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 ?

And if we’re concentrating on the ‘performative’ aspect, of which the OP appears to have such a horror, surely she and her DH are being terribly performative by refusing to attend his father’s funeral, because their rigid belief system is more important than supporting her grieving MIL on a particularly difficult day?

Well clearly I can’t stop them as I will be dead. But this is my request and my family understands and respects it. Obviously, they can do whatever they want when I’m dead and perhaps they’ll have a family meal or something, but they wouldn’t hold any kind of formal ceremony. And they are fine with that, honestly! They feel the same.

YABVU OP. If I were your MIL or SIL I would find this very hard to forgive. So very selfish.

A funeral is where support is shown for the closest people to the person who has passed away, such a bizarre view that you have .
please take on board what every single response is saying and stop using your so called belief system as an excuse.
calling out family for taking food for travelling home is really unkind - would you rather it is put in the bin?
funeral planning is incredibly stressful - the few that I have had to assist with were made a whole lot more bearable with others offering help and guidance
I’m sorry but I find your stance incredibly selfish

Serving a purpose doesn't mean anyone is obligated to participate in rituals like funerals. Some cultures have burials with no ceremony so it's not even a global convention.

That's a funeral. It doesn't have to hold any set conventions. A family meal is becoming more a set convention of its own due to a decline in religious belief and COL (frankly).

I hadn't spotted this. Together with the use of 'passed', avoiding the horrible inconvenience of acknowledging the actuality of death this is beginning to make me have my doubts about the OP.

It sounds as though their 'belief system' is actually a religion where death simply doesn't exist.

I think funerals are absolutely horrifying, and pointless.

Surely you don’t attend a funeral for your own personal beliefs though? It’s a final chance to show up for somebody and show support and respect to the family? DH isn’t religious and doesn’t particularly like church weddings but if family members want us there and invite us then he goes because it’s about them and not about him.

It’s great that you have made your wishes clear. My family support my choice, and my parents have also made the same choice. DH thinks he wants a funeral, and that’s also OK. As I said in a different post, I can’t control what happens when I’m dead and if they can’t bear the thought of no funeral, they’ll ignore my wishes. However, I don’t think a formal ceremony is necessary for people to come together or grieve. People can meet, talk, share memories etc at any time and in any place. Maybe they’ll go for a meal or talk on the phone etc Not having a funeral doesn’t stop people grieving or sharing memories.

I think the greatest way to honour the dead is by respecting their wishes and the way they lived their life. I’m a quiet, fairly unsociable person who doesn’t like parties or groups and is very informal. I’d like my death to reflect the life I’ve lived. And to be totally clear, if my family ever objected to this, they’d do whatever they want - and I’d haunt them from afar in annoying ways 😂

OP - it seems you are totally unwilling to accept that not allowing your DP to attend his dad’s funeral is a dick move. You have prioritised your ego over the feelings of his family and possibly caused a lasting rift because of your ego-system.

He was not there to support his mum. Funerals are to show support for the grieving family. He was not there to do that. He was not there to show his respects. He could have gone but chose to put your ego above the grief and feelings of his family.

Was your ego-system really worth causing so much hurt to living people you claim to love?

Think of it as a leaving party. Funerals are for the people left to carry on, to show who cares about remaining family.

Hear, hear. Direct cremations for us.

What exactly do you find pointless about funerals?
At the last family funeral I met members of the family I hadn't seen for years as we are all so scattered.

Do you hate your family?

One other thought, for what it's worth - when one of my parents died, some very old friends of mine (who'd known them slightly but knew me very well indeed) attended the funeral.

Were they mourning the deceased? No, not really, they were there for me. It meant more to me than I can say that they took the time to attend a not very fun event centred around someone they didn't know very well just to be there to support me. For context, one of those friends is particularly uncomfortable with overt displays or words of affection and I took attendance at this event as a real expression of love towards me - more than any words could have been.

The absence of attendance is potentially felt as the opposite by some.

It's about respect
Paying respects standing with family to say goodbye
I can imagine your family feel disrespected by you .
I think you should reconsider this odd value you have

I think the problem you have run into is that you have put your personal belief system above the needs of everyone else and it's quite a niche restricted one. I'm guessing you are autistic and struggle with imaging how it feels to be someone else and didn't realise the consequences of this. I share some of your values and lifestyle and am not religious but I go to religious events to support family and friends as my role is to be there for emotional support. You being rigid and inflexible has upset lots of your family. I get why you have done it as your views make sense to you but you have missed some of the hidden social rules/ values. Ignore me if I am way off but as someone with an autistic spouse I thought this explanation might help.

Did you miss the part where OP's husband went to his mum's in the evening after everyone else had gone (having done their duty to be seen supporting her for a few hours), and stayed with her several days?

How is that 'sod the bereaved person'?

going against the grain, it’s your choice and you done the care etc the meaningful care when he was here and passing. If you don’t want to go the funeral why is it an issue, everyone has the own preferences. You do what you feel is best for yourselves and don’t explain to people.

So FIL and MIL were fine with this, your husband spent time supporting his mum for days after the funeral, and the rest of the family had each other for support.

You've done nothing wrong. I wish you had mentioned some of these details sooner. But you sound like a great help to your DH's parents in difficult times.

Yes I agree. They're counterproductive - they just taint your good memories of the deceased when they were alive.

If I was your (adult) child I'd want a funeral to help me mourn you. You would deny me that?
Most of your beliefs sound lovely but not attending funerals? Nah, I'd rehink that.

Well I'm sure the deceased really enjoyed seeing everyone and catching up... oh wait.

If you don't hate your family wouldn't it make more sense to arrange a regular extended family meet up so people can join in before they die?!

In what way do you not 'agree' with them?

I don't want one and am planning a direct cremation so my family don't have to organise a funeral but can, if they want, scatter my ashes somewhere and maybe have a meal together afterwards

But if someone dear to me IS having a funeral I will try my hardest to get there. And sadly in the past few years I have been to a few. Not all close family but people I knew and cared about

And to show respect and thanks to them and their families, I go.

I don't like funerals. My Dad didn't want one, so we didn't give him one.
My FIL did, and I went to that as I wasn't able to see him in his final few hours.

I don't feel the need to be at such events, they don't do anything to help me process anything. The person they're for won't know whether or not I was there.

It could be argued that funerals are for the living. For some people, it's a way to say a formal goodbye; for others, it can be more a case of feeling obliged to conform to convention. Regardless, nobody should feel obliged to attend any event that they don't want to.