nothing as you suffer. I’ve been in these relationships. You know you’re in one of those relationships if you find yourself being hurt again and again and again. It becomes a daily occurrence. It becomes something you get used to, so you stop protesting. That’s part of the con. I can tell you that being hurt is not a normal consequence of a relationship. It’s not. You should be able to go years without having somebody hurt your feelings. In the cases where your feelings are hurt, it should be abundantly clear that it was due to a misunderstanding. You shouldn’t feel pressure to never speculate over whether the pain came from malicious action. Abs don’t want you to explore that possibility because doing so exposes their abuse. When you’re in a relationship with an abusive conservative, they have to hurt you every day. It’s on their “to do” list. They do it as part of their ideology. They have to keep you broken down so you’re under their control. Hurt is part of it. They’ll mock you. They’ll claim that you don’t pull your load in the family. They’ll claim that they do all the work. Even if they prohibit you from finding a job, they still blame you. They claim that they’re not appreciated enough. They alternate between being morose and angry all the time. No matter how much you do recognize them, it will never be enough. Grievance is part of their personal ideology. They don’t know who they are without it. They have to be a victim, even though they also have to control everything. They’ll never give you a compliment because they feel giving you a compliment gives you power. Stop me if this is something that you’ve experienced, because I know that I’ve experienced it. You feel those blows and those little cuts every single day. Tick, tick, tick. It forces you to develop a thick skin to protect yourself. But that thick skin also harms you. You learn how to deflect their painful, unprovoked attacks, and walk away from it. “Oh, he didn’t mean it.” Then why did he say it? People in abusive relationships often think of themselves as the glue that holds their family together. Do you see that as your role? Is that how you cling to the tattered remains of your self-respect? It doesn’t have to be that way. People that truly appreciate you have no problem saying so. If people refuse to say so, then they don’t appreciate you and they never will. It’s as simple as that. Stop lying to yourself. If you derive your self worth by claiming you’re the glue that holds the family together, you’re giving yourself a pep talk to endure an abusive relationship. You’re gaslighting yourself. You’re trying to push aside your involuntary response that’s telling you to get away. Your involuntary response is trying to save your life! Listen to it! Don’t silence it! It shouldn’t be one person who is responsible for holding a relationship together. It should be everybody. Everybody in the family should be committed to that goal. That’s not a job you assign. It’s an inherent part of any healthy relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s mother/daughter, sister/brother, father/son, or husband/wife. Everybody has to be involved for the sake of the mental health of the people they claim to care about. If they dump that responsibility on you, it means they don’t care about you. You need to get away from these people. The reason they continue to hurt you is because you are not allowing yourself to perceive their true nature. If you throw a rock at a window, you shouldn’t be shocked if the glass shatters. But that’s what you’re doing again and again, if you stay in a relationship with an authoritarian conservative. Things keep getting broken because you refuse to recognize the true nature of what you’re dealing with. Instead of the window, they’re shattering your soul. They’re shattering your life. You keep getting hurt because you refuse to recognize that this isn’t an accident, it’s their objective! A rock has sharp edges and it’s going to break things. That is what your conservative, authoritarian spouse is. It’s never going to get any better. They’re never going to not be that. You’ve got to get away from these tormentors. You’ve got to get away from conservative-leaning people and institutions. The hard part is you’ve invested a lot of time in those relationship. I know that. You’ve invested a lot of time in these people. You think, “Well, Life is short. I’ll make the best of it until the end. Maybe they’ll surprise me.” But all you’re doing is robbing yourself of the opportunity to have something that you actually deserve. It’s better to be alone than it is to endure the company of awful people. I’ll grant you that the adjustment period is challenging, I had this experience too. At first, it’s like giving up drinking. With time, clarity of thought descends. The first three months or so, your body needs to adapt. Your perception needs to adapt. But you’ve got to get away from toxic, high-pressure environments. The way their abuse works is through constant pressure. That’s why they become so desperate if you manage to get away. I think this is why we’re seeing that ghosting has become such a commonplace way to end relationships in the United States of America. The dynamic of abusive relationships parallels the the reality of our destructive political hate ideology. More and more, the pendulum is swinging towards abuse and authoritarianism. Roughly half the voting public voted for hatred. They delight in it. They like to hurt people. And once you figure out what you’re up against, you have to get away from it, because they’re very deceitful. They’ll make you doubt your own perception of reality. They have to in order to maintain their abuse. They present themselves as somebody who’s caring. These are of your inner circle. These are your friends and families and your spouse. They present themselves as there for you, but the second you’re not watching, they turn around and cast a vote to hurt you. They do it deliberately. They do it secretively. They