Dani, Brooklyn, NY
I married into a conservative family and after 20 years with my husband who I adore, I’ve finally decided to divorce his Trumpist family members. As a first-generation Latina, I always felt like I didn’t belong in my partner’s white Catholic Italian side of the family. I’ve witnessed their racist humor, their sexist remarks, their homophobic slurs, their fatphobic jests, and pretty much every ism/phobia in between.
If I dared to speak up, I “couldn’t take a joke”; I was too sensitive cause “they were just teasing” or I was told to ignore them cause “that’s how they are when they drink.” One uncle even told me to kill myself at my SIL’s baby shower and while many family members witnessed this, no one defended me. Except my husband, of course. When Obama got elected, their disgusting rhetoric spiked.
They were obsessed with his birth certificate, his “Muslim name” and, of course, “reverse racism”. 8 years of a black man as President regardless of his experience and accolades was too much for them to deal with. So when Trump ran for office and won the primaries, it was as though they were saved from the scary socialists who wanted to “turn America into Communist China.”
Every rally speech, interview, and tweet seemed to indoctrinate them further into his delusional world where he is this all-knowing being because he’s a “successful” business man. 🤦🏽♀️ Trump’s steaks ARE the best! 🙄 It has been a journey to find my voice in this family, to say the least. And I was met with much pushback because “families shouldn't talk about politics, religion, and sports.” Except for them, of course.
Praising the trans military ban was acceptable dinner banter but calling out the transphobia is TOO MUCH! From the Muslim ban and family separations at the border with children in cages to COVID, the January 6th Insurrection, and the Big Lie - I saw them feverishly peal away all those superficial neighborly layers to reveal their white supremacist bigoted selves.
To be fair, it was always there but there was no attempt at hiding it or excusing it any longer. Even now as the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade, they don’t necessarily agree but they’ll side with their Conservative party cause GOD. No thought of the separation between church and state or the fact that they’re voting alongside neo-Nazis.
My in-laws mastered whataboutism and remain willfully ignorant only firing back the usual Tucker Carlson, OAN, FOX News lies. I should point out that my husband has a tumultuous relationship with his parents as he grew up in a normalized abusive and toxic home. A home that has a history of sexual abuse where men were bullies and women protected them. It makes sense why they’d choose to live in this alternate reality. It’s part of their wiring! It’s painful to see.
Luckily, my husband is a remarkably compassionate and loving human being. While he was more willing to separate from his family long ago, I wanted to try and reason with them. Surely logic, facts, and love can work wonders! Bahaha. This has gotten long. I’m verbose. Essentially, I have finally divorced his family and made it clear to them why I didn’t want to remain connected with them any longer.
Our words didn’t mean anything compared to the self-serving thoughts of 45. Our desperate pleas to be heard didn’t matter enough to them to wake up from their stupor. It all became too draining! The dread and stress we felt every time we knew we had to attend a family gathering or found out they were visiting was detrimental to our mental and emotional state of mind. Each time, we’d arm ourselves with Stepford politeness and superficiality just to get through whatever family thing we had to get through. Deep breaths. Wooza. Smile and wave.
While I feel empowered to let go of these toxic people and maintain relationships with the few liberal/progressives in the family, it’s a sad, disheartening experience that I’ve been grieving for a long time. Over these 20 years, I’ve grown to understand them, their history, their quirks, their scars, and I love them. But I love me more.