Hers & His: Politics makes strange bedfellows

[NeoConsSuck]

We can thank the Great Uniter for this.
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The nation's sharp political divisions, intensified by this year's election, are mirrored in bitter marital disputes as politically opposed spouses increasingly turn pillow talk into a war of words.

In the Washington, D.C., area, psychologist Renana Brooks has seen a similar change. In questionnaires couples fill out before therapy, they never named political disputes as a problem until a few years ago; now more than a third mention politics as a sore point.

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Alynne Sharp, a Jacksonville artist, loves her husband, "but we both feel so strongly in this election, and it's been hard for me."

Her spouse, Philip, a Republican, "watches Fox, Fox, Fox all the time," Sharp says. "Then we go in the car and, for a breath of fresh air, it's Rush Limbaugh. Let's just say air, forget the fresh," she jokes. Sharp insists on equal radio time: a half hour of National Public Radio for every half hour of Limbaugh.

When they visit her mother-in-law, a lifelong Republican, it's "pile on" time, she says. "They just don't let up, and I find it hard to argue. Sometimes, just to try to end it, I'll say 'You could be right,' In my mind I'm thinking, 'But you're not.' "

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-10-06-his-her-politics_x.htm