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EDITED 07/06/2025 to remove identifying places/names.

So my husband's dad just yelled at me in a Chili's...

The whole dinner, I was nervous about saying the wrong thing. After dinner, I was asking him some questions about his time at the church and his thoughts about Jehovah's Witnesses because I was curious about his thoughts as a former pastor.

We differ in opinion, and I tried to be a little guarded, but I let my guard down and mentioned my conversion. He bombards me with questions. I tried to give good answers, joke a little, mention my inexperience. He continues questioning me and brings up Jews for Jesus, which I point out are really just proselytizing Christians.

He says my Rabbi tells me what to think and do. He begins asking pointed and incredibly uninformed questions regarding who is a Jew, what makes a Jew, and I get very uncomfortable. He's repeating his questions, yelling them at me to receive an answer.

I tell him he's being really aggressive and he gets angrier, asking me if we have a problem.

I am on the verge of tears (thanks progesterone!) and insist no, no, no problem, no.

It gets so awkward and he's rolling his eyes and saying he'll get a hotel if he's going to offend people. I feel so defeated. I tried so hard to be likeable and have everything go well for my husband. I failed.

If we had been talking about anything else, anything other than Judaism...I couldn't let him steamroll over something so special, so precious to me.