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 ?

Come now. You can’t seriously think that if you raise your children in a “belief system” (especially one that flies against all social norms) that you rigidly enforce no matter the feelings of anyone else around you, that your children will find it easy to break away from that?

Funerals are about supporting grieving relatives aswell as saying goodbye. You’ll find very few people who will understand someone not attending their own father’s funeral as they don’t believe in funerals. Everyone will be judging you, and I would too as i’d find it batshit that your DH didn’t go to his fathers’s funeral and didn’t support his grieving mother on the day. She will have been sitting there too thinking that one day in the not so distant future, her son won’t attend her funeral either. Sorry but don’t understand this one bit.

Sorry for your loss.

I think it’s different if the deceased themselves decides on no funeral. In that circumstance no one goes obviously. No one is conspicuous by their absence.

My friend’s dad decided no funeral. His wishes were respected to the letter. My friend said it was an odd experience knowing when his cremation was taking place and not really knowing what to do with themselves.

I think they will if they want to

When my DH died, my adults kids, and the rest of the family plus friends, came to support me.

And, I’m so grateful they did. I was absolutely wrecked. 🤷‍♀️

For some people, not everyone, funerals help with the grieving process. I was very grateful that my DH had opted out of having a funeral. I watched him die in just one week and I was in bits. The thought of having to gather with others and collectively mourn is something that fills me with dread. Even typing this I feel anxious.

If nobody went, that's also fine, because the deceased wouldn't know anything about it. 20% of people in the UK now choose direct cremation, where there is nobody present.

and believe that being present when they're alive is much, much, much more important.

I totally agree with this @GehenSieweiter
However, I think @Bluehummingbird is being extremely unreasonable. IMO funerals are for the living and supporting the bereaved. Her "belief system" is just ridiculous. She would be far better to own it and say she hates funerals/feels uncomfortable at them or provide a better excuse.

but making it about some spurious "belief system" just makes you sound ridiculous.

@MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack has it in one.

I would think less of her as well. It's the inability to read the room and lack of social awareness that grates. Using a "belief system" because you don't understand social rules is just silly and rather self absorbed. I don't think she fully understands what kind of disrespectful message it sends to everyone else.

@Bluehummingbird please stop going on about your "belief systems". I'm sorry, but it makes you sound like a self absorbed performative wanker. Oh, and not all funerals are religious. I have been to funerals at crematoriums that have had no religious elemnt in at all.

I would be extremely upset if DD decided to stay away from DH's funeral when he dies.

Great post @IsItSnowing

Why is it causing great hurt? Hurt? Really? They hurt them?! Is it not just people being judgemental?

The only person I'd have any sympathy for his MIL. She may have liked the support but she's the only one to be hurt?

You have subjected your MIL to something awful. Of course the absence of her son at his own father's funeral is significant, and everyone there will have noticed and remarked on it.

It's so wildly outside of social norms that in addition to the difficult experience of her husband's funeral, she's also having to explain her son's absence. And, presumably, try find a way of not making him appear a selfish arse into the bargain.

Ritual around significant stages of life exist in every culture. They are part of being in a society. You and DH opting out and leaving your MIL to deal with the fallout of that was selfish and self-absorbed. Rigidity of thinking and no compassion.

I think your family/your DHs wider family will be very different with you from now on. They will have drawn conclusions about your no show and I don't blame them

When my DHs sister's husband died (DHs BIL) his son chose not to attend the funeral. It wasn't a sudden death, it was a long road through cancer. He was living abroad and had a very small part in a show in a town t the time. I judged him, it was his father's funeral. It was his decision but later on it had a profound effect on him as he had been an aspiring actor all his life, and gave the whole thing up. Through guilt maybe.
I fear your DH will regret his decision.

I think the disrespect is much less about the “belief” and more about how you communicated it.

Reaching out pre-funeral and saying you won’t be attending because it isn’t for you but you hope it goes well and you’ll be thinking of everyone attending/send your love - respectful.

Saying nothing and having your poor MIL be questioned all day on where you are/why you aren’t there - disrespectful.

Sending a snarky message to your grieving family to say you’ve “done enough for the deceased” and shouldn’t need to “do more” by attending because it’s “their turn” to step up - Absolutely shocking and appalling behaviour for which you should be apologising deeply

It seems you’ve done two of these things OP. And neither is the first, or respectful approach. I think you need to reflect on this.

You really can't see why the ops SIL might be hurt?

@Garamousalata I am so sorry for your loss 💐.
You're been through a terrible ordeal, and his funeral will be another one, I understand that. However, it can help with the process of grieving.
Is there someone who you can talk to, and who will support you?

I don't think it's selfish but it's quite alien to our culture not to go.

Totally agree that care and behaviour whilst the person is alive is more important, but I dont really understand why this means you wouldn't also mind attending the funeral. Would you mind explaining a bit?

Well frankly, you've handed them the ammunition OP.

So they’ll watch you refuse to go to weddings and funerals and anything else that doesn’t fit in with your nebulous beliefs, regardless of the hurt and upset you cause to others, and you think they’ll just do the same to you?

No. If my brother decided not to come to my parents funeral, that would've been his choice. It wouldn't hurt me, why would it?

I actually have one brother who didn't come to either parents funeral, didn't think anything of it, he's the black sheep.

Having been involved with catering at funerals, stuffing their faces is both disrespectful - and almost always wrong.
People would say what a wonderful spread and that it really did the deceased person proud, but almost every funeral wake you come at the end and find that the food looks hardly touched.

As others have said, I feel sorry for the MIL. People will have been asking - and drawing their own conclusions, including blaming the FIL, for where his son was.
And then she'll have felt she had to say she didn't mind when the OP asked. Because she'll not have wanted to fall out over it.

OP, apologise. Say you didn't realise but you should have been there, and hope they draw a line under it.

rigidity of thinking
Very true.

Sorry, but you're just wrong. Not supporting the other living members of the family, and, as a PP stated, creating a situation that MIL would have to explain to other members of the family (on top of her own grief) was just wrong. We do all kinds of things for those we love that we don't agree with and this is a big important one in the eyes of most people. Feel free to not have your own funerals, but it was just cruel to not attend FIL's. And you don't seem open at all to seeing others' point of view on this.

Never go to a West Indian funeral. The food is a major part of the whole thing.

My sister didn’t come to our Granddads funeral. I’ve never forgiven her for being so disrespectful or for the hurt it caused our Nana.

I can see why people are upset by your decision.

??

Good for you. Shame though that you've missed the points other people have raised in this thread - I'm not going to repeat them, but it's sad if you can't recognise these perspectives.