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 don’t think you should be the one responding! This is your husband’s mother, his sister, his aunt and uncle. Let them sort it out between them. This is no longer about you and your beliefs, it’s about him repairing his relationships. Otherwise you will come across as controlling.

Direct cremations are becoming more common. Many people request these rather than having a funeral for different reasons. This could be due to the high cost of funerals or other more personal reasons.

Your partner has really separated himself out from the rest of his family but refusing to turn up to the funeral then staying with his mum afterwards. His poor sister needed support to and they could have supported each other.

I come from a pretty crackpot family but me and my bro supported each other in the traumatic aftermath of our mother’s death. It wasn’t about one up man ship. And there is no ongoing discussion about who did what when we switched off my mums life support.

You also have a complete misunderstanding about funerals and their purpose. What would his dad have wanted? Probably not for you to cause a family fallout and talk about all other family members like dirt!

No screen time. Our eldest will start school next September.

I’d rather they lived by what we do

And there we have it
Indoctrination

I simply cannot imagine not being with someone I love as they mourn the loss of their spouse. If you love people you step up to be with them at the most difficult times and a funeral is one of them. I absolutely understand why people are hurt by this.

The fact that that is the only bit of my post that you wanted to respond to is quite interesting in itself.

My parents died within a year of each other. Neither of them wanted a funeral - my mother didn’t want to waste money and pay for food for members of the family that she hated. My father didn’t want to line the pockets of the funeral home.

When they died, they were both cremated in the cheapest way possible - in the early hours of the morning - with no one attending - as per their wishes.

I intend to do the same.

I find your behaviour bizarre yet incredibly sad.

You have made the funeral all about yourself. Most people would have gone to support their MIL, thank relatives for atrending and have a chat, and been hospitable. My close family’s funerals weren’t about me. They were about friends and families showing respect for my family and supporting us. Some of the people who came were very elderly and struggled but they did it out of duty and it being the ‘right thing to do’. The fact you can’t even see this and couldn’t be there on the day to acknowledge their support their attendance, is incredibly sad.

I hope your husband doesn’t regret this decision in years to come.

I appreciate you cared for your FIL but it isn’t expected of extended family or friends to do this, and they are showing their support by being at the funeral.

If they say something to us we have to respond we can’t just be silent ?

OP, you can believe what you like about the value of funerals, and the importance of supporting the living, but refusing to attend is very rigid and is missing the meaning that other people grant to them.

Funerals are like any other ritual - it's bound up with others, it's about give and take, and building bonds. It has the same kind of purpose on a larger scale as small talk: the content is not as relevant as the relationships it supports.

Attending a funeral symbolises to a wider audience that the dead person was valued and so are their closest relatives. Yes, the dead person isn't there to know about it - funerals aren't for them, they're dead. They're for those left behind. Refusing to attend sends a message that you don't value the feelings of the bereaved.

You're doing a good thing by putting energy into looking after people before they die, but you're being very silly and inflexible by refusing to countenance the multiple meanings and values of funerals as rituals, and you're damaging relationships by doing so. You don't have to change your beliefs about their relative importance, but not attending will hurt others and explaining why won't change that. It wouldn't hurt your beliefs to attend for the sake of the living.

The number of direct cremations is increasing, think it is about 20% of all funerals now. Don’t know whether that is down to belief or cost.

However, I think many people have some form of memorial, meeting however small to commemorate/celebrate the life of the deceased after direct cremation

HE can respond. You don't have to speak together.

Funerals happen regardless of religion or lack of. Same goes for wedding. Religion doesn't have to be involved at all.

My DM quietly said to me that she wished we would get married in church but understood why we weren't. But she also said, that, on the trip thru USA that included Vegas, she would understand if we married out there. We got engaged on that trip. Yes the timeline isn't quite right there.

It is important for the person who dies to express any wishes they do have. My grandpa said to me he wished to be buried with his wife, but hadn't told my dad, their only child, who was about to organise a cremation. MIL had left notes on poems and songs she wanted. My mum has done the same.

A funeral is never about just the deceased as obviously they are just that, deceased. It's about being together to support and remember them and is done, in some form or another, globally, and to some degree, even beyond the human race

You should have gone to support your mother in law. She’s just lost her husband for goodness sake. That’s when she needs you. Why doesn’t your ‘belief system’ run emotional support? You actually sound very self absorbed.

