Fictional funeral arrangements: who should get final say?

[Contain4]

Purely a fictional scenario…

I’m reading a book where a man is killed.

The man was 35.
He’s been with his wife for 4/5 years, married for 3 of them and they have a 3yo child.

Who should have more say over his funeral arrangements:

The wife and mother of his child - but who has only known him for a max of 5 years?

Or his mum/parents - who’ve known him for 35 years and raised him for half of them?

The wife legally has control but IMO I would respecting the wishes of the mother.

The issue is burying vs cremating.

Wondering what other people’s views on this are….

After five years together my husband knew me better than my mother did, because my mother knew the person I had been and the person she wanted me to be, but he knew and had chosen the person I actually was. She would have truly believed she knew what I wanted, but it would actually have been unconnected to my adult wishes and about her and perhaps something she remembered me saying when I was twelve, but which might very well actually turn out to have been said by my sibling.

I'd had multiple times more proper adult to adult conversations with my husband than my mother despite meeting him at 25. I only lived full time with my parents until a couple of weeks after my 18th birthday, and as I moved in with my husband after a year I'd lived with him as adults for four years and with my mother as an adult for only a few stints per year of under two weeks each time, adding up to less than six months as an adult.

I write that as a parent of adult children. It's utterly developmentally normal for humans to share their innermost thoughts and be truly known by same age chosen life partners or very close friends, rather than their parents, by their twenties, let alone thirties. I love my children utterly, but any parent who believes they know their (typically developing) child utterly after their 15th birthday, let alone their 25th, is lying to themselves.

A whirlwind relationship and marrying someone you've just met is completely different to the five years together, three years married, and a child together scenario you wrote about in your opening post!

Parents probably do know an adult child better than a boyfriend or girlfriend of a few weeks, regardless of whether they got married in Las Vegas or something. However that is a very unusual situation and not what you asked about (plus honestly there'd be uneasy suspicion of foul play if a 35 year old died very soon after marrying someone she'd just met, especially if he stood to inherit anything much... or it was a novel, as your opening scenario was)!

Unless he lived at home with mum and dad as an adult before he moved in with his wife then his wife. His friends would probably have a better idea about his wishes than his mother.

100% partner/spouse/friend

Elderly parents planning their child’s funeral is an awful idea.

Its "what if" scenarios like this that make it so important to have these discussions, even if in a half joking sort of manner.

My kids, my family and my friends all know that if I were to ever end up on life support and brain damaged to turn off the machines, they also know all my organs except my eyes can go and that I would want to be cremated, a chunk of my ashes made into jewellery for my daughters and anyone else that wants it and the remainder of me is to be set off in a firework after they have all had a party/wake to celebrate my life.

If I remarried and not had that conversation I would hope that he would listen to everyone, especially my daughters!! Its in my will anyway.......

Conversations are important.

DH told me where he wanted his ashes scattered and I told his adult children when the time came... They were in agreement.

His first wife (presumably having been told where he was going) turned up on my doorstep, trying to persuade me to scatter his ashes in a place of her choosing. Before the funeral, she had told me not to worry if anything in the eulogy was "wrong" - only she would know.

1. At the time, she was with her 4th partner.
2. DH and I were married 27 years.

He’s dead: whatever happens next doesn’t change that ! Just let it go

Ah my mum would be maintaining that I wanted XYZ when I was 3 as if that made it true now

Want doesn’t even come into it really. Marriage is a very serious contract and comes with these sorts of responsibilities for your spouse.

Widow takes priority but should absolutely take parents' opinions into account.

The reasons and the strength of feeling matter:

If wife says he thought it was a waste of money to bury, but parents will pay and desperately want him buried in a family plot, burying makes sense.

Or if parents remember him hating burials as a child, and wife's reasoning is that she wants a spot to visit with the children, and there's a compromise of a spot to scatter the ashes or a memorial bench, then cremate.

Wife gets final say, but must bear in mind that the parents have lost a child and can never move on from that.

If what happens next impacts those left behind, then consideration should be given to those who were closest to the deceased.

For most people, that would be the spouse or the children.

I don't know that "should" applies as legally it's the wife, though she should of course listen to anything his parents/siblings best friends feel he would have wanted.

Yes.

DH told me he wanted a humanist service and there was a discussion about suitable funeral music. I made sure that his wishes were followed.

Why not your eyes?

Tbh, once I'm dead, I don't think it's for me to dictate how people "celebrate" that. The bereaved need to do whatever helps them get through their grief.

But his mum obviously knows him much better than his wife as she’s known him for 35 years vs 5 years

My DH knew me better than my mum does after a few months of dating.

Even in a very close family, I’d be quite depressed by the thought that my child’s spouse wasn’t the person that knew them best. I want that for them.

I just have this "thing" not to take my eyes, I cant remember where it came from but ive had the same stance since I was a teenager. Maybe I had a dream.

And in terms of dictating, whats the point in having expressed wishes if noones going to follow them and makes this thread pointless? Grief comes in many forms, the celebration clearly wont be on that day as ashes can take weeks to come back.

Really interesting that everyone is saying the wife. Would responses have been different if sexes were reversed? Do siblings get any say in the matter?

These kinds of scenarios are probably a long way from anyone’s minds in earlier decades, but I think it’s important to take time to document your wishes. Not for your partner to decide, or your parents, or your siblings etc. Decide what you would prefer and that takes away any conflict or hurt from others.

A whole subset of this is children from a first marriage - so often get completely sidelined when their parent dies, but that’s probably a different thread.

In a situation where no one knows and everyone is just guessing, then assuming no estrangements, in order of priority it should be: husband/wife, adult children, parents, then siblings.

By marrying someone you’re bestowing the legal right on them to make those kinds of decisions, no matter how long you’ve been together.

I’d say the same if the sexes were reversed.

Siblings come after adult children and parents imo.

Obviously there’ll be times this isn’t the case, if someone is no contact with their parents or something. But generally speaking I’d say siblings are not in a position to have their wishes for the funeral considered above those other family members. My aunt died recently and my mum would never have even considered trying to influence funeral plans, unless my aunt’s husband or adult children had asked for her thoughts.

I would say his wife (and if the sexes were reversed, husband). A man who is married with a child should have made a will, and most wills do state burial or cremation (mine does, it's a pretty standard thing). So I'm now irritated by this fictional person's lack of planning!

Not the point. A commitment to a partner which is serious and intended to be long term is the prime relationship. Not parents.

He chose his wife. She almost certainly knows him better.
Love my mum to bits but can guarantee she doesn't know as much as my partner regarding a long list of preferences because that's just the nature of the different relationships, partner tends to know more up to date info. And my dad couldn't have organised a big mac in a McDonald's so definitely wouldn't have trusted him with this responsibility 🤪

And if the will says cremation rather than burial, please let the executor or whoever know what you want done with the ashes (speaking as someone who has ended up with three lots of ashes and no pointers as to what they wanted done with them.....)

I was in a similar position. I was the second wife. My adult stepchildren and other family wanted me there to pay for everything, but wanted things done their way.