Couple separate after 22-years of marriage because husband supported Trump

Gayle McCormick, 73, has separated from her husband of 22 years because he supported Donald Trump at the last US election.

Gayle, a California prison guard and self-described “Democrat leaning toward socialist,” felt betrayed when her husband mentioned during lunch with friends that he was voting for Trump. That for her was a deal breaker.

“I felt like I had been fooling myself,” she said. “It opened up areas between us I had not faced before. I realized how far I had gone in my life to accept things I would have never accepted when I was younger.”

McCormick’s husband eventually changed his mind about Trump and wrote in former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich in November, but by that time it was already too late and Gayle had decided to separate from him. The couple are not having a formal divorce, they will live separately henceforth but will remain friends and vacation together. She recently settled in her own place in Bellingham, Washington.

The couple are not the only Americans whose relationship was destroyed by the last election which was the most divisive election in modern U.S. politics. A number of Americans say the emotional wounds resulting from the election are as raw as ever and show few signs of healing.

Sue Koren, 57, a Clinton supporter in Dayton, Ohio, said she can barely speak to her two Trump-backing sons and has unfriended “maybe about 50” people on Facebook who support the president.

“Life is not what it was before the election,” she said. “It’s my anger, my frustration, my disbelief. They think our current president is a hero and I think he’s a nut.”

George Ingmire, 48, a radio documentary producer in New Orleans, said he broke off a close relationship with an uncle who had helped him through his father’s suicide because of his uncle’s fervent support for Trump.

“We had some back and forth and it just got really deep, really ugly,” Ingmire said. “I don’t see this ever being fixed.”