do it without remorse. Then they won’t even have a conversation about how much it hurts you. They won’t even recognize that what they did caused you pain and put you in danger. Women are dying in our country now because of restricted access to health care. They’re dying. And nothing’s going to be done about it. It would have taken a while for anything to be done about it even had the result of the 2024 election been different. But nobody’s coming to save us now. Now, there’s not even going to be an effort to restore bodily autonomy to women in the United States. If you think it’s going to stop there, then you’re still holding a rock and deluding yourself into believing it can be hurled into your heart without causing agony. Stop believing that. Stop saying that your abusive spouse is “rough around the edges, but he’s got a heart of gold.” That doesn’t exist. When people have a heart of gold, you see it. They don’t have a rough exterior. That’s a myth designed to deceive you and to make you endure the abuses of evil people. People are what they reveal themselves to be. When they hurt you, when they say cruel things, when they run you down, when they don’t acknowledge anything that you contribute, when they won’t even offer you a simple compliment, they are abusing you, and they don’t care about you. If you’re one of those people that when you hear a compliment, you wonder what the person wants from you, it’s probably because you’re in an abusive relationship. This is a learned response. It is possible to have relationships where people say kind things. If the person you’re with has trained you to be suspicious of every kind word, then get away from that person. If divorcing them is too hard, start with a personal vacation. Get away for a week. Do some soul searching. If they don’t let you leave, consider what that means. There are resources out there to help you. Do some searches on a library computer where it can’t be so easily tracked to see where you can get some aid. Divorce is only going to become more difficult in the istration because they want women to be controlled, and mostly it’s going to be women divorcing men. I think this is how we change the world, though. If your husband believes in a patriarchal ideology, divorce him. Get as much from him as you can, although most of them are losers who don’t have good jobs because they don’t believe in education and they don’t believe in experts. Nevertheless, get whatever you can from a person like that. Leave them behind and struggling. Get your sons and daughters away from the influence of a guy like that for certain. Having children with men like that is complicated because forcing women to have babies against their will is one of the principal weapons of the conservative authoritarian hate movement. But you have protections even though you don’t know it, even though it seems impossible. If you’re a woman and you’ve lived through a nightmare like this and you managed to save yourself and your kids please me so I can do what I can to promote your story so that other women know that there is a way. Authoritarian patriarchs tell lies to your children. Your children have plenty of time to course correct and actually have a chance at happiness. The objective of authoritarian patriarchs is no longer hidden. They’ve become emboldened. They’re stating their cruel objectives right out in the open. They want to control people. They want to spread cruelty. They want to punish people who are undeserving of punishment. You owe it to yourself to get more out of life than that. You owe it to your kids to help them get more out of life than that. Set an example. There have to be consequences when people are cruel. That’s not love. You’re not the glue that holds the family together. You’re just a person who is being abused. None of your sacrifices are appreciated anyway. So, don’t put up with it anymore. It’s time to go. It’s time to give yourself a chance at achieving the basic human dignity you’re entitled to. It’s time to surround yourself with kind people who actually care about your well-being. Believe me, the whole world is full of those people. Half the country voted that way, so go to a blue state, go to a blue country, get away from wherever you are and start again. I think when you take a hard look in the mirror, you know already in your heart you can’t take it anymore. Something’s got to change. Getting away from an abusive partner is probably the most powerful choice you’ll ever make. Abs are liars. Abs are deceivers. Abs only torment you. You gain nothing by staying with them. Get far away and don’t try to change them. Make sure you explore your legal options, especially if you have kids. Because the court system is designed to help the abs. But even so, you have options and you have allies. Your journey to a better life starts by cutting out all conservative institutions from your sphere of influence. Don’t feel any pity for the people who have chosen to become oppressors. They’ve had plenty of time to see the error of their ways. Don’t waste your time thinking about them, because they don’t waste their time thinking about how they can help you. Get away. Cut them off. Divorce them. Leave them. You deserve more than associating with people who bleed you dry and then cast your remains away without so much as a “thank you.” You’re a human being. You deserve to be treated with respect. But they aren’t going to give it to you, so you have to take it. That’s just the way it is. You can’t control who is in the white house. But you can control who is in your house. Surround yourself with decent and kind people of character. All of these discounts are forever. I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-ed publication. To receive new posts and my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. My CoSchedule referral link Here’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to this newsletter (thank you). Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe 1u1y8