Help, I can no longer communicate with my parents on the right

La Daronne is the queen of not-so-stupid advice, covered with a large dose of more or less subtle humor. Here she is back to help a reader!

The question for Daronne

Dear Daronne,

This last Christmas with my family was very complicated. I came with my girlfriend for the first time, we were going to spend a week with my family who doesn’t have the same political opinions as us at all.

Accustomed to their comments and knowing that I am absolutely the only one to defend my ideas, I have gotten into the habit of remaining silent and turning a deaf ear to certain observations to avoid eating meals alone against everyone and having to endure their Bad faith. However, between the length of the stay and the fact that I wanted to spare my girlfriend certain remarks, things between me and my parents blew up. They accuse me of being “closed-minded” because I refuse to continue to let myself be crushed by certain comments that are, in my eyes, intolerable and even offensive. On top of that, they took a dislike to my girlfriend, almost accusing her of being the cause of this change in behavior.

Despite this situation, they have always been very present and loving parents, we have always been a united family. That’s why it hurts me even more, I don’t know how to open a dialogue and build a real adult-to-adult relationship with respect.

Do you have any advice for me?

Thanks in advance,

An anonymous madman

Daronne’s response

My little dove,

Your message breaks my heart. My children are not adults yet, but I hope that when the day comes they will talk about their Darons like you talk about yours. You accuse them of having ideas like right-wing idiots, but above all your letter implicitly reveals to me how much you love them and… It moves me. People seriously don’t measure their luck.

Luckily you didn’t give me their contact details otherwise I wouldn’t have replied and I would have gone straight there to pry their ears.

Guys, HELLO, you have a girl who loves you, who is ready to accept your differences and continue to find quality in you. Do you know that your daughter writes letters to an old stranger Daronne because the idea of ​​losing you is so unbearable? Do you really want to risk losing something so precious, just out of pride and contradiction? And then there are millions of people in France who would be happy to talk to you?

You’re messing up, parents, you’re really messing up. Don’t fucking do it. No, I’m not complaining, I’m sweating from my eyes.

Is it possible to love someone on the right?

Ideally, everyone around us should share our opinions. We could let ourselves be tempted by a physiotherapist or a macronist dentist, for the emotion, but let’s not get lost.

The time has come to break a taboo: many people on the left deeply love people on the right and vice versa. These people are their parents, their siblings or their childhood friends. They share common tastes, can count on each other and always laugh a lot when they see each other.

For the agreement to last, it is obviously necessary that some topics are excluded from the conversations and that everyone can listen to the other without exaggerating. Because I can’t imagine how anyone could ride two horses at the same time.
These reports, both hypocritical and comforting, by definition contravene our values, but that’s how the world works. If no one discreetly dealt with their conscience, humanity would become extinct before it even learned to speak.

However, there is a limit that must not be exceeded: the level of tolerance varies depending on the stories and phases of life. Often a loved one serves as a catalyst.

Communicate with parents

To move forward you must first go back. This proverb of my own creation doesn’t apply to all situations (so is it really a proverb?), but it does here. Before considering communication, I invite you to take some time for yourself and your girlfriend, without contact with them. Maybe they will have the opportunity to move forward, while you can think about how you would like to solve the problem: rarefy relationships, try to fix the relationship between your parents and your girlfriend, take on your ideas without fear…

When/if (I’ll come back to this) you feel ready, you can contact them in writing or propose a meeting to resolve your differences in a reasonable and satisfactory way, like the adults you are. You are not here to restart the bitterness machine, but to find lasting solutions that will allow you to continue loving yourself throughout your life.

Don’t listen to your pride if it tells you to wait for them to take the first step. The days are long, but the years are short, so we might as well spend them together and happy being together.

Take care of your girlfriend, okay

I don’t know the nature of their comments. You’re talking to me about communicating with them and not demanding sincere apologies and reparations from them, so I assume that verbal slurs, for example, are not homophobic in nature.

You can be proud of having found the strength within yourself to fight back, but your girlfriend must continue to know that she can count on you. If you’re considering a future together, there’s no way your partner will get upset every time you see your parents. And to be completely honest, she doesn’t deserve to be in a relationship where, even if she’s not present, her partner lets her parents criticize her. I can imagine how difficult the situation is for you, but it is not always possible, or even desirable, to go easy on each other. If they can’t contain their ardor, you may have to make a choice. They will claim that you chose your partner over them, but it will be false. You will have chosen dignity and respect for your fellow man.

I sincerely hope that your parents have enough intelligence to realize how lucky they are to have a daughter who dreams of a beautiful family relationship. If for some reason they cannot put their ego aside and are stubborn, know one thing: no matter how painful, pitiful and deplorable the situation is, you will not be responsible for it. You have the right to demand that your parents respect your ideas and your partner. It would be even the smallest thing coming from loving and present parents.

I’ll leave you, light a candle for you and get some tissues. They killed me, I swear.

The kiss

Your Daronne