Has anyone used a third party or mediator when dealing with bereavement

[Toffifeebox]

I’m at the point where I’ve been railroaded and side blinded so much I’ve got whiplash. I’m trying to take into account that everybody’s grieving, but I’m actually questioning my whole relationship with family as a result.

May need some more info as to exactly what you are looking for. Are you the executor? If so I simply outsourced the lot to a solicitor and financial advisor, they both dealt with everything and everyone. A funeral director can also intercede in family relations if they have clear instructions.
if it’s just inter family squabbles over who does what and when like where to inter the ashes etc then if explicit instructions were not left, it’s up to people to communicate and compromise. I’ve not heard of a mediator who would deal with basically a family dispute, but a family counsellor might possibly?
sorry for your loss and sorry that you are going through this.

Can you expand a bit? I can’t imagine needing a mediator for though bereavement tbh unless this is some kind of will issue?

I’m probably using the wrong term. I love my brothers so much, but I’ve cried buckets over them. They have a plan in their heads going 500mph and it’s like it or lump it. I got a text asking if I’m going to the house on Saturday (first I’ve heard of it), and I asked them not to remove/bin/bag up anything that wasn’t theirs - I trust them with financial valuables, photos etc, but there are things I’d have liked of no financial value that they or possibly their wives have thrown. I respected their need for a holiday, but they wouldn’t respect mine. I cannot keep up with four people (brothers and wives) especially when the goalposts keep moving.

How long ago have your parents passed. Who is stuff split between. Can you just say stop. I dont think its the norm as the will states who gets what and thats that. If no will its an even split but knick knacks they dont care about

There are three of us and we are all executors.

Then in this scenario, no I don’t think there is any such service available.
Either you

1. really truly speak up and say stop, or

2. you join them on declutterring/sorting and get what you so desire or ask them to put those things aside for you or

3)step away and let them get on with whatever needs to be done.
It’s a harsh truth but there is unfortunately a lot to be done when clearing estates and there are always issues coordinating people’s availability to commit to getting it done.
Grief affects people differently and some need to get on with things whilst others just want the world to stop. Sadly for this of us who want time to stop, it doesn’t, we just have to get on with it, once the bits we have to do are done, we can then step away and grieve.

As @Alphabet1spaghetti2 says. Are you able to go and be part of the current activities?

I think what’s hurting the most is there are things I could have taken when going through paperwork for the solicitor for example, but I don’t know it was going to be blitzed the next week and assumed I’d have some say in the plan. Given they felt going to the house after the funeral (which I wanted) felt too hard, so was held at one of their houses instead, I was blindsided by the sudden leap to multiple skips. I completely accepted going to the house after the funeral was too hard for them, same as dealing with the inquest documents and prep etc. It feels lonely and pointless telling them anymore - it’s this is what we are doing. I feel like I’m grieving the relationship I had with them. There is no point talking, I’ve tried - they only want to tell me why their way is best. If I bite my tongue, or get hurt or angry at boundaries crossed, that doesn’t matter either. I feel such an idiot for telling them I was upset at them deciding what was valuable or not - to have it repeated, hence my text. One of them has got really angry and said they’ve never removed/binned anything, so WTF am I meant to do with that? I don’t know what to do with this behaviour - if my feelings don’t matter, what’s the point?

Sorry you are going through this. Bereavement brings out the best or worst in people in my experience. No easy words, but it sounds horrendous.

So sorry a difficult time is being made so much worse by other people's behaviour. I don't have any advice really, the same happened to me and I stopped talking to the family members involved because I see them differently now and I can't fathom how they kept doing things behind my back, even when I asked them to slow down and they agreed, they just stopped telling me what they were doing. My nan in particular wanted to rush through everything and be in charge of all arrangements despite the fact that I was the administrator of the estate and had to pay for the funeral, it made me feel like I wasn't part of the family and that there was no acknowledgment that I had lost my mum. Some people just continually put there needs above everyone else's and with hindsight I see that's how those family members have always been, I just used to overlook it, whereas now I can't because they caused so much hurt and devastation at a time when I desperately needed their support. I'm sorry a similar thing is happening to you.

@OctaviathethirdI’m sorry.

Thanks everyone. It’s hard to coordinate availability, yes, but why are their holidays allowed to be accounted for, but mine wasn’t? Why do I have an in-law telling me my stuff is going to be skipped? Why when I go over can I manage to not make assumptions on what they might find sentimental? How can I be trying to sort a garage for the skip only to go upstairs and find assumptions have been made on whose clothes are whose, so I’m going through black sacks? I was told (last minute) they were meeting for two hours to go through a particular room, of which I would have made about thirty minutes. I spoke on the phone. Four of them stayed about six hours and did another room, put aside things they thought I might like - but silly little things that meant something to me, all my dad’s paperwork etc binned. Day one of school holidays. They wanted a thank you. I was shocked. I wasn’t even worth a phone call. That was how it started - the first blindside and it’s been horrendous since. It’s a project, not a home, but it was a home to me.

Things I did put aside are missing too. It’s starting to feel very personal.