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 ?

Your "belief system" is so wildly out of sorts with societal norms that yes, I think it warrants further explanation if you don't want people to take the arse with you.

Caring for people whilst they're alive is all very commendable, but it's possible to do that AND attend the funeral.

100% agree

Well they may not still be in the fold, they may well be out.. I don't know it's not my family but OP has upset her DH's family and they may well choose to go NC with OP because of this

So your DH missed his own fathers funeral? You say his mother had lots of other support at the event, but of course she'd want the support of her own son on what would have been a very difficult day. I genuinely can't believe he sat and thought in his little head, "I'll leave mum alone on that day", and you both honestly believe that's okay??

My own dad died in 2017, and the thought of sending my mum, his widow, to the funeral without one of her daughters seems incredible callous and unkind.

"We don't do funerals" seems a really strange, anti-social and generally very unsupportive hill to die on. I'd be really interested to know your thought process as to why you don't go to them.

I can get that you feel you did more than your fair share in terms of caring for FIL, and that other family members didn't "do their share", but you're confusing two separate issues.

I'm not surprised your family have turned on you. This is a really unkind stance you've taken.

Ok I'm coming back to this because the poster who said they felt it was turning into a pile on is right, and I'm sorry.

Op - lots of people have explained why your decision to not attend the funeral is challenging for others to understand. You are entitled to your own beliefs & desires and you clearly did a lot to support your parents in law, which is wonderful.

The main issue here appears to be communication. Behaving unconventionally is going to invite questions and raise conversations - you might just have to accept this.

From what you've said, it reads like you could have communicated better with the family beforehand. When you do so now, take time to express sympathy for how they may be feeling too.

A tactical apology to your sister in law could make the world of different and prevent this becoming a relationship-defining incident, it could prevent a permanent breach.

I understand that it's difficult to say sorry when you don't believe you've done anything wrong, and in the strictest of terms you may not have. But saying I'm sorry you felt alone and that you needed us may not be a lie?

She may well need to feel supported by her brother, to share together in their shared grief. Facilitate this and don't leave her feeling shut out.

What you need to do now is smooth things over, be kind towards your SIL and avoid mentioning your "belief system".

I'm also very sorry for your loss, which I should have said before

The issue is that you incredibly selfishly made your partners Dad's funeral all about you.

It is a weird belief to have but if you don't want to go to a friends funeral or a distance relations funeral then fine. Or if you decided not to go to his Dad's funeral but for your partner to chose not to go to his own dad's funeral when there has been no abuse etc is absolutely appalling if the rest of the family want him there.

I agree- it seems stubbornly unkind to be like well I'm not going and I cant be arsed to explain it to you. Thats really unpleasant.

Also, its not either/or- I have supported plenty of people (family and friends) through illness and grief AND managed to assist them both before AND during the funeral.

Suggesting you helped prior to the funeral and can therefore back out now sounds incredibly transactional- as if you are keeping a spreadsheet of who has done what 😖

You are free to not believe in attending funerals. Others are free to believe that not attending funerals is disrespectful.

I'm with you OP and I understand your belief system. If I could have avoided my parents funeral I would have but the fallout from relatives would have been too much so I went along.

I have no idea why people get so het up about funerals. The deceased is none the wiser as to who has attended. As for 'supporting the living' it's a funeral and lasts a few hours. Most people would have more than one relative in attendance at a funeral to support them for that period of time. The support provided whilst the person's loved one is actually alive is MUCH more valuable.

And why is everyone assuming OP's MIL was abandoned without support and left to cope alone just because OP and her DH were not there. It sounds as if she was fine!

People on this thread need to stop forcing their views of what is 'right and proper' onto others. The OP has to right to adhere to her beliefs and I admire her for not being bullied into doing something she didn't want to.

That is something that it would have been helpful for you to mention right at the beginning.

If both of your parentsv were genuinely comfortable with your plan, then a lot of the posts on this thread are irrelevant.

But, as I said in an earlier post, it would have been helpful to your MIL and SIL had you prepared a small (and warm) statement to be read during the service, or printed on the order of service, to say that you would be remembering and celebrating FIL on your own way while others were attending.

My husband died during lockdown. I was allowed to have 20 people at the funeral.

