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

[Playingdevilsadvocate]

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?

@PhoboPhobia

Why are people making out that when someone goes no contact, it is a cold and emotionless act.

We have seen hundreds of threads on MN where people are agonising over whether to go NC. It is usually a complex and fraught situation. Also people on this thread are explaining many varying reasons for both going NC with someone AND wanting to attend that persons funeral.

I don't imagine many people go NC and then completely forget about everything that went before, including any good times they had with that person. It is completely obvious why some people would want/need that sort of 'closure'.

It's staggering to me that people can be so brutal and not have the ability to imagine this might be a complex situation and very emotive.

Perfectly put.

There’s a whole world of hurt why I’ve gone NC with my dad.

@Inspectorslack

And yes *@User1isnotavailable* you’re victim blaming

The person that goes NC isn't always the victim. Your generalising. Sometimes they are the victim and sometimes they are not. It depends on the personal circumstances which are different for different people!

You're not your

@Tufty383

Sil went non contact with Fil and mil 5 years ago after bleeding them both dry. If she dared show her face at either of their future funerals she will feel the wrath of us all. She's devastated them both and to wash her hands of them after everything they've done for her has been appalling.

You clearly don't know the full story. No one goes NC for simplistic reasons, they do it to protect themselves from further abuse.

Maybe it's the closure she needs.

Interesting how some people think here.
Going NC actually hurts me. It was my last resort to protect my mental health from continued attacks by those that are supposed to love me unconditionally as their child. I’ve put up for years with more shit from them then I would have tolerated from anyone else. A lot of people have clearly no idea how toxic some parents can be towards their own children and lack the empathy to try to understand those who shared their experiences and feelings on this thread.
to all of you esspecially @Inspectorslack I can see it’s all very difficult for you and you have my sympathy

Others go to grieve the relationship they wish they’d had with the deceased

This is me when my father passes. My grief will be for what we should have had. What I see when I look around that was denied me as a child and young adult that seems to come so easy to others. To support my mum who has had 50+ years of his shit and now finds herself caring for the old bastard.

@Playingdevilsadvocate

I’ve not managed to read all comments just yet but the first page is interesting. It’s not my business to say anything of course! I just wanted to see how the opinions fell. Personally if I was NC with a parent I’d avoid it because I wouldn’t feel that I should go when I’d been awful to them in life and cut them out. Just my opinion which of course my SIL will never have to hear.

Glad I saw this softer-worded update before posting ... as the initial post containing the gem she can’t go wailing at his funeral with his grieving family was completely OTT. Do you really dislike your SiL?

1. The DF isn't even buried yet. So you don't know if SiL will attend, but are getting yourself so frothed up about the possibility that you are envisioning her wailing.
2. You don't know why SiL went NC. She could have valid reasons. They might be horrible. You may never know what they are.
3. You talk about the widow grieving. I imagine, no matter what's happened, that SiL will also be grieving. Going NC doesn't excise emotions.
4. You also reference how SiL caused DF so much pain but see 2) - you don't know how much pain may have been caused to her.

To answer your Q though - I'm NC with a relative. When they pop their clogs, I won't be attending their funeral. Not because I shouldn't be 'allowed' to - but because it would be awful: the flying monkeys will still be out in force & I have no desire to encounter them.

@MaChienEstUnDick ''Your assumption that it is she who was awful to him by going NC is... interesting. Most people don't go NC to hurt someone else, they go NC to protect themselves.''

Agreed. I am no contact with my narcs mother to protect myself. Mental and physical abuse, controlling and manipulating, lying...that was her pattern. She also tried to involve me in an inheritance fraud after my father died.

But to everyone else she always played the part of a meek, nice person who was always victimised by others. Other people rarely saw her real face because she knew she had to appear that way to them.

I am sure to the rest of my relative I am the monster. I moved to another country to literally save my life and sanity. I want nothing to do with that woman.

Many of us who have gone NC did it for a perfectly valid reason.

It’s none of your business. And not for anyone but her to say.

@User1isnotavailable It's almost always exclusively the victim that goes NC. They go NC to protect themselves. Please stop victim-blaming. Your ignorance is frightening.

You sound very blind to how difficult and complex it can be to go NC with a parent. Saying that it’s always awful to cut someone out is naive at best.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

I agree with you, sometimes the NC isn't the victim. Too many assumptions made that they always are the victim. There are a multitude of reasons why someone goes NC. If your case because the person didn't get the money they wanted - that's not a victim. Sometimes the NC person is a victim. Different scenarios.

I think it’s a asshole thing to do, very disrespectful to the remaining family to show up to make sure they are dead. Not a good look.

@LaBellina

She probably had a reason for feeling the way she did, people don’t tend to cut their parents out just for fun.

^^ this. I am NC with my parents, if they died, I’m not sure if I would attend their funeral but I think that should ultimately be my decision regardless of how our relationship was during life and esspecially because you probably never heard her side of the story. So far all stories I have heard about children going NC with parents always came after years of abuse and arguments and the decision to go NC wasn’t made lightly. Ofcourse parents aren’t going to admit they were abusers and will talk about ungrateful children that cut them off out of the blue.

