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 many people see the irony in kicking the OP when she's been a good DIL and actually stepped up and provided care and also her husband was with the MIL on the night of the funeral sitting with her, whilst banging on about kindness and compassion!

OP, I think you did the right thing for you, everyone is still kicking you for saying 'belief system' when you are just labelling family decisions like 'we have a family Christmas just with our immediate household' which is something that was not the norm in the past and now is very much more normal.

I wouldn't spend any more time on here. You did the right thing by your FIL in life, you did the right thing for you and your husband in your grief and you reached out to your MIL on the evening of the funeral and the days after which are often incredibly lonely.

You did more than most, by far.

I’m finding this thread really interesting. OP has a slightly uncommon view on funerals and she is being made out to be some crazy devilish despot!

I actually agree with the view to a certain extent especially this obsession with attending a funeral when you couldn’t bother with the person in real life. There are so many other ways to show you care and love someone.

Slightly different but similar i have been judged for not visiting relatives graves, particularly my father’s, but the grave means nothing to me. I remember him through photos, places, memories. The grave isn’t helpful for that at all.

I’m pleased that you sound like you are sticking to your principles despite the judgement and i think your neurodiversity has perhaps hampered your understanding of others reaction to this rather than caused the principle in the first place!

To me it isn't so much about our own personal belief systems at these events but paying respect to the beliefs of the person/people whose event it is... I.e not just funerals but weddings, christenings, naming ceremonies. If I care for the people involved then I would go and maybe not stay for the food etc after. It's a bit of a strange stance. I've been to catholic funerals, Hindu weddings and all sorts.

Thankyou. It's just getting on my nerves that it's being used as some sort of what about gotcha.

theres nothing wrong with a get together to celebrate the life of the person who's died. It doesn't need the gathering around a coffin bit first.

OP, the rituals around death and the disposal of human remains are almost universal, and have existed in one form or the other, in every tribe and civilization around the world, for as long as there's been records of human existence. They’re deeply embedded in human culture and psychology. A ritual gives a symbolic structure to something emotionally overwhelming, and it helps people grieve collectively, not just privately. It affirms the continuity of social bonds with the living when we mourn together, support each other, and remember the deceased together. Humans ARE social animals despite what modern life would have us believe. A "personal belief" absence feels like a cop-out.

What's going to happen when you die? Are you going to have funerals?

@gamerchick I'm so sorry. I do think there's a lot of pressure on families to have a certain type of event, even if it is traumatic to those closest. I have felt that myself, although not after losing a child. I'm so terribly sorry no-one was listening to what you needed at that time, I hope over time that it won't taint your memories of your wonderful child.

Hi, OP. I have ADHD like your husband. I’ve learned something important in the past few years - when something means a lot to neurotypical people but makes no sense to you, it’s a good idea to do it anyway as long as it’s not something you find morally wrong.

I don’t understand why most people like hearing their own names. Personally, I don’t like hearing my own name, because everyone I’m close to calls me either a nickname, or Mama. People calling me by my actual name feels somehow impersonal and intrusive at the same time.

But most neurotypical people seem to like hearing their names. Most of them seem to prefer “Hi, Jane” to just “Hi.” It makes no sense to me, but it does to them, and seeing as I don’t find it morally objectionable, I try to go with “Hi, Jane.”

The concept of funerals as a comfort for the living may make no sense to you. But it makes sense and means a lot to the neurotypical people around you, and as long as you don’t have an actual moral issue with funerals, you need to go to funerals when family members die. Most people are going to be offended if you don’t go, and you’re not going to be able to convince them that it’s nothing personal against them or against the deceased. It’s going to have a negative effect on your relationships with most of your family members.

Think of it as being in a foreign country where you’re observing the strange customs of the natives out of respect.

The OP asked for opinions because she couldn’t understand why the family has reacted so negatively. Credit to OP she seems to have listened and taken opinions on board. My feeling is that the OP has no real personal experience of funerals and has been very influenced by her DHs feelings about them and I think it’s worth pointing out that there is another perspective.

You’ve quoted me there. Understood the OP was providing care to her FIL and it seems the SIL wasn’t but I wanted to make the point that arranging a parents funeral is difficult and that leaving the SIL to do it herself may be a bigger deal than the OP realises.

But OP's husband went to his mum's that same day and stayed with her for several more days. In what way is that not showing support to his mum?

Other people in your family do “believe” in funerals though, and they are also a widespread social norm not to mention a ritual across the majority of world cultures throughout human history.

In my opinion you should have showed up since it mattered to wider family members that you are there. This is an old fashioned view, but personal beliefs don’t always trump social expectations.

Jeez, so you're indoctrinating your children in this loopy "belief system" as well? How about preparing them to function in the world like normal people instead of treating them as ready-made members of your self-devised cult?

I hope your reference to teaching them "as part of RE" doesn't mean you're going to be home schooling.