Some people who should have attended did not - they feared for their health. (Physical for two of them; for another, I was told that it might be too upsetting.)

I needed support and did not have it and I don't think that I shall ever come to terms with that.

He didn't leave his mum alone on that day though did he?

After everyone had left and his mum was alone he went to her in the evening to be with her, and stayed a few days.

It’s interesting you say that! I was at a funeral a while back and a Rastafarian friend of mine attended and he said that he had such huge respect for the person who had passed away that he had made an exception and “entered the house of god”.

Indeed.

I think you are being very disrespectful OP and that is my personal belief.

That would have been performative in the extreme! Any formal inclusion of such a statement would very much be making the event about the person or people making such a public statement.

If your husband looked after his mother after the funeral, then this puts a different complexion on things.

It is self indulgent to pat yourself on the back about all the support given to the living when you then leave someone, in this case your MiL, to go through the funeral completely without your support.

Having your own belief system is fine. Just own the fact that it does have an impact on the support you offer people at the worst points of their lives rather than trying to pretend it doesn't impact anyone else at all.

DH was my absolute rock when my grandparents were dying (they brought me up). If he then announced he didn't do funerals, but pretended it was fine because I had the support of relatives who hadn't bothered to be there until that point I'd have been hugely disappointed in him for not seeing the impact of his choice.

I'm sorry. Clearly this is about a longer-term, deeper rooted issue than simply the funeral and I understand your frustration and sympathise with it.

A funeral is probably not the right time or place to make this point.

"It was only when I met dh and he had such strong views about it that I gave it a lot more though and as our relationship developed we came up with our belief system."

Ah, so you met someone with a weird hang-up about death and death rituals, and invented a "belief system" to cover your mutual neurodiversity and protect yourselves from anything that might make you feel ever vaguely uncomfortable. I think that comment from OP has got to the crux of this whole weird "belief system" that she can't/won't explain. It all dials down to "weird partners negative impact."

I can promise you, no one else is sitting around at a funeral, having a whale of a time, but we do it because it's the kind and right thing to do.

Supporting who? The person is deceased, quite honestly they have absolutely no clue what happens at their funeral.

the op is right, they were there when it actually mattered to support. The rest of the family weren’t.
funerals are performative for people who carry the guilt of “I should have done more”. Some people like it as a chance to say “goodbye”. The person is already gone. It’s self fulfilling and performative.

op I support you in not needed to attend as we wouldn’t either unless it had been a tragic or unexpected death. Do what you can for family while you still have them, when it actually matters

I was more thinking of the people who couldn't be bothered coming to see her husband's father when he wanted them to, and was devestated when they didn't. Yet they turned up to pay their "respects" when he was dead, and took the sandwiches away with them. Which is fine on one hand as they might otherwise have gone to waste, but a bit galling when they didn't want to see the deceased when he was alive.

When you say send the more information, do you mean a hand written note or a published leaflet? If you are a J.Witness I don’t think your family will appreciate a flyer being sent to them. It’s a very odd cult religion

@Bluehummingbird you don't like being judged but you have judged others. You do appear to have supported your MIL (and FIL when alive) well. I would concentrate on that and if people are still questioning your decision, tell them that your FIL knew of and supported your decision before he died and that you are continuing to support MIL. Don't judge what others are doing

As you are the one that posted OP, you are bearing the brunt of the responses but honestly this is not about you. Your husband is the one who chose to miss his fathers funeral because of his beliefs - family, friends etc should be rounding on him, not you. Presumably if he didn't have the same belief, he would have gone without you? Is this another case where the wife/woman gets the blame for her husbands choices/actions?

You can't have a meal without food but meals are not for the benefit of the food.

Yabu. Funerals are for the living who were grieving and it is about showing support for those who are grieving. I can understand someone not going if they are simply too upset to be able to attend but in your case you chose not to support the rest of the family in their grieving because you just didn't want to and that isn't it belief system that's just callous bollocks.

I'm autistic and I know that our brains can sometimes come to different conclusions than other people but in this case you are wrong to have stuck to this and to have hurt the family as much as you have. Your sister in law is never going to forgive you for this and quite possibly neither will other family members and it is a rift you have created which you just didn't need to.

It was selfish and the best thing you can do now is to apologise to those family members who were upset that you didn't attend.