My Mormon family members and I disagree about nearly everything.
They believe the Book of Mormon is literally true, that ancient prophets wrote on gold plates, that Joseph Smith translated them by divine power, and that our family bloodline makes us special in God's eyes. I believe my great-great-uncle, Joseph Smith, was a charismatic narcissist who fabricated a religion in his quest for power and wealth.
They think I'm deceived by Satan. I think they're trapped in a system requiring intellectual dishonesty. We're both right about each other being wrong.
And yet, somehow, we're still talking.
Not because either of us changed our minds. We're talking because we decided‚ separately, painfully, with a lot of therapy. And that being family mattered more than being right.
I realize this sounds impossibly naïve when half the country isn't speaking to the other half. When Easter tables have empty chairs because Uncle Bob voted wrong, or your family's candidate makes you want to scream into a pillow.
I don't have an answer that fits everyone. Some divisions involve genuine harm‚ abuse, violence, dehumanization. Those require distance, not bridge-building.
But for families fractured by ideology rather than injury, I keep thinking about what it took for my Mormon family and me to stay connected across an unbridgeable divide. It wasn't easy. It required giving up things I desperately wanted. Being right. Being validated. Being understood.
But we're here. We can gather without it devolving into arguments.
Maybe that counts for something.
Stop Trying to Change Them
My Mormon brother will never wake up and announce, "You're right. The church is a fraud." Not even after his own children left the faith. He's deeply invested.
His children can't discuss their reasons for leaving without sounding accusatory. They love their parents. Don't want to hurt them. And there's no real invitation anyway. My brother and his wife aren't truly curious about why their children left, just what they did wrong as parents that led to it.
When I left, my family didn't want explanations or evidence. They already knew. Satan led me astray. End of story.
Some ex-Mormons persist in arguing their case. If only they could explain clearly enough, present enough evidence, use the right tone, they'd finally get it. But there are deep reasons people cling to beliefs. Decades invested in having the one truth. Identity fused with a closed community. The devastation of admitting you were wrong. And in my family's case, our royal Mormon legacy.
Karl Pillemer, a Cornell sociologist studying family estrangement, found that successful reconcilers did one thing: they gave up forcing their interpretation on the other person. Stopped needing to be right. Focused on the present relationship rather than rehashing the past.
When I first left, this felt impossible. How could I not correct demonstrable falsehoods? Wasn't I betraying truth itself?
But here's what I finally understood: I wasn't going to change their minds. They weren't going to change mine. We were both dug in, armed with evidence, certain.
The only question left: could we love each other anyway?
If your goal is changing someone's political beliefs, save yourself the heartbreak. It won't work. But staying connected despite fundamental disagreement? That might actually be possible.
You just have to stop preaching.
Accept the Unfairness
I spent years silently furious that my family didn't validate my religious trauma. They dismissed my pain. Misunderstood my reasons for leaving. Treated me as the outlier.
It wasn't fair. It isn't fair.
I had to accept it anyway.
Joshua Coleman, a psychologist specializing in estrangement, says this is the hardest part: accepting that the other person's version of events contradicts yours and you can't force them to see it differently.
My parents genuinely believe they were loving, supportive, gave me everything, especially the right religious path. I genuinely believe I was raised in a system that prioritized obedience over authenticity, control over truth, and dogma that was especially damaging to women.
We're both telling the truth from our respective psychologies. Everyone's story is real to them, even when stories contradict.
I wanted my parents to apologize for raising me in a system that hurt me. They wanted me to apologize for abandoning the faith and breaking their hearts. Neither of us was getting what we wanted.
So I stopped waiting for fairness and started asking: What do I actually control?
I couldn't make them understand my pain. Couldn't force validation. But I could decide what kind of daughter and sibling I wanted to be. Could choose my response. Could set boundaries. Could show up without requiring them to change first.
Infuriating, honestly. Why should I do all the emotional labor? Why accommodate their delusions when they won't acknowledge my reality?
Because the alternative was losing them entirely.
Waiting for apologies rarely leads to reconciliation. The apology never comes. Or when it does, it doesn't satisfy. Doesn't undo the hurt. You're left with a choice: accept the unfairness and build something new anyway, or let unfairness be the final word.
It helped me to realize: I'd been where they still were. But they'd never been outside the faith. They had no context for my experience. They literally couldn't understand.
Religious estrangement and political estrangement are the same thing, just dressed in different clothes.
