Los Angeles: A 73-year-old woman has separated from her husband of over 22 years of their marriage after he planned to vote for Donald Trump in the run-up to the US presidential polls.
The retired California prison guard, Gayle McCormick a self-described “Democrat leaning toward socialist,” said she was stunned when her husband casually mentioned during a lunch with friends last year that he wants to support Trump. She described his revelation as a “deal breaker.”
McCormick said. “It totally undid me that he could vote for Trump,” said McCormick, 73, who had not thought of leaving the conservative Republican before but felt “betrayed” by his support for Trump.”
“I felt like I had been fooling myself,” she said. “It opened up areas between us I had not faced before. I realised how far I had gone in my life to accept things I would have never accepted when I was younger.” She said.
McCormick said.”It took us many, many months to make this decision. We went to counseling and saw a priest. This wasn’t a snap decision.”
“When things are 51 percent good and 49 percent bad, you just stay. I was tired and older and I didn’t want to argue and neither of us was going to change,” McCormick said.
When politics would come up, she would usually walk away, she said. It was only when Trump came up that she knew she could not stay silent.
“I just couldn’t. I was surprised Bill could agree with Donald Trump on anything,” she said.
Though Bill did not vote for Trump in the election, McCormick said they still had to separate. The couple met in 1980 while they were both working at the same prison. She said she felt like she had no voice in the relationship.
“We are just too different. It had more to do with the fact that I had not been true to myself for so long and that I had not stood up for myself for so long. I need to recapture myself,” McCormick said.
“It’s hard and not an easy thing. I love him and I want him to be happy,” she said.
This political season has made hot debates in the public arena and also seeped into private lives, complicating friendships, marriages, romances and relationships among family members.