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My girlfriend is more progressive than me, but not by too much -- except for her feelings on Trump, she's a lot more like the average Republican than the average Democrat. She sends me random texts about immigration and gender transition.
But she was a lot more progressive when I met her: what happened is we got together, started talking about things, and respected each other enough that we started moving towards each other. I became more opposed to COVID restrictions, she became more opposed to immigration, I became more sympathetic to abortion moderates, she became more sympathetic to evangelicals. I guess at this point she respects me enough that I can make an argument for just about anything and she'll either start nodding her head and say it makes sense or she'll say something like "I don't agree but I see where you're coming from, I see how your views come from a place of trying to do what's right for everyone," which is a wild thing to hear after you've argued against a central pillar of contemporary feminism.
So I don't get the dichotomy between "progressive woman who can only engage in two minutes hate while loving a somewhat-effeminate guy" or "tradwife who won't respect you if you aren't a blue collar strongman indifferent to physical pain." I guess I got lucky and met "mildly traditional woman from rural America who likes discussing ideas" and I consider myself to have gotten the best of both worlds.
Yes, sounds like we are on the same page, and OP is psyching himself out.
I said my wife is "ostensibly progressive" because she has a conservative personality, she just happens to have been raised and schooled in a progressive, feminist echo chamber. (Today's beloved conservative position is often yesteryear's progressive overreach). She just can't bear to be against the consensus, and I think instinctively knows that arguing with me is likely to move her away from the consensus, so literally can't discuss politics for more than 2 minutes without getting too upset to weigh arguments. I find this frustrating and sad, and she talks as if it's devastating to her to be with someone who has the wrong opinions, but it doesn't actually come up unless one of us brings it up.
I actually think it's reasonable for her to refuse to argue issues on their merits with me, because I'm just a much better arguer than her. She's right to fear that I could argue convincingly for just about any position, right or wrong. For this reason I've told her that it's fine for her to disagree with me on anything without being able to articulate why, especially when it comes to joint decision-making.
My girlfriend is actually the opposite -- raised by libertarians who rage about government corruption, she can't bear to be in favor of the consensus. She watches documentaries about government scandals, and has her own theories on historical scandals, like "Bush did JFK." She can't talk about politics without trying to dissect what's going on, and listens to political podcasts. Frankly I think it'd be devastating to her if I had normal opinions. I start railing against the government and she gives me puppy dog eyes.
That being said, she's more "normal" than this description makes her seem. If you met her, you'd probably think of her as just another politically disengaged young woman in jeans and a floral blouse. She says her coworkers watch their language around her, because "she's so sweet and pure"... oh, if they knew...
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