Let this thread over at the Daily Kos be a warning to you: life is bigger than politics. Yes, politics and ideology are important, but you shouldn't take things to such an extreme that you let it make you miserable or wreck your relationships with your friends or family.

Granted, sometimes you will run into people who are really loud and obnoxious about their political views, so much so that it's difficult to deal with them, but hopefully people like that will be unusual in your life.

If you're getting so into politics that it's destroying your relationships, it might be time to step back and put things in perspective lest you end up like the Kossacks who actually blame George Bush for ruining their friendships and marriages...

angrybird: Have the Bush years taken a toll on your relationships?

I wrote a diary a short time ago about how the Bush administration helped ruin my marriage. It wasn't because my husband was a Bush supporter or anything...it was because of all the stresses from job loses, living without health insurance and getting sick, to my husband being forced to take a job where he wasn't home much that helped ruin my marriage.

However...I started thinking about other relationships that have indeed been killed because those people where Bush supporters.

...Please share your stories about how the bush administration has taken it's toll on your relationships; they can be stories from economy related to the personal. I promise you will feel better if you share :-)"

begone: Hmmm, my relationship with myself, mostly.

Before my head began exploding a few years ago in response
to Busharama, I'd exercise a lot... I mean, almost daily, joyous-type
exericising. Now I come home with a slight frown on my face and
come here to hear the news & be a mojo-mama even if too
tired to comment, and hang for hours here and on other blogs,
as if the light will shine again and I'll be present to hear the
BREAKING news about that.

Bush, I blame you for my new-ish extra 20 pounds....

delphine: I haven't had a relationship since he took office.

But I can say that I've been trashed by potential online dating partners for stating I couldn't date anyone who thinks bush is a good presznit....

cowgirl: I have two co-irkers who are die hard Bushies. I've known them for years. Although we weren't all that close, I've spent time with them outside of work, spent many breaks and lunches together, and generally liked them a whole lot.

Eventually, their support for Bush got to the point where talking with them simply infuriated me. I'm still polite and cordial with them, but we don't hang out the way we used to. It's just hard to fathom their belief system. How can they not be angry at the war alone? That many deaths makes me sick to many stomach, and they support it? W.T.F.

I'm not a violent person, but the last few times I discussed politics with them, I had the strongest urge to thump them upside their pointy little heads...HARD.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I guess.

Boadicaea: Somehow my family AND relationships are almost all at odds with me. If they're not pro-Bush, they're disparaging about my uphill efforts to do something about him ("You really think a march/what you write/a sign/etc. will make a difference?"). One of my oldest friends called me a "kook." And they all get frothy over who deserves their tax money.

The hardest is my dad, but he's steering clear of politics lately and I just spent six weeks with him with only a few mishaps. He's a retired USAF pilot and looks at everything as bad guys/good guys, liberal media, etc. We're both old enough now for thoughful avoidance; if I feel like the top of my head is about to blow off, I go somewhere far away. He knows why, but accepts it. We talk a lot about family and faith, so conversation isn't superficial.

There was an incident--he called me in to view a video he'd received in his email. Before I knew what it was, I was watching a smart bomb blow up a group of Iraqis--"bad guys"--while my dad raved about our advances in weaponry. He absolutely had no awareness of my reaction to the video and to his enjoyment of it.

I was down the hall, thinking I would puke, when he hollered "Do you want to see it again?" I knew if I said anything but no we'd have a horrible and fruitless spat, so I just disappeared for a few hours....

meldroc: Bush has also damaged my mental health.

After I actually took the trouble to inform myself about politics a couple years ago, and learned the true extent of the damage Bush has done to this country, I have a constant boiling rage inside me. Absolutely constant. Never ceases, though sometimes I can get it down to a simmer so I can go out in public and hang out with friends without doing something stupid. On top of the anger is a generous dose of fear and anxiety, coming directly from the Bush administration's march to fascism.

Frequently, I'm so intensely angry that I hit things. I just broke my bookshelf today because I hit it. My knuckles have decent callouses on them from hitting things, and various pieces of my property show signs of my rage. Thankfully, I've never turned violent against people since I was in high school, though I was sorely tempted to deviate the septum of a wingnut who called me a traitor and f*ggot to my face at the anti-war march last Saturday.

Of course, it's unhealthy to harbor this much anger, especially if I'm stuffing it down all the time so people around me don't see me acting borderline psychotic. These emotions leak out, turn into other emotions, like depression, which I've fought with since college. I've also developed a venomous hatred of Bush and his cronies and the 23-percenters that support him. Hatred's never a good emotion to hold, but there it is. I literally hate those motherf*ckers who are destroying our country.

By all rights, I should be getting help, but I'm not going to. I was soured on the psychiatry business by my experience with anti-depressants - I ended up nearly emotionless, apathetic, and lost my motivation and creative drive, and as a result, I was unemployed for three years and had to move back in with my parents. I was your classic anti-depressant zombie. They didn't like the changes to my personality either, and stopped paying for the meds. After I tapered off the anti-depressants, I got my drive back, I was able to find work as a software engineer again, move into my own apartment, and now I'm supporting myself again. On top of that, if I told a counselor about my feelings, or that I'm so afraid of my government that I literally spent several hundred dollars on a shotgun, a deadly weapon, to defend myself against my government, I'm afraid I could get thrown into the psych ward. And I value my freedom enough that I will not allow that to happen under any circumstances. So, no shrinks.

I haven't talked to my best friend and ex-roommate in weeks because of a few personal issues between us, including politics - he's Republican, and though he's no fan of Bush, he constantly mocks and belittles my politics when I talk to him. So I don't."