Can you be happily married if your politics are poles apart?

We’ve been fighting about politics since the day we met. My husband is a staunch Liberal Party supporter, conservative, slightly judgemental and incredibly fatalistic when it comes to issues like the economy and welfare.

He thinks we can’t afford to help people.

I think he is wrong.

It goes without saying that the past few weeks have been particularly intense. I’d go as far as to saying that since news of the leadership spill broke, we’ve been at war.

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You’d think after 17 years together you’d stop trying to change each other’s mind when it comes to core beliefs. It begs the question – how did we even end up together? Can our marriage survive Australia’s political system? Our prime ministers barely survive it, judging by how little it takes to topple them over.

Our relationship started off so well…

A soft, leftie feminist meets a conservative, right-wing pretend-feminist. By avoiding all topics that caused conflict – as some couples tend to do when they are dating, requiring occasional bouts of polite nodding – we managed to fall in love, move in together, get pregnant and get married, in that order. Don’t get me wrong, our relationship was full of robust debates. We’d argue over many issues and we’d argue to the death. Our differences were born of passion, and inspired passion in us. We solved all of the problems of the world over dinner, countless times.

This time though, the political divide has become a little too heavy.

The longer we are together, the more left I drift and the more steadfast he remains in his right-ness. There was a time when I was influenced by his political beliefs and I even voted for the Liberal Party a couple of times. We were united. I blame my lapse in judgment on losing my career and becoming a mother in a short space of time. I had clearly lost my mind and I had completely drifted away from the ideals I had held since adolescence.

I had always been a progressive socialist feminist. In the past few years, she’s come back. With gusto.

Even I could see that Tony Abbott was a good opposition leader and then I watched as he came undone as PM, however in my husband’s eyes he could do no wrong. In my husband’s eyes the only people who thought he wasn’t a good PM were misinformed.

Our welfare system is too stretched.

Our economy is in jeopardy.

I get it. I get that. However I will always refuse to believe that we don’t have a strong enough economy to help those in need, which is what I said as he shook his head in frustration at my insistence that we had an ethical and moral obligation to help others, that we needed to be more progressive, that our daughter deserved to grow up in a world where equal treatment wasn’t something she had to fight for.

The leadership spill started up all the fighting again.

My husband went to bed before the leadership spill results were known (because he had to get up at 3am for work) so I shook him awake to let him know that Malcolm Turnbull was our new PM and Tony Abbott was no more. He said, “Fuck. We’re fucked,” because in his head, Tony Abbott is the only man for the job and Joe Hockey is the real issue.

I disagree. However I was hoping to express my opinion at the next election, not through a manipulative leadership spill. I won’t be tricked into voting for the Liberal Party at the next election. They can swap as many leaders as they like, which is what I said to my husband the next day. He looked at me like I was an alien.

I’ve always voted for the Democrats, or Greens, or the Labour Party. Always. And that’s where I’ll head come the next election. My husband and I will walk down to the polling booth together and then veer in opposite directions towards the representatives of our choice. We’ll stand silently in line before casting our votes and he’ll shake his head at me because in his mind I am just grossly misinformed.

Condescending much?