The Challenge of Mixed Marriages in the Age of Trump

Mixed marriages can work.

I’m a romantic. I like to believe that the power of love can overcome any boundaries or differences.

That’s what I like to believe, but in this age of wretched Trumpism, how do you make it work? When your values are so desperately opposed, I don’t know if there is a marriage counselor in the entire country that can help a couple find that middle ground, when one spouse is a Trumpling, and the other is sane.

I haven’t checked the stats, actually, but I’m sure somebody is on the case, determining the rate of marital breakups over politics.

If somebody has that information, shoot it back to me. I’m genuinely interested.

In a recent Washington Post profile, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway touched on her own marriage to George Conway, an attorney and outspoken critic of President Trump.

Anyone with a Twitter account has probably seen George Conway’s tweets, at some point. They are smart, on point, and more than a few times, I’ve wondered out loud if he was actively trying to get his wife fired.

So far, it hasn’t happened, but you have to know this is making her job “uncomfortable.”

In the profile, Conway goes on to describe her husband’s feelings over her position.

“I feel there’s a part of him that thinks I chose Donald Trump over him,” Kellyanne told Washington Post reporter Ben Terris. “Which is ridiculous. One is my work and one is my marriage.”

That’s true, but Trump is an intensely polarizing figure. He is an infection. The Bible is clear that bad company spoils good character. How do you shut that off when you go home?

What we know about Kellyanne Conway is that she was vehemently opposed to Trump – perhaps as much as her husband – before he became the nominee and offered her a job.

Money talks, and in some cases, buys off principles.

So what does she think of her husband’s continued, outspoken opposition to her boss?

“I think it’s disrespectful,” she said. “I think it disrespects his wife.”

She then walked back her comments by saying that “people see it that way.”

“I’ve never actually said what I think about it and I won’t say what I think about it, which tells you what I think about it,” she added.

An interesting side note here: The author of the profile piece, Terris, pointed out that Kellyanne wanted to be able to trash her husband, anonymously. She wanted Terris to write his piece in a way that made it appear that the attack on George Conway was from a random Trump worshiper, but that Terris refused, so she “adjusted” her comments.

Saying she felt her husband’s anti-Trump tweets possibly violated their marriage vows (?!?!?), she was apparently feeling pretty free to vent.

When Terris asked Conway about her husband’s tweets criticizing Trump, she appeared to complain about him candidly before Terris reminded her that she was speaking on the record.

“I told you everything about his tweets was off the record,” Conway told Terris.

“No, that’s not true. That never happened,” he replied, later adding, “We never discussed everything about his tweets being off the record.”

“Fine,” Conway relented. “I’ve never actually said what I think about it and I won’t say what I think about it, which tells you what I think about it.

Yes. That tells us a lot, actually.

On his end of the conflict, George Conway doesn’t believe his wife has a problem with him, and is quick to point out that his problem is with the gilded toad she works for.

“If there’s an issue, it’s because she’s in that job, for that man,” he told the Post. “If my wife were the counselor to the CEO of Pepsi and I had a problem with her boss, I would simply drink my Coke and keep my mouth shut. If the president were simply mediocre or even bad, I’d have nothing to say. This is much different.”

And that’s a reasonable position.

Former Trump aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman has suggested that the president has referred to George Conway, who is half Filipino, as a “f***ing flip” and a “goo-goo.”

Both are derogatory, racist jabs at Filipinos.

Coming from Manigault Newman, it is to be taken with a grain of salt, but given the nastiness of who Trump is, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility.

It appears that George Conway is willing to overlook his wife’s job as one of the faces of a lying, detestable administration, but the conscience she once possessed is struggling to reach out from beyond the grave, and it burns her.

I hope they can work it out. Marriage is a sacred institution, not to be entered into – nor dissolved – lightly.

If it fails, however, we can assume George is the one who gets custody of the dignity in the divorce decree.