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.
Do they try to talk politics while around? If so I’d fucking unload on their sorry asses (depending on how the wife would react). One of the most common themes I’ve seen among supporters is they have a very small single issue they claim as the sole reason. So forcing them to address the full ramifications I feel is prudent.
If they don’t try to talk politics, I’m not sure what I would do. But I’d definitely be making sure my wife wasn’t enduring some extra trauma for the sake of family. You could try helping her realize she had the power to cut them out of her life and she can be just fine.
Yeah she’s one of those “for the economy” types. But I don’t believe it from anyone who voted trump. We all saw the entirety of his first term, and J6. On top of that, in my opinion anyone who says they voted for him for the economy is tacitly admitting they knew he was going to hurt people, but chose to ignore that because they thought it would benefit them personally.