So sorry for your loss.

Are you obliged to go to a funeral of a loved one? Of course not. Is it an expected social convention that has social consequences if you don't do it? Yes!

You can have whatever beliefs you want but this is absolutely something that is going to receive pushback and you should have expected that.

Quite. Bloody sight more supportive than performative funeral goers whom she probably won’t see again until the next one.

No idea why you’re listening to aunt and uncle who never arsed themselves to visit, but not attending the funeral is extremely unusual. I was so grateful to far flung cousins who travelled from hours away/old work colleagues/my brother’s best mate from school who flew up for my df’s funeral. It meant an awful lot. It’s support for the living, not the dead.

Arranging the funeral for my husband was incredibly stressful. I don't regret it but the way they are done here, weeks after the death and not having a set service and having it all personalised makes it very burdensome to the person organizing it at a time they are grieving and I understand why lots of people either hate attending them or hate organizing them and only some people find them comforting. It is a huge social pressure as well as a social norm and I don't think our generation will either want that or even want to pay for that in the future and there will be more fallings out like this.

I don't think we have got it right over death in the UK, and the care system is broken, so anyone who is stepping up and helping in the weeks before the person dies, as well as managing their own distress, has done ok by me.

Absolutely.

With my FIL's recent death, as I mentioned up thread, he had specified no fuss or anything. His sons felt it would be disrespectful to go against his stated wished, but they and the grandkids were pretty upset and no marking of his death. So we arranged a meal for them all to get together a fortnight after the direct cremation and that helped a bit.

Whatever feels best for those bereaved is the important thing. I'm so sorry for your loss, and that the imposition of holding a funeral made it worse. 💐

I don’t think anyone should feel pressure to go to funerals. You have explained yourself to your family, you don’t need to keep doing that. It sounds like you have provided a lot of support, you just didn’t go to the funeral. I think you need to tell them to stop as you’ll be seeing a lot less of them.

A friend of mine didn’t go to her father’s funeral, nor did her husband. She lost her brother years before and found the funeral difficult with people that hardly knew him treating it like a day out, where they got the gossip about his death, were more bothered about what food was served and got drunk, whilst she was utterly distraught. After that she decided she wouldn’t be attending anyone’s funeral and I can’t say I blame her.

Whatever a persons reasons for not attending a funeral, it’s their business and their choice.

So its not a " belief system "(whatever that means), its just your opinion. Would have been far easier to just attend the funeral surely.

OP you must have appreciated that your “belief system” is out of sync with societal expectations here that funerals are both for honouring the dead but giving comfort to those left behind. I’ve been to a funeral of someone I met once for example - I had no relationship with them that would warrant “saying goodbye” to them either before their passing or afterwards, but their spouse was a colleague I worked with daily so wanted to support them and show we cared.

The bottom line here is the facts are now historic. So you can’t change you didn’t go, either if (which I doubt) with hindsight you would do differently. You just need to accept people have judged you because their position is different, notwithstanding other things you did. And frankly MIL/SIL probably found your absence humiliating - an adult child would normally not be absent from their parents funeral like this.

FWIW I would not use the phrase “belief system” with people in real life - it will generally come over at best smug and at worst arrogant and superior.

Nobody, absolutely nobody has the right to tell another person how to grieve. If @Bluehummingbird and her DH, decided not to attend a funeral, then that is their business and not for others to comment upon. I did not attend my father's funeral and I do not regret it. What is most important at times like this is to find your own way to the other side, if you have capacity to help others, then brilliant, but do not denigrate others who do not have that ability. I highly suspect that @Bluehummingbird will be there in the weeks and months to come when every other person who went to the funeral has disappeared.

I think funerals are generally awful and would like to never go to one ever again

however, the reason I make myself go is that it is all about supporting the widow/widower/surviving family

so yes you did your bit, and more, for FIL

But the funeral was not for him, it was for his wife and children and family

so you did not let FIL down but you let MIL and SIL down by not being there to support them

you get a normal reaction from them for that snub

but it is your choice and you just have to live with the consequences of that choice (you call it a belief, but really it is a choice, a decision you made)

Does your belief system exclude using punctuation?

I am sorry for your loss. I think that the poster who said you can't control how other people judge you is right. If you're confident in your choice you might need a thicker skin

I suppose two things strike me (as they may have others, I haven't read every post on here).

Firstly if you and your husband have 'devised' a 'belief system' that precludes attendance at events that are very deeply rooted in the fabric of pretty much every society, I don't think you can complain that people find that odd. It makes you a significant outlier. People will always find that questionable.

Secondly you seem at least in part to be justifying your non-attendance on the disparity of support between what you provided and what others provided. That feels like a poor way to justify a belief. What if everyone had provided the same? I imagine you would say your belief would remain the same. So others' actions are irrelevant really.