“You have to at least like each other, otherwise you’re doomed,” said the portly, bald, bearded man sharing the hot tub with us.
We were enjoying this hot tub as part of the park amenities - we got a membership to Thousand Trails, a national campground system that operates on a sort of time-share basis - and had struck up a conversation with the two fellows already there, both of whom, separately, were full-time RVers. We had been talking about families in small RVs and I mentioned that just two people in such a small space was plenty enough for me. I grew up in a large family, 10 people in a three-bedroom house. If you’re thinking that’s a bit crazy and chaotic, you’d be right. I’m not trying to recreate that experience. I like peace and quiet and aloneness.
Though my partner and I have been together for almost 5 years, and first met each other in 2014 (incidentally, when he needed a place to park his RV and I had a long driveway and needed some extra cash), we have only lived together since May 2021, when we first embarked on the RVlife together. I had not lived with a partner since 2014, and he had never lived with a partner. We were both happy with our particular single-ness; he lived in a house with roommates, one who was a friend from childhood, and I lived with my son, (and often had a roommate, later Airbnb boarders). I had my own room, a bed to myself, and an entire closet just for me, as did my partner. Neither of us was in any rush to give up these things. Eventually, I moved, and we ended up living about 5 blocks from each other.
Until the pandemania took hold, and my relationship with my son, which was pretty good considering he was hitting puberty full stride, started to devolve to the point where we both wanted him to go live with his father and my partner was getting ever more frustrated with the mandates required for him at work. Before we knew it, we’d gotten an RV to fix up and were planning a trip to Todos Santos, in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
About two months into this endeavor, another bomb was dropped. He had suddenly become political. I am generally apolitical and don’t participate in elections, except at the local level where I voted to keep fluoride out of our water and for a basic paid sick leave for all when those were on the menu. But I had tended to lean left of center - I worked at a homeless shelter for queer youth, which was decidedly progressive-liberal. He revealed that he’d started to lean conservative, much to his surprise. At first, it was no big deal. But then I found myself in conversations that disturbed and triggered me. Trump. January 6. QAnon. We were on the same page about the dodgy pandemania narrative - I had started to do some digging because I had, oh, a million questions, and something smelled fishy. But this was too much of a stretch.
The ensuing conversations were bad. Very, very bad. We took a break from each other, and I made some effort to calm my nervous system, I realized that I was not willing to allow this thing to come between us. I was not willing to “cancel” him simply because he believed something different than I, as that went against my deeply held values of personal freedom and unconditional love. And I suspected that given how politics was rapidly changing, was something that could change as more truth was revealed. But how could we co-exist? We had seemed to cross a line with each other. Disagreements before had been respectful, and without yelling. And more to the point: how were we going to live, in a small space, together?
I realized that it wasn’t just our conversations that triggered me, it was my keeping abreast of the news. Though I was aware that reading the news, especially political news, wasn’t great for me, and, having gone through PTSD and recovery, I was more attuned to myself than I’d ever been, and thus, I realized I needed to cut it out. ASAP. So I did. But this also meant I needed to set a boundary around political conversations with my partner. I told him that for the time being, because of how it triggered me, I could not have conversations about news, especially about Trump and politics. He agreed. It took some effort, but we managed it. Instead, our conversations centered more and more around getting the RV ready to travel.
During that time, I told only three people of this conversation, as I knew that many of my progressive liberal left friends would not just be appalled, but attempt to persuade me to leave him. I love him, and absolutely would not abide any conversation in which he might be disparaged in the way that liberals like to do to conservatives. I still won’t. One of whom I told, was empathetic yet urged me not to go on this trip. Another, my brother (who hasn’t lived in the US in over 25 years) simply listened. The third said, “I don’t know if I could be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t share my values.” She was empathetic as well, without adding advice on what I ought to do. But her statement made me think and was probably the most helpful in why I decided to stay.
Beliefs and values are not the same. They are often conflated and so thought as the same, but they are not. My partner and I do share the same values, even if we have arrived at differing beliefs that support them. We both value freedom, love, truth, beauty, adventure, joy, independence, diversity, equality, spirituality, and self-expression. What we believe to be expressions or representations of these values will be different because we are different people. We are together because we see these things expressed in each other differently, and because of this, bring more of those things to each other. We are richer for this, more expanded; our light shines even brighter, and we have exponentially more of what we value together than alone.
I was also taking note of the ever-growing socio-political divisiveness and felt despair. If we can’t figure this out, as two humans who spend a lot of time doing spiritual growth work, then is there any hope for the world? If peace begins with me, I must find a way to begin being peace. I wanted to remember what I’d learned through mystical experiences: that we are separate is an illusion, and love can be found in everything and everyone if one just opens one’s heart to see it. I was determined that, while I could do nothing to make the angry groups stop calling each other nasty names, sit down and have “civil discourse”, I could, and would, find a way to do that in my closest relationship.
More importantly, if I feel that my own healing contributes to the healing of the world - the earth and her inhabitants - then healing the division and conflict within me is essential. What this means is that whatever I experience and observe outside of myself is a reflection of that which is in me. How am I in conflict? What parts of myself do I wish to “cancel”? So long as I avert my gaze to my shadow, and encourage others to do the same, we cannot heal; we cannot bring about “a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible” a phrase coined by Charles Eisenstein.
It’s been over a year now. There have been ups and downs, some pretty good arguments, frustrations on both sides, long-held silences, and times when either one of us considered packing up and going our separate ways. Most of this has to do with learning to live together, as we’ve arrived at the ability to occasionally discuss political news respectfully (and as I foresaw, it has changed significantly). It should be disingenuous to only share the hard things; there is so much that we like about each other, and many of those challenges have only increased our liking for each other. We make each other laugh (he is brilliant with wordplay), we have fun together, we flirt, and we support each other’s passions, growth, and healing. We bounce ideas and thoughts off each other. We truly enjoy each other’s company.
And all this reminds us that Life (and past-life karma - a shared belief!) put us here, together, to open our hearts and choose to practice the most important value of all: Love.
RVLife, when beliefs collide
Relationships take work, but with good hearts, the work feels worthy. My husband has long conversations each week with a very old friend whose beliefs are not only wildly different from his, but even some of his values (the friend's distant relationship with his son, for example). Their conversations get edgy and hostile at times, especially when discussing their theories about "consciousness". My husband is very right-brained and looks at things through a less "logical" lens, while the friend is a physicist who believes his views are totally "rational" and science-based. He often is rude and calls my husband "stupid"! Yet they keep calling and keep talking. Why? I think it's because ultimately they are engaged in the noble cause of understanding. It's painful and doesn't often yield desired results, but it is the best thing that humans can do - talk through their misunderstandings and give it TIME to settle and percolate, and maybe, heal. It's clear that our emotions play a huge part in these struggles, and that is a good thing. I do want people to care, and care deeply, even when mistaken.
So well said Maria. The other day I wrote down someone's thought: Instead of trying to change someone else's beliefs, try to understand their perspective.