We are being labelled disrespectful and I disagree over funeral

[Bluehummingbird]

We don’t agree with so don’t attend funerals. It’s part of a wider belief system we have devised part of it being to see those we care about as much as possible and do as much as we can for anyone we love who is ill or needs support.

Recently FIL passed after a long illness. We helped with care, spent a lot of time with him and supported MIL which we continue to do. We were with him in hospital and were able to say goodbye.

The issue is that we didn’t go to the funeral. We’ve had nasty comments from family members (who never bothered to see him or help MIL as they ‘lived too far away’ and who managed to travel though to the funeral and stuff their faces afterwards as they told us they even managed to take food for the journey home then the next sentence calling us out for behaviour).

SIL said it wasn’t fair she had to step up to help with funeral arrangements. I said to her ‘we arranged the care, we did all the hospital appts, I cleaned the house for MIL and we looked after the dog when they needed a break so it was your turn to do something’

Everyone is saying dh can’t have been able to say goodbye properly but he did - in the hospital? It’s like we don’t need to physically go to church each week to feel close to god or worship we don’t feel the need to go to a set place on a set day to say goodbye to someone who isn’t there any more and we find it performative.

I know most people do funerals but I’m struggling with having to repeatedly explain our position on this and we try to be good people and want to be judged on our actions for the last few years not for the 1 hour service and then the few hours after wake that we missed ?

I'm sorry for your loss OP.

So many people saying you and DH should have gone as you should be supporting MIL and SIL, they seem to be ignoring the fact that you both are grieving too. I think you should be allowed to do that in your own way, and you should not be expected to put yourselves through a ceremony that offers you nothing positive in your grief journey just to conform to tradition and other peoples ideas of how it should be done.

I have no doubt that you are continuing to support MIL and your DH on a daily basis and wish you all well.

But what a strange belief system. How could the funeral be for the dead person? They are dead!

Genuinely how can you know that today is when you say your final goodbye? I had a parent die when I was a teenager when I left for the day was I supposed to say goodbye like it was the last day?

Your MIL may still be reeling from the events, i still have little time for the people who made the funeral about themselves nearly 20 years later.

No, your beliefs mean that you are putting your needs before everyone else.

I feel incredibly badly for your MIL. One of the worst days of her life and her son & partner couldn’t put her first and come along to something that clearly mattered very much to her and other family members.

I think it’s the same thing.

Yes to do hear that as I did feel judgemental towards them as I saw FIL sadness when he wanted to see them and they were not willing to travel or host even if we drove him to them as they had plans. I’m not saying in better than anyone as I absolutely do judge other people it’s a normal human thing to judge others. So if you thought you detected a lack of empathy and judgement then you are completely accurate as FIL was heartbroken

I’ll reflect on that I think as I’m open to not always being right

We have relatives who have this belief too. Except they do nothing to help either.

Personally I see going to a funeral as the final act of kindness. It’s not a belief system, it’s opting out to suit yourselves. However you are going to have to explain it all the time but I’ve relatives who do the same and, yes, we think they are odd and a bit off. Luckily don’t need any further contact with them and they won’t be invited to anything else. We won’t be finding out if their belief system extends to weddings.

I don't know why you're getting such a hard time, OP. It sounds as if you were the only ones who actually did anything for your FIL when he was alive! Your SIL has a nerve moaning at you that she had to plan the funeral. I completely get where you're coming from because my husband and I do everything for his father while his sister (who doesn't have a job!) does absolutely nothing.
The wider family also need to wind their necks in. Don't put yourself on fire to keep others warm.

You aren’t as kind and caring as you think. Genuinely helping someone through an extremely difficult time in their life even if it goes against your own beliefs is a selfless act. Why couldn’t you do just that?

Your family needed your help but you put yourself before their needs. It wasn’t going to harm you. Seriously you made a difficult situation worse. You should have kept your beliefs to yourself and helped your family with theirs. That would have been the kindest and best decision you could have made.

But if there wasn’t a dead person there wouldn’t be a funeral at all so I’d say they are vital to the event ?

I view attending a funeral as supporting people rather than saying goodbye. It's a respect thing. But I guess if you don't want to go then it's a choice you just have to stand by and put up with the flack youre obviously going to get for sticking to your principles.

So it's not about a belief system, just the usual normal feelings about funerals and grief,

No one likes going to funerals. Funerals are hard and brutal for the closest people to the loved one who's died.

Arranging a funeral is also brutal.

I can understand why your sil struggled with having to do it all without your DH's help.

I agree entirely - funerals are for the living. Especially so for the partner of the deceased. I think it is important to go to a funeral, regardless of whether it fits with your own beliefs… as an atheist I once attended a catholic mass funeral, which I found very difficult / upsetting, but I did it in support of someone who was close to me who was bereaved. It’s also important to spend lots of time and support when the person is dying, and ‘say goodbye properly’ then.

One area that I hadn’t realised would be such a bone of contention in our family was visiting / viewing the deceased at the funeral home. Our family was very much split - some really wanted to go and ‘pay their last respects’, whereas others really did not want to go. I got the sense that there was an expectation that someone should visit the deceased, and that if you didn’t, there was something wrong with that.

You're perfectly entitled to your belief system and to not attend the funeral because of it. Other family members are entitled to their opinions about you and your belief system. They don't have to like it or agree with it. Just make your peace with that - you've made your choice and presumably other people's opinions aren't going to change that. But you don't get control how other people feel about you or your belief system.

Your belief system only works if you know someone is dying.

God forbid, something awful and unexpected could happen to your SIL tomorrow and your last conversation was about how it was her turn to step up.

You keep framing this as a “belief” but as you have been told repeatedly, funerals are for the living, not the dead. So your “belief” is based on a misunderstanding of what funerals are.

Are you going to take the time to rethink this belief of yours, given that you now know you are wrong in your understanding of what funerals are?

It all sounds very tedious and performative, and is going to end up isolating your children from their communities.

They are but the event is about those left behind. His mother is going through an awful time but he is going to let his belief system leave her on what for her will be a tough day.

if it means nothing to him why not go for his mum?

I meant the rigidity of thinking. Yes it’s a huge spectrum and I know that if you’ve met one person with asd you’ve met one person with asd but obviously there are some traits that are linked. Rigidity of thinking and strong feelings of right and wrong, black and white with no grey area is where I see OPs and her DHs belief system. My DD tends to say she puts down boundaries (rather than a belief system).

Probably for dh a combination of both ? For me it’s purely a belief system but I’ve had no prior experience of death and funerals yet in my side of the family dh has had a lot when younger so it is a combination I think for him

There's a lot of rigidity of thinking in the responses to the OP. People are entitled to their personal interpretations of what funerals are for. Some see them as being for the dead, some as being for the living, there is no right or wrong on that.

Everyone is dying though. It was her turn though that wasn’t an unkind uncalled for comment it was a fact.

@Bluehummingbird are you guys Scientologists?

Do you not see how selfish that makes you?

I think the thing to consider is that people normally only don't go to funerals of a close relative is if they live really far away, or otherwise if they have no relationships with them or hate them. It's considered a terrible snub, and is the sort of thing that sets of speculation if people don't know why.

I think it could be quite awkward and embarrassing for a bereaved person for a close relative not to come because they'll be worried others will think there was a rift or the deceased must have done something awful to the person who didn't come, and it's putting pressure on them at a difficult time to have to explain someone's absence. And you could say they can just say you don't do funerals, but again, as that's unusual it could set tongues wagging because it's just... not a usual thing to do.