A direct cremation in no way means there isn't a memorial service. That's up to the family.

No screen time at all? So they are completed isolated from the wider world?

Your children are individuals but they are also part of society. It’s essential that they learn the norms of that society. And that includes the social ceremonies to make important life events such as weddings and funerals. No one has to be of any faith to attend those, you are making them into something they are not.

Sorry OP I find your ‘belief system’ performative.

Sometimes in life you do things for other people especially when they are at their lowest. You chose yourself and what you wanted.

Now you are trying to justify a crappy decision and hiding it behind your ‘beliefs’.

People go to churches, synagogues, temples etc all the time to support others if they aren’t from that religion.

Belief systems (now I have heard everything) shouldn’t put down others (attendance at church is performative) or negatively affect others (being there for family who are grieving).

What you said to your SIL is abhorrent and you should have helped. YABVU

No, you don't. You can just choose not to rise to it.

This thread has clearly shown that most people do view this as disrespectful. And more to your MIL than FIL.

It's rare that MN is so united in response

YOU should absolutely be silent now. He should be the one responding. He is allowed to have discussions with them independently of you.

But it’s like me saying I don’t host my parents on Christmas Day as my belief system. I
see them all year, and do have them for Christmas, but if I didn’t I wouldn’t be having them because i
dint want to, not as a belief system.

It takes more than 2 people to establish a belief system, using that as an excuse not to go to the funeral isn't fair.

You judge your sister in law for wanting help now because you did so much for your FIL while he was alive and because you've privately supported your MIL, but haven't demonstrated any care or empathy to her at all.

The result is that you come across very selfish- it's your way or the highway.

I hear you and your Neurodiversity loudly OP. I live in a house with 3 ASD adults. Lack of empathy and fixed beliefs are definitely a feature in autism.
I'm lucky that my ND family do have an awareness of this and for ask what is expected in certain situations. I would never put pressure on them to attend an event if they didn't really want to. But it does work both ways, in not going to your FILs funeral you have upset your partner's family.
Which is more important to you? To set your beliefs aside for an hour, or to stand by them and potentially cause lasting damage to your family relationships.

It's great that you and DH have been supportive to FiL and now MiL , and I can see how resentful you are that no one else stepped up during their time of need. That is not unreasonable.
What is unreasonable is DH not going to the funeral. It is making a statement, it is performative. It doesn't matter what else he was doing whilst the funeral was happening, not going to your own father's funeral is shouting from the rooftops that your views trump everyone else's, that everyone else's feeling don't matter.

Most posters on here have mentioned that funerals are for the living. Attendance at a funeral can be seen as a measure of how much that person mattered, a good turnout is viewed as an indication of how respected they and their family are. You must know this, and yet you have decided that making your own "beliefs" clear is more important than falling in with societal norms on this very important occasion.
It's a real shame, because what will be remembered is your no-show at the funeral, not the hours you have put in helping out before and after. It makes you look cold and heartless, even though you are clearly not. DH going to stay with his mum immediately after was a very sweet thing to do, and I'm sure she values him. But she must have been so embarrassed at him not showing up at the funeral, even if she didn't say anything. Of course she doesn't want a row or confrontations at this time, but I can only imagine how hurt she must be feeling.
You made the wrong call here, and the way you keep digging your heels in and not accepting this is not a good look. Maybe DH's mum understands that he is ND and makes allowances, but even so, it wouldn't have killed you to put your own preferences to one side and conformed for the sake of everyone else.

I might add that I write as an atheist, I have no belief in heaven or the afterlife, I think that when someone has died that is it, but I go to funerals, in religious buildings or otherwise, as a demonstration of support for the bereaved. The fact that your DH has been to a few funerals in the past which he found traumatic is neither here nor there. No one likes going to funerals, but it is the socially accepted way of supporting the bereaved. It's not about the individuals personal beliefs.

I’m with you op. I avoid funerals where I feel I can. They’re dead, they won’t care. I attend if I am needed to support those still living. I wouldn’t care what his family are saying, I would just ignore. If you are both ok with your choices then what others say isn’t important.