Today is Sunday, November 24, 2024. Here’s an interesting online article about the ripple effects of the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election in which democracy was thrown under the bus by Donald Dump’s stunning victory: the rate of divorce is rising between couples with differing viewpoints on the election. The article is found in BuzzFeed and it’s entitled “‘These People Have Been Unhappy For A Long Time'”: Divorce Lawyers Are Weighing In On If And Why Couples Are Splitting After Donald Trump’s Election Win.”

In the aftermath of the last election, there’s been a lot of talk about family members severing ties or setting new boundaries due to political differences. And it’s not just parents, siblings, and extended family having these fights about maintaining ties. There have been headlines about election-related divorce, too.

Although there is no hard data around the pursuit of divorces since the election of former president Donald Dump, many lawyers have shared anecdotal evidence of an effect.

One of those lawyers is family law attorney Jo Anna C. Parker of Alabama who tweeted on November 9 that 14 potential new clients scheduled divorce consultations in the days following the election – a significant increase compared with her typical workweek and even more notable because November is usually a slow month for new divorce cases, she said.

Another family law attorney, Tiffany Bond of Maine, told HuffPost she was similarly busy fielding intake calls in the week after Dump was reelected.

She remarked about this sudden increase, “I had to send calls to other attorneys because I couldn’t take any more myself. It happened the last time Trump was elected, too.”

Kaylan Gaudio, a family law attorney at Sodoma Law in North Carolina, opines that “Couples with differing political ideologies may find themselves reexamining their compatibility.”

She noted that some women in particular view their partner’s support for president-elect Drumpf as a personal affront and disregard for their rights and values.

“Some women feel that supporting a candidate who wants to eliminate their right to choose what to do with their own body, or the fact that the candidate has been found liable for sexual abuse by a jury coupled with his disrespectful and sexualized rhetoric toward women as unfathomable,” Gaudio said. She added, “A spouse may question their partner’s values and the respect he or she has for women if the individual is willing to support a candidate with this track record.”

A major event like this last election might highlight how much a couple has grown apart over the years. They may have married young before they really knew themselves or each other. Now one or both partners may be demanding the other come into their worldview instead of reflecting on how they can better express their values and connect.

Following the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections, Tiffany Bond heard from women who expressed feeling like their partner does not value them as an equal and as a human being.

She explained, “A lot of these people have been unhappy for a long time.” She added, “There are fundamental incompatibilities that have grown over time. It’s not simply ‘You voted for Trump, so I’m going to divorce you.’ There might be some gloating or celebrating that involves a husband saying offensive things to his wife, which adds to her underlying feeling that he doesn’t respect her. It’s more like the straw that broke the camels’ back, but that camel already had a lot of straw.”

Therefore, this article highlights how the institution of marriage itself may have seen a sea change as a result of Dump’s win on November 5. Spouses have taken a stand and are shouting this to their lawyers, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” in deference to a most repeated line of dialogue from 1976’s brilliant satire on television, Network.

Thus not only have our faith in institutions have been shaken by Dump’s unexpected election victory, marriages have also come apart at the seams as a result of differing political viewpoints held by the respective spouses.

I can’t wait to see how family dinners proceed under the Thanksgiving turkey this coming holiday season. Massive arguments are certain to arise if political viewpoints become known while watching the traditional football game in the afternoon. Possibly the best way to proceed this coming Thanksgiving is to establish a hard and fast rule from the very beginning: no political discussion anywhere at any time during the family gathering. If anyone breaks this rule, he or she can be banished from the dinner table after the game.

Have a good week.

And so it went!