Dear Prudence,
My first spouse had a thing for Disney, which I hated. Our whole house was covered in Disney stuff (think 101 Dalmatians shower curtain, etc.), which was tacky and embarrassing. When I met my current spouse, I made my zero-tolerance Disney policy clear.
She said no problem, but confessed that her twin daughters (now in their late 20s) were the “Harry Potter generation” and that she and the twins still had “minimal nostalgic experiences” related to HP.
Fast forward five years, and “minimal” was a psychotic lie. There is A LOT of Harry Potter in my life. At least once a month, I catch her reading from one of the HP books on her Kindle. I overheard her on Zoom with the twins having anguished conversations about “what to do about Harry Potter” given the author’s transphobia. And whenever she visits the twins, they all do some HP-related thing. The most recent was to go to a HP store, and my spouse came home with a notebook and pen representing her “Hogwarts house.” I reminded her that she promised to NEVER bring Disney merch around me, and she goes, “Disney didn’t own the Harry Potter franchise then,” which is splitting hairs at best. She put the merch inside a drawer where I won’t see it, but she won’t get rid of it or apologize for buying it. Now she’s planning to watch some HP reunion IN THE HOUSE while Zooming with the twins.
Prudence, she has advanced degrees, a high-level job with a great salary, and successful daughters, so I don’t know why she needs to cling onto HP, especially knowing that Disney is a deal-breaker for me. To this day, she claims HP is a “minimal” part of her life and that she didn’t misrepresent. How can I make her see that her HP thing is actually a significant fixation she needs to outgrow if she wants our marriage to last?