Ok so this is a long one…
I’m Jewish, DH non practicing catholic, raised by VERY strict catholic parents.
We’ve been married for 15 years, I was only 19 when we met. From day one I’ve always been clear that although im not at all religious, my Jewish culture is very important to me and I would only marry someone not Jewish if our kids were raised Jewish (not half jewish half anything else, I wanted my kids to be raised as just jewish). My husband agreed from day one, he obviously could have said no and that would have been fine- but it’s always been an important factor in the family I wanted. We now have three girls, we don’t do much jewish at home but they go to jewish summer camps, want bat mitzvah’s, we celebrate the festivals and they have strong jewish identities. They know their dad and half their family is Christian, they go to a Christian school, they celebrate Christmas with his family, but they know that they are jewish.
From day one, his family has given me weird vibes. We wanted a rabbi at our wedding - we both agreed, it was all booked, and they threw a fit. Refused to come if there was a rabbi there. My husband sided with them and I backed down, but probably should have seen this as a red flag. They’re very passive so making a big fuss was uncharacteristic.
On our wedding day, my MIL went to church first where she accidentally told my catholic uncle (clearly didn’t realise who he was) that she was devastated her son was marrying a Jew. He was shocked and told me this a few weeks later. For 15 years I’ve never mentioned this to my husband. Partly to not impact his relationship with his family. Mainly, if I’m honest, out of fear he would side with them not me.
Fast forward to today, their weird vibe towards anything jewish has continued. It’s more a discomfort on their part whenever anything Jewish comes up. One of my daughters even noticed my MIL seemed weird when she showed her her magen David necklace. SIL also has same weird vibe. It’s hard to really explain, nothing super offensive, but it’s not in my imagination. I’ve tried to ignore it.
Since 7 October I’ve felt more strongly about my Jewish identity. I’ve noticed this makes DH uncomfortable too. He could tolerate very low level Judaism, but noticing my strong connection to my Jewish identity and strong feelings about antisemitism since then, he’s not been particularly nice. When I post on social media he tells me things like he’s worried for my mental health which feels like gaslighting, my mental health is fine… Also DH is very left wing, so has said some less than understanding things about the conflict, which he’s pretty ignorant on overall. He’s also started to mention on a few occasions how unfair it is to his culture that the kids are raised Jewish. Which makes me very upset because I’ve always been clear about this - he didn’t have to marry me if he felt like this, 15 years and three kids later seems a bit late to bring it up.
His family have said nothing to me (I have family in Israel which they know) not even a happy Chanukah (which tbf they never say, it’s just bothered me more this year). Think they could have at least checked in once.
We’re all due to spend Xmas together on a 10 day long holiday. Not sure I’ll be able to keep my feelings to myself.
AIBU thinking DH and his family are antisemitic? Any suggestions on raising this with DH? Or is that totally pointless? Am I just being unreasonable in general?