A recent study by researchers at the University of Padua and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) has revealed that political differences between partners can significantly increase the risk of separation. Using long-term data from UK couples, the researchers found that those with different party preferences were substantially more likely to separate than those with the same political beliefs. The risk is particularly high when there are differences of opinion on Brexit.
I was raised a combination of atheist (mom) and Quaker (dad) - the atheism definitely won, though I did internalize a decent amount of the Quakerism… I was engaged to a Catholic girl in my mid-20s. We discussed things early on, I said I’d respect her beliefs if she’d respect my lack thereof, and for a while it worked out nicely, we’d talk about spiritual stuff, but neither of us was trying to convert the other, it was more of a “how do you feel about x” or “how do you explain y”… But after a while, she decided that since I was “preventing” her from going to church some Sundays (I wasn’t, I was fine with her going without me, she just didn’t want to if she had the option to stay in bed and fool around with me, and why on earth would I turn her down?) that she wanted me to go with her the next Sunday whenever she skipped one. In retrospect, this was the first nail in the coffin of our relationship, but of course I didn’t recognize it at the time. It took us moving in together permanently for me to see how controlling she was, and how mean she could be if she didn’t get her way…
She was a church-going catholic, wanted you to go too, but was living together before marriage (mortal sin), fooling around (mortal sin) and engaged to an atheist (not a sin in itself but frowned upon)? I mean yeah, just the sheer contradiction of these is a red flag, no wonder the girl ended up being messed up later on