RUSH: Here’s Mark in Las Vegas. Nice to have you with us, sir. Welcome.
CALLER: Rush, I have a dilemma. I’m planning on getting engaged within about two hours and I heard on?
RUSH: How old — wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. How old are you?
CALLER: 32.
RUSH: 32. First marriage?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And I got in a huge fight with my in-laws last night about the Iraqi war, about taxes. I mean they’re ultra liberal. And my question to you is, I’m really having some second thoughts. I mean is it really worth fighting with them every Sunday afternoon when I have dinner with them. What can I do to make this a, you know, a better marriage and a better situation with my in-laws?
RUSH: Well, the first question is, do you love the woman you’re going to engage?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. But these — you know, but she’s a little bit more on the liberal side too.
RUSH: Okay. I don’t care. But how do you get along with her? Can you talk with with her about this stuff without a knock-down-drag-out?
CALLER: Yeah, we try not to talk about it too much. But —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: You know, learn to laugh at these differences. You’re going to have many more aspects and facets to your life together than your ideology. I mean, it’s cool if you agree on a lot of things, but you’re not going to agree on everything. Believe me. You’re going to have disagreements about things that go above and beyond politics because it’s just two different people and it’s how you deal with those. If you can laugh at the ideological differences and just understand that’s who she is, she understands who you are. I think the father-in-law, is it really him or both of them?
CALLER: It’s really both of them, but he’s more animated about his beliefs and you know.
RUSH: Do you get the impression that they’re not crazy about you marrying their daughter because of this?
CALLER: I’m thinking that might be a problem today. Because of our argument about it last night. You know, I didn’t do the old-fashioned way of asking them ahead of time — his permission.
RUSH: How old is your fiance?
CALLER: I mean how old is my bride-to-be or my father-in-law?
RUSH: Yeah no, no, no, no. Your bride-to-be.
CALLER: She’s 28.
RUSH: 28. She’s still lives at home?
CALLER: No. But she’s very close to her parents.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, I —
CALLER: Should I wait a couple days?
RUSH: Well, there’s no harm in waiting. If you’re not sure, I don’t care what the reasons are. If you’ve got some doubts, yeah, pull back the reins. Two days will be here before you know it. This is not something you have to do today. If you have any sort of doubt whatsoever, what you need to do, the real thing to do, is to talk about this with her.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Let me tell you something. If you’re going to marry this babe, start something out right now. Be open and honest with her about how you feel about these things. Don’t establish or request a formal permanent relationship and then — she may have some idea that you’re sensitive about this, but she may not know that you have these kinds of doubts.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And it’s better to find this stuff out and the only way you’re going to do it is being forthright, up-front, before all this, when it’s easier to make decisions afterwards based on what you hear, and you’ll be able to gauge her reaction too. Andyou know, I have no idea what your relationship is, but if you two love each other, that will be the determining factor for what happens here. Not what the parents’ ideology is, and even hers. How long have you dated her?
CALLER: Two years. Two years.
RUSH: Two years. Well, okay. And did you break up during the election season?
RUSH: Yeah. But no, forget them. You’re not marrying them.
CALLER: Yeah, no. But it just concerns me that they have — you know they’re just — they’re just — they don’t really — they want — they want my point of view but they just think I’m an idiot.
RUSH: Okay. Well, you know you’re not. So don’t let what they think of you affect you. It’s not crucial they love you or like you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Now if you love her and want to marry her. That’s incidental.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I’ll tell you what, hypothetically you marry this girl, something happens, the fact that her parents like you is not going to save a marriage if it goes south.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Or the fact that her parents don’t like you is not going to break up a marriage.
CALLER: All right.
RUSH: Right now, at this stage, what you’re doing, that stuff, that’s incidental and got to learn to find a way to have fun with that. Provoke them.
CALLER: All right.
RUSH: You know, learn to laugh at them getting mad at you.
CALLER: Okay. I appreciate that. And —
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: — I’ll let you know, and hopefully everything goes well, but I mean, I wanted your opinion because actually your name came up in our conversation last night. So, you know, they know that I listen to you and I really am a big fan and they just think that’s it. I’m weird because of that.
RUSH: They will not disagree with a thing I’m telling you. Well, they might disagree but they shouldn’t. They will not disagree with an everything thing I’m telling you. The thing you’ve got is especially now, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain but telling your intended here what you’ve told me.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: That you’ve got —
CALLER: I appreciate it.
RUSH: Yeah. Put it all out there. You’d be amazed how well that works. You’ll be amazed how well that works. The in-law thing takes care it of itself. I’d just learn to have fun with them.
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RUSH: Bob in Linwood, New Jersey, glad you called, sir. Welcome. Nice to have you.
CALLER: Hey, mega eagle dittos from south jersey, Rush. How you doing.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Very well, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: I’m calling about Mark from Vegas who called about an hour ago. I’m in the same exact situation. I’m a big fan of yours. I’m a big Bush supporter, and I’m marrying into an uber-liberal fame. My future wife, her three siblings, her mom, they’re all ultra liberals. They’re Bush haters. I want to tell Mark: hang in there, go through with it, do it. You got to fight the good fight. Don’t give up. You’re going to make a difference somewhere down the line. It’s not easy. Thanksgiving dinner, boy, do I get pelted. I wish I had a copy of How to Defeat a Liberal sometimes.
RUSH: This is the greatest definition and motivational speech for marriage I’ve ever heard.
CALLER: You know, I love the woman. I’m going to be with her the rest of my life. I’m 49 years old. It took me this long to find the right person. We’ve been together 5 years. I’m not going to let our political views get in the way. It makes for some real — I mean we got hot. We get firing at each other and we got to take a cooling off periods, but, you know, it’s worth the good fight because I’m not giving up on my causes and my love for her. In a nutshell, that’s it.
RUSH: And she doesn’t give up on her causes, obviously.
CALLER: Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. You know, no, it’s like beating my head against a wall, but I’m going to fight the good fight. I’m going to keep going and I bet someday I’ll make some ground up on their thinking.
RUSH: You know, yeah, I’d call this a triumph of emotion over common sense, but I’m all for you. I wish you the best. I want you to be happy out there, and you sound happy. So that’s all that matters. If you love the woman and you’re happy, you got a great relationship with her and you can withstand all these skirmishes and turn them into fun things, go for it.
CALLER: It’s hard to turn it fun when we both get pretty hot over our beliefs, but we just keep going.
RUSH: Well, you know, this relationship business, they’re all individual, they all have their own vagaries, and if yours works, nobody should tell you otherwise and I certainly wouldn’t be the one to try. I mean, I’m not even oriented…If you like it, that’s fabulous. Look, I got to run here only because of the constraints of time.
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