Modern Rashi on: My Shver Constantly Insults Me

COL's competition for Dear Abby, but dumber

In a direct attempt to compete with my blog, COL has started answering questions which are submitted to them. Except, unlike at Modern Rashi, the advice is written by small minded imbeciles, likely with some letters like LCSW tacked on after their name. The kind of experts who think “validation” is a personality and “compassionate listening” is a solution. Modern Rashi gives actual advice. COL gives you pathetic and wrong opinions from people who confuse passivity for Torah and who think having a spine is assur.

Question:

I live near my in-laws

Mistake #1

and naturally they are guests at my table quite often. Every time I serve my father-in- law, he makes a big show of inspecting the food and sniffing it before he takes a bite. It embarrasses and hurts me.

We have reached levels of social dysfunction previously thought impossible, but Chabad apparently wants to prove they can be as retarded as Flatbush.

I want my husband to say something to him but he refuses, saying it is disrespectful. He doesn’t realize that his father is the one being disrespectful!

Interesting how the husband is such a chossid of kibbud av, but somehow respecting his wife is not on his mind. The man will leap across the table to save his father’s feelings, but your wife’s dignity is apparently a negotiable expense. Funny how the mitzvah that requires courage goes missing, while the one is performed with silence gets performed with Olympic-level excellence.

This is the weak frum man’s favorite spiritual trick: doing the easy “mitzvah” and gaslighting himself that it is because of his immense mesiras nefesh. He is not choosing righteousness, he is choosing cowardice and calling it holy.

Should I press the issue with my husband, say something to my father-in-law myself or maybe write him a letter?

Yeah, definitely write a letter. Nothing resolves multigenerational power dynamics like a strongly-worded note to a man who sniffs cholent like a bloodhound.

A Fed-Up Daughter-in-Law

Dear Fed Up,

That is tough to deal with!

Not really, if your husband weren’t such a pussy. Men who love to call themselves protectors turn into obedient sheep the moment their father raises an eyebrow.
He thinks he is being pious, but in reality, he is being lazy. Telling Tatty to stop acting like a toddler takes backbone, so he performs the “avoid conflict” version of mitzvos, which just so happens to be the one that demands nothing of him.

You’re magnanimously hosting your in-laws, working so hard to cook up a delicious meal, and your father-in-law’s only thanks is a wrinkled nose and sniff.

Although his father’s idiosyncrasy certainly appears rude, your husband is correct in not pointing it out to him, and neither should you. Disrespect (which is what admonishing your father-in-law would be) is never the way to go.

Respect ought to be given to those who deserve it, not simply because they are breathing. This obsession with unconditional reverence for in-laws is exactly why half the community walks around miserable and the other half keeps therapists in business. But the real sickness is how we let men disguise cowardice as frumkeit. If your husband had to choose between protecting you or protecting his comfort, he chose comfort and slapped a mitzvah sticker on it.

Instead of being frustrated with your husband for not sticking up for you, feel privileged that you are married to a man with good values. As for you, look at this as an exercise in character building.

Privileged. Because he watches his father sniff your food like a truffle pig and tells you to smile through it. Truly the rabbinic romance novel writes itself.

Make a decision to ignore your Shver’s uncouth behavior and do not allow it to upset you. Focus on the wrinkled nose (a pretty silly sight). Mind over matter!

The only mind over matter here is the mental gymnastics required to pretend your father-in-law is normal.

Here is the real answer COL/N’shei are too cowardly to say:

Your husband is failing at the most basic part of marriage. A man who cannot tell his father, “Tatty, stop acting like a toddler” is not righteous, he is a spineless wimp. Kibbud av does not mean throwing your wife under a bus so Tatty can continue behaving like a circus act. Judaism does not give in-laws diplomatic immunity. You are not a servant and your table is not a hostage situation.

The only thing he is actually honoring is his fear of confrontation. Not Torah, not values, not you. His entire piety dissolves the second it requires a backbone. Tell your husband to stop being such a freaking pussy, it’s not so complex.