science

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...

Sometimes you don't know. Or think it's not important.

There's this thing basically (you've probably heard about it), "I don't like X people, but you're good because you're not like them". X can be race, gender, any other things. When you are with that kinda person as long as they like you, you won't feel how they are, they'll treat you nice but it's an exception not the rule. But when they don't like you, they revert back to treating you like the X group. They'll even go "I knew X would be like this" and all.

Now in many cases if they were vocal about it from the beginning you'd notice and might get away. But in many cases they won't be vocal, or they'll talk about it with some extreme examples which you might feel is justified and you know you're not like that so it's fine. And in those cases you yourself might hate those subgroup for ruining your reputation so you might even bond over that.

They start out aligned, but then one person's ideology changes over time (perhaps even after marriage).

It's good to challenge and confirm common sense scientifically. There are many examples where common sense wasn't as sensible as originally thought.

Why date someone who actively votes against your family's best interests?

"She wont fuck me any more because I started sucking Charlie Kirk's cock!"

Was my first thought too.

Because one or the other person in the relationship isn't being honest which happens quote frequently. People in relationships lie by omission all the time.

Are you trying to imply that the people you disagree with politically - presumably those to the right of center - all fit into the cartoon caricature you just painted? The things you listed aren't even political issues but social ones.

The current political climate is different than before. It not falls along the lines of empathy. I don't see how marriages survive that in a healthy way.

That isn't to say they'll all divorce. Divorce rates are very tightly coupled to economic well-being and children. But I do think a lot more people are staying in horrible marriages if their partner has no empathy.

Dating someone with opposing views is the easier of two situations people can find themselves in.

The harder situation is when you date and marry someone with similar views to yours, but then 5, 10, 15, etc years into the marriage they get radicalized by family members or YouTube. And suddenly their opinions change overnight and you are legally bound to an angry, hostile stranger.

I thought I was going crazy when this person I went on a couple dates with told me she was gonna pursue the other guy. She had said he was a Trump supporter and was offended at some things he’d said to her. Must have had she face of a movie star and a genius in bed. I was pretty offended, but whatever.

In the western scientific model, this is how we differentiate truths from anecdotes and assumptions. Not sure why this needs to be repeated in every thread about the results of research.