Page 20 | To say that if you’ve gone no contact you can’t go to funeral

Playingdevilsadvocate · 2022-01-27T06:35:05+00:00

My SIL has gone NC with her DF. It’s been a couple of years now. He’s just died. I don’t know what she plans to do regards funeral yet but I feel that if she didn’t want anything to do with him in these last years of his life, she can’t go wailing at his funeral with his grieving family. They all know how she’s behaved towards him and they don’t want a bar of her. She should have thought of this moment before she cut him off! Should his widow (not her dm) have to encounter this person who caused her dh so much pain, at his funeral where she will be grieving her dh? Thoughts?

Original poster

Playingdevilsadvocate · 28/01/2022 22:53

Something I’ve wondered about. How does one actually go NC? Do you just stop responding one day or do you have a big blow up and tell the parent you are not speaking to them anymore? I know with my family they simply would not let me. They’d be turning up at my house like it or not. My SIL had a massive blast at her Dad and just dropped him. He did try to pursue a relationship but she knocked him back over and over until he gave in. Is that how you all did it?

OP posts:

BringBackCoffeeCreams · 28/01/2022 23:06

@Playingdevilsadvocate

Something I’ve wondered about. How does one actually go NC? Do you just stop responding one day or do you have a big blow up and tell the parent you are not speaking to them anymore? I know with my family they simply would not let me. They’d be turning up at my house like it or not. My SIL had a massive blast at her Dad and just dropped him. He did try to pursue a relationship but she knocked him back over and over until he gave in. Is that how you all did it?

I defriended her on Facebook. That was pretty much the extent of our relationship for years. She was furious as she couldn't maintain the image of being a doting grandparent without it. Even now, 8 years on I know she has no interest in genuinely fixing our relationship. She just wants to be added back onto Facebook so she can post sickly sweet shite on my posts about my kids so her friends see it and comment on what a wonderful granny she is.

Darker · 29/01/2022 00:56

@Playingdevilsadvocate there is no ‘just’ about any of this. A blow up would be the end of a long, long train of events, almost certainly from childhood. Stuff that you can’t understand if you just look at what happened one Saturday afternoon and overlay it with the assumption that everything is fixable if you just try hard enough.

PrincessNutella · 29/01/2022 01:16

It's complicated, OP. Obviously. Complicated and private. The last thing that anybody in that position needs is judgment from anyone who does not know the complicated, painful, private reasons that the person had the relationship she or he did with a parent.

MulticolourTulips · 29/01/2022 01:56

OP hasn't the vaguest idea of what she's dabbling in. She seriously needs to keep her neb out.

Flutterflybutterby · 29/01/2022 02:15

He's her father. She is the only person who gets to decide whether she attends his funeral.

I'd also suggest thay it's VERY rare for the parent to be entirely innocent in the case that one of their own children has to go NC with them, therefore she's probably a victim in this situation anyway. If she needs to go to the funeral to help her healing then she should.

You sound very unsupportive and judgemental considering it doesn't even concern you in any way.

Flutterflybutterby · 29/01/2022 02:17

I say this as someone who is NC from my mother due to years of emotional abuse which caused me untold harm and yet very, very few people are aware of this emotional abuse. If I wanted to go to her funeral to help get closure on a traumatic and painful relationship then I would, and it would be nobody elses business.

AlDanvers · 29/01/2022 04:33

@Playingdevilsadvocate

Something I’ve wondered about. How does one actually go NC? Do you just stop responding one day or do you have a big blow up and tell the parent you are not speaking to them anymore? I know with my family they simply would not let me. They’d be turning up at my house like it or not. My SIL had a massive blast at her Dad and just dropped him. He did try to pursue a relationship but she knocked him back over and over until he gave in. Is that how you all did it?

So you know how it happens. There's probably a hundred different ways it happens.

Why do you need to know the details of how it happens. You don't have a empathy for people in that position, so just nosiness?

nalabae · 29/01/2022 04:36

No it’s respect to go to the funeral

Mummyoflittledragon · 29/01/2022 06:31

@worriedatthemoment

Also some people do go nc lightly My dh has nc with his dad not through his choice and his dad has been like this most of his life in and out of it My dh started seeing him again when out dc were born then he disappeared again and not seen or heard from him in 15 years , no argument , no falling out he just goes nc and disappears as that suits him So for all those telling others don't judge no one does it lightly , well some do, where as others don't and its a hard process

This father sounds like an ignorant feckless pig. He hasn’t made contact and cannot be arsed by the sound of it. Although the outcome may be the same, this example is a long way from going nc as a result of abuse.

Your dh cannot possibly have abused his father resulting in stopping contact whereas a parent can absolutely abuse a child and decide to go nc.

