I Came Home to Find a Very Unfamiliar Piece of Furniture. Then I Learned Exactly What My Husband Had Agreed To.

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My husband’s cousin and his wife are about to have a baby boy, and while I am happy for them, something happened recently that has thrown my otherwise healthy relationship with my husband into a tailspin. My husband was raised Jewish but is no longer practicing, and I’m not Jewish. His family was disappointed that he strayed from their faith as an adult and married a non-Jewish woman. While they seem to have mostly moved on and we maintain a positive relationship with them, I feel like sometimes the tension is still palpable.

I arrived home several days ago to find a massive, ornate chair in my living room.

Baffled, I called my husband while he was at work, and he informed me that his cousin and his wife asked if they could hold the bris ceremony to circumcise their baby at our house—and he said yes! Apparently, he had been planning on discussing it with me that evening, but his cousin dropped off the chair earlier than expected. I’m opposed to circumcision on ethical grounds, and we have agreed that if we had a son, we would not circumcise him. His family claims that they don’t have enough space for everyone anywhere else, so when they asked if they could hold the ceremony at our house, he said yes without consulting me first. He seems apologetic and knows it is “not ideal,” but since it is a time-sensitive situation, he wanted to save his cousin and his wife the stress of trying to find a place to hold the ceremony. He says I don’t need to be there if the circumcision itself makes me uncomfortable, but I know his family would be upset if I wasn’t there.

I’m flabbergasted and angry with him that I wasn’t consulted, but I’m also genuinely uncomfortable with this happening at our house. I spent the night searching to see if this was even legal (in our state it is), and to assuage my concerns about the welfare of the baby, my husband informed me that a doctor will be present if anything goes wrong. However, while discussing this with a friend of mine (who is Jewish), she suggested that I look inward and that there might be some antisemitism at the root of my discomfort and what she called my “not in my backyard attitude” about the situation, since I haven’t spent any time prior to this actively protesting against circumcision in any way beyond not wanting to circumcise my own (potential) child.

Prudie, where do I go from here? The baby is due in about a week, and this would be happening eight days after the birth, so the clock is ticking. Is it worth it to stand up to my husband’s family when they already dislike me? Am I actually antisemitic for feeling so strongly about this? I feel like I’m trapped in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and I can’t get out.

Jenée Desmond-Harris: There are so many different things going on in this letter.