Passover.

I used to attend seders with family members and endure the religious aspect because of the food and other conversation. But this year I am planning not to attend because the food itself is no longer compatible with my lifestyle for a bunch of reasons (I had bariatric surgery three years ago and lost 150lbs, and have to avoid carbs. Passover is all carbs) and it creates a lot of anxiety for me. The food actually makes me ill now as my body is not accustomed to it anymore.

This of course results in the usual guilting, etc. wife is going with my MIL without me, wife is not particularly religious either, but does it out of duty to her mom. My FIL who really cared about this stuff passed away years ago so I feel no obligation especially as the invites to Seder are not coming from immediate family. My parents are more or less agnostic and don’t attend these things anymore either. But if I don’t go I am going to catch a lot of shit, for a long time. I’ve tried explaining my issues, particularly the food thing and all it results in is them asking how they can make special accommodations. I don’t want that, and I certainly don’t want tot tell them that the holiday has no significance for me and the religion itself has no positive impact on my life. You don’t do religion for other people, you’re supposed to do it for yourself. And if you don’t share a belief system it’s basically pointless.

How do you guys handle this? There is also a greater question of Judaism as a culture versus it being strictly a religion, but I think that is out of scope for this particular issue.