I don’t doubt your dh has been deeply hurt. However, the dynamic is completely different and your comment whataboutery.

Mummyoflittledragon · 29/01/2022 06:45

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Inspectorslack · 29/01/2022 06:55

@Playingdevilsadvocate

Something I’ve wondered about. How does one actually go NC? Do you just stop responding one day or do you have a big blow up and tell the parent you are not speaking to them anymore? I know with my family they simply would not let me. They’d be turning up at my house like it or not. My SIL had a massive blast at her Dad and just dropped him. He did try to pursue a relationship but she knocked him back over and over until he gave in. Is that how you all did it?

Why should we? So you can judge whether our reasons are good enough in your opinion?.

Inspectorslack · 29/01/2022 07:05

If my dads wife were to turn up at my house like it or not and didn’t leave when I told her to, I would phone the police and have her removed.

There is so much that happened - stuff going back to when I was very young, and then a whole ton of stuff since my mum died.

And on top of that a ton of stuff since he met his wife.

Emotional abuse. Physical abuse. Scapegoating me as against my brother.

It culminated in yet another scenario where he and his wife were conducting a character assassination on my mum and on me. In front of someone else (family member). Who spoke up to defend me and my mum and said this isn’t fair. You shouldn’t say this.

They blew up. Started screaming and yelling And I said it would be best I left. I was shaking I was so scared.

His wife tried to stop me leaving and was screaming in my face and my dad was trying to stop the other person leaving.

He screamed at me that if I left and didn’t stay to sort it out I was never to come back.

So I haven’t.

BertramLacey · 29/01/2022 10:49

It's complicated, OP. Obviously. Complicated and private. The last thing that anybody in that position needs is judgment from anyone who does not know the complicated, painful, private reasons that the person had the relationship she or he did with a parent.

Yes, this. I am in contact with my dad but would rather not be. There are many reasons, going back 50 years. My brother has a different take on it because although we grew up together, our experiences are different.

We don't choose our parents OP. Just because someone is related to you, doesn't mean you have to like them. And like them or not, it still may be better to go to their funeral. Complex grief is amongst the worst to deal with and if going to a funeral helps, so be it.

MrsSkylerWhite · 29/01/2022 10:51

Jennifer2r

You are not the gatekeeper for your father in laws funeral.“

Agree. It is his widow’s decision, not yours.

Cyw2018 · 29/01/2022 10:58

@MrsSkylerWhite

Jennifer2r

You are not the gatekeeper for your father in laws funeral.“

Agree. It is his widow’s decision, not yours.

It's not the widow's decision either.

This man chose to father a child, that child has a right to attend the funeral, should they wish to, and grieve how they need to.

MrsSkylerWhite · 29/01/2022 11:00

Cyw2018

MrsSkylerWhite
Jennifer2r

You are not the gatekeeper for your father in laws funeral.“

Agree. It is his widow’s decision, not yours.
It's not the widow's decision either.

This man chose to father a child, that child has a right to attend the funeral, should they wish to, and grieve how they need to.“

Actually, yes, you’re right.
Either way, not DiL’s concern.

sweatervest · 29/01/2022 11:31

@Handsoffreturns

sweatervest when you say you turned into Tommy Lee Royce, do you mean you reversed over someone?! Your comment about the coffin lid made me spit my tea out 😂

my TLR impression was me hissing and spitting and telling anyone in earshot at the crematorium that my all of my family are c&&ts and then i heckled during one of the eulogies

just average funeral small talk, TLR style, tbh

MabelsApron · 29/01/2022 11:33

I’m NC with both parents (alcoholics and emotional abuse). They both claim to have no idea why I cut them off despite me paying for us to have last resort family reconciliation sessions.

I don’t know how I feel about funerals. My wider family either doesn’t know I’m NC or they just never mention it, and I probably wouldn’t go if I thought any of them would be thinking like some posters here, that I don’t deserve to go because I “couldn’t be arsed” with them in life.

Unless you’ve gone NC, you don’t understand. I feel I lost my parents at 35, when I got to the point of being unable to take it anymore, but society often tells me I’m the villain.

honeyrider · 29/01/2022 12:41

OP have you so little self awareness that you cannot see how judgemental and a shit stirrer you are when you're not even a blood relative of the deceased, you don't get to decide who's allowed go or not go to a funeral?

You're coming across like you're relishing the hope that there will be confrontation. More in your line if you spent your time supporting your DH and resist your urge to manipulate him into trying to ban your SIL from the funeral if she wants to attend. You don't know if she even wants to go to it yet but you're coming across as you'd love nothing better than cause upset. Have a good look in the mirror.

jelly79 · 29/01/2022 13:07

It's not black and white. Going NC doesn't veto you from the funeral. But maybe the way she has behaved and the choices and impact of other family members do