This will be us with MIL/FIL too

@TheBestofTimesTheWorstofTimes

Seems like she wants to be one of those hypercritics who CBA to bother with someone when they are alive, but wants everyone to see them at the funeral yes, my sibling is one of these

All for show. She should keep away if her principles meant she went NC. We dont know the whole story and never will, but I have more respect for someone who keeps their stance rather than is all "snots and tears" at the funeral

The OP doesn't even know if the woman is going to the funeral or not, she's just salivating in advance at the thought of the scandle.

When someone goes NC with a family member that family member is extremely highly unlikely to say "She can't accept the way I treated her", it's nearly always faux bemusement "I don't understand", "She's spoiled, always been hard work", "She's over sensitive, making a big deal of XYZ".
I don't have much to do with my parents, I'm very LC, I still feel very hurt at the way they treated me growing up and even now my mother really enjoys other peoples downfalls and would never give me privacy or keep a confidence around my private life events, she shares private information about me with my brothers who have always bullied and ridiculed me since a kid, I actually had very low self esteem until I was about mid twenty's and hadn't known my brothers for a long time. Of course them and their cunty wives would say my parents were very nice and if I did go NC would go along with the narrative that I was hard work. Abusive people don't ever tend to look at themselves in that light and acknowledge their own behaviours.

[quote Migrainesbythedozen]@User1isnotavailable It's almost always exclusively the victim that goes NC. They go NC to protect themselves. Please stop victim-blaming. Your ignorance is frightening.[/quote]
Well I have experience of the opposite as does a poster above with the person who didn't get money/want they wanted going NC. It varies and wrong to generalise that everyone that NC is a victim. Your ignorance that everything is not black and white and simple to call is ignorant. I accept some are victims and I also realise that some are not.

In my experience, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the person who goes NC has done so to protect themselves.

In my case that’s exactly why. Mentally and physically I need to protect myself.

I’m still allowed to grieve for the 55 years we were close and I was his daughter.

Funerals are about closure as well as everything else. So I can see why someone who had a complicated relationship with the deceased would benefit from attending. As long as you let everyone else mourn. Sometimes the person YOU knew is not the same person someone else knew!

Some of these responses are interesting.

1.It’s her dad.
2.Anyone can go to a funeral

Your posts read like he was a completely innocent party that she was horrible to and then stopped talking to him. For no reason and absolutely no fault of his.
Which indicates you probably don’t know the full story and are clouded by that.
Ive never met or heard of a single person who went NC with their own parent for no reason.

I’m not sure why you think she wouldn’t be grieving too.

You sound very angry and hurt and that’s ok too but it’s completely clouding your perspective. you don’t know the full story and you don’t even know what she’s planning.

I imagine those saying that anyone attending a funeral of someone they are NC with is hypocritical and they should stay away to respect those who have been present for the person in life have not experienced complicated relationships. People go NC for a range of reasons, and it can be either or neither parties "fault". But when someone dies it brings up huge range of emotions and the funeral is there for the living to say their goodbyes and make their peace with things. My parent has been a pretty awful parent who has shown little love and care for me, but when they die I want to be able to close that door and say sod off for good. I am only not NC as I doubt my stepmother would tell me if he died and as she has isolated him from all his friends of over 50 years no one else would be able to tell me he has passed. When the time comes I want to be able to grieve and have final closure for that relationship that was never what one hopes a parent child relationship should be.

Someone who goes NC doesn't necessarily stop loving someone. Its just that they can see their behaviour was toxic and they may not have liked them.

Love and like are two different things.

No one has the right to tell others how they can or can not grieve. Someone NC can still grieve for the lose both of the person and the relationship they wish they had but never did.

Others don't have the power and control over that - and usually power and control (or loss of) are a huge part of why family astrangements happen in the first place.

@ViceLikeBlip

Most people end up going NC to protect themselves, not just because they're in some massive huff or something.

There is obviously a traumatic backstory to this. Of course she's allowed to attend her own father's funeral. And she's allowed to behave however she wants, and if that irritates some people then they should just bitch about it behind her back after she's gone. That's the British way.

Love it, @ViceLikeBlip

Although you've reminded me of a relative, who regularly goes what she calls NC with her closest relatives when she's in a huff, only to Hoover them back when she needs more Supply ... something tells me you will be familiar with the capitalised terms

She cheerfully admits that she has a "totally good relationship with my family, I'm just friends with them when they behave & NC when they don't". (Hint - they aren't misbehavers ... )
Great way to ramp up the melodrama & keep everything All About Her, innit!

Anyway, slight derail, thanks for making me laugh.

As Fluenty says, legally funerals are a public event and anyone can attend.This may be affected by, for example, special Covid rules.
These no longer apply, so the best anyone can do is ask an unwelcome guest not to come.