Why Mike Pence’s Marriage Never Stopped Weirding Us Out

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget about Mike Pence. Sure, he was Donald Trump’s vice president, but let’s be honest: Trump is such a charismatic showman that it didn’t leave Pence much room to really make an impression. And Trump has a new VP now, so it can be easy to forget Pence’s time in the White House, starting back in 2017.

However, there’s one thing we’ll never forget, and that’s how weird Mike Pence’s marriage is. He and his wife are very devoted Christians who have never had any major scandals, so you might think that translates to a fairly normal marriage. In reality, though, these two are even weirder than those couples who have joint Facebook accounts.

Just how weird are we talking? Keep reading to discover everything about Mike Pence’s marriage that gives us the ick!

A cute-but-really-weird engagement story

Every married couple has a cute engagement story, though some are cuter than others. In fairness to Mike and Karen Pence, they have their own cute story. However, it’s one that will probably seem fairly darn strange to most other couples.

The two of them got engaged only a few months after they started dating, and that’s not even the weird part. You see, Karen Pence admitted to IndyStar that soon after they began dating, she started wearing a cross that she had engraved with a single word: “yes.” This was what she planned to say if he proposed. Her timing was fairly solid: he popped the question only one month after she had the cross engraved!

Depending on how many Hallmark movies you consume per month, you might think this story is cute and even heartwarming. To us, though, the combination of Mike Pence’s rushed proposal and Karen’s pre-emptive yes seems a little strange. And once they got married, it didn’t take long before this couple got even weirder!

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Mike Pence’s mommy issues

Real talk: every married couple eventually develops cutesy nicknames for each other. This may range from simple stuff like “babe” and “darling” to schmaltzier stuff like “princess” and “snookums.” Because of that, you might think no marital nickname could weird you out. However, Mike Pence is here to prove you wrong in a really big way!

Thanks to a Rolling Stone feature in 2013, we know that Mike referred to Karen Pence as “Mother” on at least one occasion. The two have never publicly commented on the matter, and it may have been a one-time thing or even something he did only in front of his children (something his press secretary later claimed). However, the idea of a husband basically calling his wife “mommy” is so bizarre and so Freudian that we just can’t stop thinking about it!  

Talking about each other in the third person

We’ll be honest: nothing can really top “Mother” as a strange way of referring to your spouse. But Mike Pence came close when he gave an interview to Christianity Today. At one point, the publication asked him about his wife’s seeming dislike of Donald Trump (more on this later). In response, Pence said, “You’d have to ask my wife about her posture, but we’ve been married 44 years, and she loves her husband, and her husband respects her deeply.”

As with so much about the Pences, the response is pretty sweet in the abstract, with him emphasizing how much he and his wife love and respect each other. But the use of the third-person “her husband” is so strange…like, why not just say “she loves me?” We’ll probably never know the answer unless we get a chance to talk to “Mother” directly.

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He must avoid eating with other women

One of the more commendable things about Mike Pence is that he has never been involved in a major scandal involving another woman. That certainly can’t be said for his one-time running mate Donald Trump, and it can’t be said about far too many other politicians. However, it’s quite possible that this faithfulness came at a weird cost: the fact that he can’t eat with other women. Like, ever.

Back in 2023, Mike Pence explained to NewsNation that once he was elected to Congress, he and his wife decided that he would never eat a meal with another woman. This may have been a strategic decision to make sure that the Congressman never had even a whiff of romantic scandal. But considering that Pence worked with women and may have even had a female running mate if he had won his presidential bid, this rule seems downright bizarre.

Karen broke a major personal rule for Mike Pence

Karen Pence obviously has some interesting rules for her husband, what with the “never eat with another woman” decision. However, she also has a very practical rule for herself: to avoid getting involved in politics. In general, this seems pretty wise, as she is very well aware that anything she has to say about other politicians could be used against her husband.

However, she effectively broke that rule for her husband after his nasty falling out with Donald Trump. Karent pointedly avoiding shaking Trump’s hand at Jimmy Carter’s funeral and looked the other way when he walked by. She also skipped out on attending Trump’s second inauguration. If that wasn’t enough of a hint about how she felt, she spelled things out explicitly in an interview with CBS Mornings, saying she wouldn’t support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee because “I don’t think anybody who puts himself above the constitution should ever be president.” 

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