My Mormon family believes they have divine truth revealed through prophets. Your MAGA uncle believes he has truth revealed through channels exposing what "mainstream media" won't tell you. Your progressive cousin believes she has truth revealed through academic research and her lived experience.
All certain. All with evidence. All surrounded by communities reinforcing their certainty.
The mechanisms are identical. Identity fused with belief. Moral certainty — not just right, but righteous. Threat perception, the other side isn't just wrong, they're dangerous. Information silos. At the neurological level, the psychological level, the family-systems level, it's the same problem.
You can't logic someone out of an identity. Can't fact-check someone out of a tribe. Can't debate someone out of a reality they need to believe.
But you can decide the relationship matters more than winning the argument.
Just as I had to accept my brother would never leave the Mormon Church, you may have to accept your father will never vote differently. Just as my Mormon family had to accept I wouldn't return, your conservative sister may have to accept that you're staying socially liberal.
The question isn't *How do I change their mind?*
The question is *Can we be family anyway?*
Set Boundaries. Enforce Them.
Staying connected didn't mean accepting everything they said or did. It meant figuring out what I could tolerate and what I absolutely couldn't.
I don't help fund their children's missions. Don't attend grandchildren's baptisms. Don't engage in doctrine debates. But I show up for birthdays and weddings. Listen respectfully about church callings. Ask about my sister's garden. Find common ground.
For political divisions, this might look like: we don't discuss elections at holiday gatherings. We don't send inflammatory articles. We don't use family chats to debate policy. If someone violates that boundary, there are consequences. Not punitive. Protective.
"I'm stepping outside." "I need to end this call." "I'm not available for this conversation."
Boundaries aren't about controlling the other person. They're about protecting yourself so you can stay in relationship without sacrificing your sanity or your identity.
Consider What You're Giving Up
I'm not here to sell you on reconciliation. Some family relationships are toxic, abusive, dangerous. Some people weaponize "family loyalty" to demand you tolerate harm. If someone is actively hurting you, dehumanizing you, making your life miserable, you don't owe them your presence.
But if you're considering estrangement solely because of political or ideological differences, think carefully about what you're giving up.
Pillemer's research found that most people who reconciled said it was transformative. No regrets. But people who stayed estranged described it as one of the most painful experiences of their lives. Something that haunted them for decades.
I'm not saying tolerate everything in the name of family. I'm saying: weigh the decision to cut someone off against the reality that you might carry that loss for the rest of your life.
What Reconciliation Actually Looks Like
Nobody tells you this about reconciliation: it doesn't feel triumphant. No moment where everything clicks into place. No hugging it out to inspirational music.
Last Christmas, my brother mentioned he'd been called as the new Elder's Quorum president. In the old days, I would have tensed. Bitten back commentary about unpaid church labor and patriarchal authority.
This time, I asked about it. Not because I suddenly respect Mormon priesthood structure. But because it matters to him. And he matters to me.
He talked for ten minutes about families he'd serve, teenagers he worried about, hopes for building community. Stripped of doctrine I can't accept, he was just talking about wanting to help people.
Same team after all. Different uniforms.
That's reconciliation in practice. Not agreement. Not even understanding. The willingness to be curious about what matters to someone you love, even when you can't share their framework.
Quiet moments. The decision to stay at the table. The choice to ask a question instead of making a statement. The willingness to witness someone else's reality without needing to dismantle it.
The opposite of polarization isn't agreement. It's connection across difference.
Every family that stays together despite ideological divisions is a small act of resistance against the forces pulling us apart. Every holiday table holding both Republicans and Democrats is proof that Americans can still be American together.
I'm not naive enough to think family reconciliation will heal our national divisions. But we can't heal as a nation if we can't stay connected as families.
I've been on both sides. Estranged and reconciled. The work it took — giving up the need to be right, accepting unfairness, setting boundaries, showing up anyway — that's the same work required to bridge any divide.
Reconciliation is harder. More emotional labor. More therapy. More biting your tongue.
But estrangement hurts you. Every holiday where their absence screams louder than their presence ever did. Every moment you want to pick up the phone and remember you're not talking anymore.
My answer, earned through years of practice: yes. We can love people whose politics make us sick, whose beliefs we find incomprehensible, whose votes feel like betrayals.
Not easily. Not perfectly.
But yes.
And that's still worth something.
Maybe it's worth everything.
With Love,
Lyn
