AIBU - left out of partner's funeral arrangements, ashes dilemma

Sorry for your losses. I’m a little Confused but you’ve had 2 husbands die recently or one ?

ex dh who died

Current dh and dad of your daughter

yet you say he’s an ex dh - Then a partner. Then you seperated but also a family and you did his washing and cooked meals

if you loved each other why apart ?

im guessing as you were apart that’s why son is sorting it all out but yes his daughter should be acknowledged in the funeral

you not so much as not together

but he also has a son - who I’m guessing is older then 20

my dh is an alcoholic. We are not together and split early last year and I’m divorcing him

I expect him to die within 2/3yrs due to his drinking and Health

i wouldn’t expect a huge mention in the funeral but I would dd

Presumably this one where you say you're single:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5321442-im-always-biting-my-lip-re-sister

You need to take into account that you talked to his son just after his dad died so what he agreed to is neither here nor there. He’s had time to think about it and made his own decisions which you should respect.

I’m sorry for both of your losses.

I can see why his family don’t consider you in a position to included in the arrangements or want to split the ashes. However, the funeral isn’t to have a debate about that but a time for you to go and say goodbye. I would recommend doing that and leaving the discussion about anything else for another time (if it has to be said at all).

Very definitely! I had it straight(ish) at first but then a reply to me from OP stated that they were married, and for a long time.
Then my reply to that turns out to be topsy turvy too, so at this point I throw in the towel and admit my comprehension is greatly lacking today!

Even though they separated towards the end we were told they were still ‘partners’ (why not ‘spouses’.)

They were married, divorced, then got back together (but not re-married) and then he moved away but OP still insists they were partners. It's all very odd!

It’s a complicated situation and as others have said, his son’s perspective will be v. different to yours- let’s be honest, having an alcoholic parent is extremely difficult and damaging for most people, his son probably kept away for 10 years because being around his father was too upsetting.

Let him be in control of this final contact with his father. It won’t negate your 19 years with your partner. 💐

I think I have been terribly confused throughout this entire thread, to be honest.

I thought we were talking about a partner rather than a husband, and replied accordingly, then it turned out they'd been married over ten years and together almost twenty, which utterly boggles me, since surely a widow is the person who disposes of the ashes, for a start.
Even though they separated towards the end we were told they were still ‘partners’ (why not ‘spouses’.) Things seem to shift about before my eyes as I read them. Maybe my brain is bothered today, and that’s all.
Really, Id delete my posts if I could as Im am still too confused, I think.

@Millytante I think you've misunderstood - she wasn't his widow. They were divorced, living separately and estranged when he passed away.

But she wasn't his partner and hadnt been for a long time? A post in April stated she was single.
Why would she be next of kin? Surely his biological son should be?

Oh no, OP! This is very much worse than I’d imagined, obviously. My God, how heartbreakingly cruel.
I don't want to rabbit on further than I already did but just about the will…it was about any other requests than financial I was thinking.
I’d been thinking a person could compose a will solely about these things, and Im very probably wrong. But your late partner was ill for a long time of course, and had other matters to contend with
(EDIT: misread at first that you were not married)
I dont understand how it is that the son took over things instead of you, the widow.
I’m sorrier than I can say for your pain. I’m also the more convinced that you should be at the funeral, and serenely and without ifs and buts occupying your place as the widow.
It doesn't matter where you might be sitting; let the family exclude you if they are that type, but there’s also no reason to attempt invisibility.
This is between you and your late husband. Concentrate on that. Be untouchable by external irritants and cruelties on the day.

But you really are making this about you, with the "where does that leave me and my DD".

You were no longer together. Your DD wasn't his child. He may not have had any close relationships at all by the time he passed, including with his son, but that doesn't mean your previous one gives you precedence even if it was the nearest thing he had to a close relationship. Certainly not over a child, when it comes to a funeral. His son was his child, always, notwithstanding any estrangement/distance (and you've no right to interfere in that relationship). Parent-child relationships are far too complex to be pay-for-play. You don't earn entitlement through service rendered, you know this from your own relationship with your daughter.

