We Asked People How Brexit Has Affected Their Relationships

It's fair to say that since the EU referendum result things have been a bit strained here in the UK. The pound has taken a dive to depths it hasn't seen in 30 years and our political parties appear to be little more than a messy bundle of resignation letters, piled somewhere on a desk while we simply sit and wait for a terrified-looking Conservative candidate to claim No 10 as theirs.

But enough about them – what about you? How are you doing? Because from where we're sitting, everyone's feeling a little bit stressed right about now. We might not have yet felt the true, tangible ramifications of this vote, but that doesn't mean the fallout hasn't already had a real and lasting impact on our personal lives.

To see if everyone else is having the similar sort of impotent rows that we're having with our dear ones, we hassled a bunch of people to tell us about the strain Brexit has had on their relationships – be it with their mum, nan, lover or a bloke they met on Bumble.

I got in a fight with my grandmum the day before the referendum when I found out she was going to vote leave. I know the referendum wasn't a clear cut left or right wing argument but her decision really shocked me to the point of anger because she's always voted Labour, and always been on the left wing side of things.

My grandmum's Jamaican and she thought voting leave would stop the migrants coming and magically fix my granddad's visa issues so he could come home. The hypocrisy was unreal, but also really depressing. The fact this is what she believed really irritated me because it was just such a clear example of an everyday person who was made to feel Brexit would fix problems that have nothing to do with the EU. So when she tried to convince me to vote leave I wasn't having any of it – I would put forward logical arguments and she just kept saying how the migrants had to go so granddad could come back. It was basically like talking to a brick wall.

I still feel a little irritated that she could be swindled so easily and then completely unwilling to listen to reason, but there's nothing I can do about it now, and I can't really hold it against her because I feel she was lied to and didn't know any better.

My girlfriend and I have always seen eye-to-eye on politics in the sense that she would tell me how I should vote and I would just do it, mainly because I generally don't think voting has an effect on anything. But the referendum was different because I could see the outcome actually influencing my life, potentially in negative ways if we stayed in the EU. So I decided to vote leave, even though I knew it would really piss her off.

I made my case and she made hers, but this time I didn't let her sway me. I saw who was running the remain campaign and listened to all their arguments, and just thought it was all rubbish. I'd never agreed with a word David Cameron said in the past, and I wasn't about to. She really wasn't having any of it though, and politics really means a lot to her, so every conversation we had for like a week or so after I told her about my decision felt tainted.

When leave won, she called me up and was like, "I'm not happy with what you've done, it's gullible people like you that made this happen!" and was just all for the second referendum idea and the petition and all that, which started an actual fight. She's all for democracy when it works in her favour, but when the result doesn't go her way, the world needs to change? That's not okay. It really made me question her maturity, and I think that will always be in the back of my mind. We're okay now that everything's calmed down, but it was a bit choppy for a while.

I'd been chatting to this guy on Bumble for a week or two. It was nothing serious, but enough time for it to matter. Up to that point, I had assumed that we both shared the same standpoint when it came to Brexit. I was a remainer, along with all my friends and family and I lulled myself into a false sense of security that he would be too. I really tried to keep things going once he told me that he was a leaver. It stumped me at first. Here was a person I had invested in; I liked him and was considering dating him. But a generation-defining referendum election came along and we were not on the same page. At all. And it's not really the kind of thing you can work through, in my experience. But, that's not to say I didn't try.

It first came up in a completely innocuous conversation about what we'd been up to on the weekend following the referendum result. While I was drowning my sorrows, he was jumping for joy. His voting preference shocked me, but his glee made me feel deeply concerned. Who was this person? How could we be so fundamentally different? He did try to talk to me about it, and I tried to take the view that everyone is 100% entitled to their own opinion, and that this was democracy in action. But, the deed was done, the votes were cast, and there wasn't any point in talking about it.

I felt apathetic and deeply disillusioned. I didn't want to unmatch the guy, I really didn't. But the more and more he went on, the more I felt a chasm between us. I knew I couldn't be with someone who had voted in favour of something I deeply opposed. We were doomed from the outset. I ended up writing about it though, so at least I got something out of it in the end.

I've been with my girlfriend for five years. She's a Labour voter and I'm a Tory, so she tends to go down the socialism route – not like hard core protesting, but she's definitely left wing. Politics is just one of those areas we've come to agree to disagree on, so I expected we'd vote differently. To be fair, I don't know her exact reasons for voting remain, I just knew that if she was left-wing, that would probably be her way of voting. I feel like a bit of a unique vote in a way because most young people voted to stay, and I voted to leave. You kind of turn into that different person. But when you're in a relationship and the other person is on the other side of the fence, it can be hard.

We tried not to talk about it too much, but I was at hers on the morning of the result and I'd stayed up all night to watch it. She walked in and I was looking really smug that we'd got our vote, and she just was like, "right, okay" and left the room. It was incredibly awkward while it was all rolling in. In the lead up to it all we didn't try and sway each other – I personally feel that if you're in a relationship for a long time, you're more likely to do what you want. You kind of already know your differences, so having had political disagreements in the past, we just resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd be voting differently.

I was doing a year abroad in Prague in the lead up to the referendum, but when I was home in about March or April time my mum and I started talking about it because there was such a hype surrounding the vote. She just kind of mentioned in passing that she wanted to leave, and I was there like, "okay, why? That's so strange!". She started talking about like agriculture and whatever, and about how she wanted to keep British jobs inside Britain, not having cheap labour from abroad.

My mum's always voted Conservative, but the fact that she's an immigrant from Pakistan and wanted to vote leave really surprised me, because – without making my mum sound like a horrible person – how can you deny people the rights you were given 20, 30-odd years ago? Of course we should keep giving people these opportunities! She had her reasons for it, but I was still shocked. We very much respected each others' opinions when we sat down to have a discussion, though. It was never like, "well I think this and you need to listen!" It was all very respectful and measured, because I was just trying to get her to think about things in a new light. There was no brainwashing or indoctrinating involved.

I've got to big up my mum though, she's a safe girl really [laughs]. She actually ended up voting remain, because she decided voting to leave wouldn't secure her children's futures, which is what she really wanted.

I'm Anglo-American, my girlfriend is German, but lives in Belgium, and we've been doing a long distance relationship between London and Brussels for a few years. We basically are the EU – though unfortunately without all the free travel perks and insider access to government contracts.

We were both massively depressed by the referendum result. A lot of our Brussels friends work in the EU/NGO bubble, and we have no illusions about its flaws. But this just seemed such an obvious backwards step. Though, both of us are fairly doubtful about the idea of Brexit actually happening.

I wouldn't say the referendum has made us fight any more than usual, but it has focused our ongoing arm-wrestle about who will eventually have to move to which city (not in my favour). It's also made us both very aware of the more threadbare elements of British life and culture. The UK always felt more adventurous and outward looking than central Europe. Now it just seems lame and parochial. I can't even play the, "yeah, but London is the coolest city ever" card anymore. Thanks Nigel and Boris, you dicks.

If you would like to read more about our country and how fucked it is right now, head to our 'Britain = ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯' page.