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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

496 replies

Playingdevilsadvocate · 27/01/2022 06:35

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?

OP posts:
Thisisit2022 · 27/01/2022 08:32

Who said she'd be wailing? And what if she did?

Cocomarine · 27/01/2022 08:32

@Peas252

I was nc with my dad. I went to the funeral just to make sure the fucker was cremated.
Flowers that was my first thought
saraclara · 27/01/2022 08:33

Keep out of it, and do not express any opinion to the family. It sounds as though you're going to be stirring things up. It's not your business at all and you will only make things worse if you start getting heated over it and putting your two pennorth in.

You're a stage removed, and your job, if any, is to calm and reassure, and help your DH and MIL get through this with as little stress as possible. Please don't add to it.

Pleaseuniverseplease · 27/01/2022 08:33

I find it disrespectful if she does turn up.
A funeral is a celebration and reflection of the person and their life and it's for their loved ones.
The last person I would want at my funeral is someone who caused me suffering and pain and made my last year's unhappy.
I think SIL would be selfish to attend.

Pleaseuniverseplease · 27/01/2022 08:34

Years

notacooldad · 27/01/2022 08:34

I think relationships are complex and complicated at the best of times, but add Nc and a bereavement in and emotions are going to run high. I think it's better to go to the funeral and think perhaps I shouldn't have come rather than not go and forever regretting it.

MajorCarolDanvers · 27/01/2022 08:34

Not enough info to know whose right and wrong but maybe SIL needs closure.

Best thing for you though is to stay out of it.

Everydaydayisaschoolday · 27/01/2022 08:35

@AnneLovesGilbert

Some people go to funerals to grieve the loss of the deceased. Others go to grieve the relationship they wish they’d had with the deceased. My mum should have gone NC with her horrific parents but as an only child with a well developed guilt complex and a persistent hope they’d one day be better she didn’t. When they both died she cried for the loss of the parents she wished they’d been, for the family she could have had, for all the wasted years of pain and trauma and disappointment.

Try for a bit of empathy OP instead of looking for drama when someone you know has just died.

These are very wise words.
I take care of my mum nowadays because she is old and frail and I am the only person geographically able to do it. It's the decent thing to do but I have no love for her. It's 100% duty. I have no doubt that I will eventually cry at her funeral but they will be tears of grief for what might have been not grief that that a bitter, manipulative bully has left my life.

You should stay out of this OP. Your SIL's relationship with her dad is none of your business.

Migrainesbythedozen · 27/01/2022 08:36

@Pleaseuniverseplease

I find it disrespectful if she does turn up. A funeral is a celebration and reflection of the person and their life and it's for their loved ones. The last person I would want at my funeral is someone who caused me suffering and pain and made my last year's unhappy. I think SIL would be selfish to attend.
@Pleaseuniverseplease Read the full thread. She obviously went NC because he hurt her, and as his daughter she has the right to go for closure. You don't get to dictate how an abused daughter grieves her own father.
itispersonal · 27/01/2022 08:37

I disagree with a lot of the posters.

Why does the ds deserve to get closure? If you can't be there for someone in life, you don't get to go to the funeral, it's hypocrisy.

LadyPropane · 27/01/2022 08:37

It's her dad, fgs. It's not up to you and i would be very careful about voicing your opinions on this to their family. It would paint you in a bad light.

Dammitthisisshit · 27/01/2022 08:39

No child should be stopped from attending their parents funeral.

This with bells on.
You can think what you like, but if you want to be helpful at this time you should be trying to reduce family conflict not inflame it.

Inspectorslack · 27/01/2022 08:39

No one gets the right to stop me having closure on the death of my last parent.

Ploppy1322 · 27/01/2022 08:40

You don't get invites to funerals, anyone who wants to pay their respects can go. No-one gets to police others feelings, you have no idea really of the complexity of feelings when cutting off a parent or what really sits behind it and it's not your business Tbh

AngeloMysterioso · 27/01/2022 08:40

I’ve had to handle my mother alone for the last decade since my brother has been NC with her, I’ll be letting him know he’s not welcome at her funeral when the time comes

Inspectorslack · 27/01/2022 08:40

Is the op going to come back?

Shehasadiamondinthesky · 27/01/2022 08:41

Why would she want to go to the funeral if she was NC with him?

cherish123 · 27/01/2022 08:42

Not your business.

FrancescaContini · 27/01/2022 08:42

I actually don’t understand why it’s any of your business.

Inspectorslack · 27/01/2022 08:42

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

Why would she want to go to the funeral if she was NC with him?
My fathers new wife is emotionally abusive.

I will go to remember the father he was to me for 55 years before she got her claws into him.

Or are you saying the abuser should have priority over his blood family?

Inspectorslack · 27/01/2022 08:43

So even in death, his abuser gets to carry on.

Well. Fuck.

SuitcaseOfWhine · 27/01/2022 08:44

At the end of the day, you have no right to say she can't so YABU.

Warblerinwinter · 27/01/2022 08:44

@Inspectorslack

She’s horrendous *@T00Ts*. She has moved in on him - physically was living in the house less than 2 months after my mum died - and in the 2 years since she has alienated him from absolutely everyone who existed in his life before she came on the scene.

She’s eviscerated every single person from his life. Except her.

Should I let her eviscerating us from his funeral? I don’t think so doll. You won’t get away with that.

God, this seems to be so common. My dad met someone within 6 weeks of my mums funeral. He’d not been happy in his 40 year marriage but was afraid to be on his own and never left. I know this becuase he’d tell me when I was a teenager - used to use me as a”confident” when he was upset which was not good. After he met new women he refused to talk about mum. I was still grieving for her. He painted her as a nasty, horrible woman. When I said I was hurt by this, and his assumption that everyone felt like him, he NC me and told everyone the narrative that I disapproved of his new partner and was jealous of her. I only met her 3 times. She seemed ok to me. I was actually not unhappy he’d met someone so that he wasn’t afraid to be on his own as per what he’d told me. He was angry at my mum for years before she died. I believe he got stuck there on the grief cycle cos he never went through depression stage as the new women came along . I wonder if this happens when women are widowed so commonly? It seems men jump straight into new relationships because they’re afraid of the emotions that grieving bring,
Inspectorslack · 27/01/2022 08:46

@Warblerinwinter I’m sorry you’ve experienced it too. It’s so hard to process. It’s like my mum has been wiped from his life.

CaptainMyCaptain · 27/01/2022 08:46

Sometimes when a parent dies you grieve the relationship you should have had. She has her own reasons for wanting to be there and, I believe, the funeral service itself is an event open to anyone.