You're not at all unreasonable in wanting to mourn the loss of this man who was clearly significant in your life. But that doesn't allow you to make a son's loss of his dad into you holding him to whatever he said right after his dad died.

And I'll repeat, splitting ashes is really weird.

I am very sorry for your losses and what you are going through.

I am also very sorry but I think in places you are interchanging H when you mean ex partner. I know I feel a bit confused about who is who but maybe it’s just me.

”… about my exH, my DD's Dad, passing away. We held his funeral at the beginning of October. In the meantime, my partner was in hospital several hours away.“ …

”… even though late H put me as his main contact, the registering of the death and funeral arrangements fell to his son.”

Re ‘where this leaves you and your dd’ - the two of you clearly had a very different relationship with him than his son and the rest of his biological family did.

From his son’s perspective, his dad was an alcoholic who abandoned him and relocated elsewhere in the country to help raise somebody else’s child instead of his own. He is allowed to have his own, complex reaction to his father’s death. And as next of kin, what happens to the ashes, and at the funeral, is up to him. You weren’t married. You have no right to dictate these things.

If the proposed funeral isn’t going to give you and you dd the kind of emotional closure you need, you will simply have to find this elsewhere.

Im really sorry for both you and your DDs losses. I understand this must be really hard for you, but his son has had to cope with an alcoholic parent in his life. Its a special kind of hell to be in. And in a short time, he's had his dad try and come back into his life, and his dad pass. That's so much on his shoulders. He is just trying to get through this, as are you. You are bringing more stress to someone whose had to deal with so much.

'By the way, his son had no contact with his dad for at least 10 years prior to earlier this year, he hardly knew him, he even had to ask me what his Dad's middle name was ! But it was OK, I used to say to my partner that his son would come back to him one day once he's matured a bit and that's exactly what's happened. '

This is kind of making it sound like you are putting a lot of blame on the sons shoulders, and rightly or wrongly, no matter whose fault the relationship breakdown was, all other people are going to see is a man's estranged partner trying to pressure a man whose had a difficult relationship with an alcoholic partner, to do things a certain way at a very difficult time
I appreciate that this must be very difficult for you, but you are only going to ever see things from your partners eyes, and maybe his sons side of the story means he just wants to get through it for now. And if we're really going to get down to it, would your partner want you to have to pressure his son into giving you the ashes? Would he have been okay with that?

As he had moved away from you—home—before he died you have to expect that previous sentimental discussions of ashes and funeral wishes were, to his blood kin, now thought irrelevant.

Just to defend the son a bit, I always thought I would be able to split ashes but when push came to shove it took me a long time to be able to open the box with DH inside and divide his ashes up. I surprised myself at just how difficult I found it. Given time, hopefully his son will come round to being able to do it too.

Unfortunately you weren't married and he had moved away from you before he died - as hard as that is for you, it really means that you have nothing to do with the funeral and none of it is down to you to organise or arrange.

Maybe do your own little remembrance ceremony with DD.

Splitting the ashes isn't as easy as you think OP. My ex asked for some of our daughter's and it's just not happening. It might be different a bit down the road.

I don't really understand your post fully, who's who and who you were to them. I think I'd suggest going to the funeral and taking that back seat. Grieving as an estranged child brings a whole set of emotions you didn't know existed I think and it's the worst time to make it about you.

Whoever organises the funeral,pays for it. Nobody else really gets a say. Have you offered to put some coin in?

Just seen your update. So you were married. Had you divorced? If so I can more understand why your son considered you a past ex and not a current partner.

My husband was married before (no children). If he died after me I would be very surprised if our children would want his ex wife to come to the funeral, let alone play a role in it.

I'm sorry for both your losses.
It sounds like you had a very complicated relationship that people looking in from outside may have perceived differently to how you actually experienced it. It also sounds like your partner had a complicated and fractured relationship with his son. I think the kindest thing to everyone, you included, is to just let it go and go with his son's wishes.

Is there something you and your daughter could do to celebrate his life and commemorate his loss? Go on a holiday to a significant location, plant a rose bush or a tree in your garden?