To think my brother bringing a new girlfriend to see my dead father is inappropriate??

[Meeemeee88]

Basically my father passed away . The day AFTER this happened with everyone at my mums house obviously mourning , upset etc … my brother turns up with a new girlfriend ( first time anyone had met her !!) it was very awkward as we knew nothing about her etc . No one said anything as didn’t want to cause more upset . But he then brings her to view my father’s body a few days later !!! I’m sorry but isn’t this really inappropriate and just insensitive?? My mum isn’t happy about it but again no one wants to cause drama . I’m worried he will bring her to the funeral now but am I over reacting … maybe she has been supportive etc but timing is so off here isn’t it ? To introduce her now when they have only been other a short space of time .

I’m with you OP. This is rude & disrespectful. And also plain weird.
Presumably your brother has you & your family to support him at the removal/funeral. His new GF can support him after these events.

My sil passed very suddenly in March. I’m seeing a new man that no one has met yet & my mam asked me if I was bringing him to the funeral. Eh no mother. That’s totally inappropriate. And we’ve been seeing each other since December.
Im very sorry for your loss OP. I hope you can get through the days ahead. X

Yes I agree with this. Completely bonkers that anyone would agree to go!

Although my friends brother was the same when their mother died. Brought new woman that friend has never met into the house before the mum died (and then she stayed) Completely inappropriate. I would never have put myself in that position.

Nice your brother has support, she sounds like a keeper.

I was your brother OP.

My mum died, we'd only been together a few weeks. He came with me to the chapel of rest to see her and sat with me during the funeral. Nobody batted an eyelid. People were just glad that I had the support and someone with me.

YABVU.

People who disagree are still human and as human beings will have experienced significant grief they just do grief differently to others.

Where I am from an entire community pulls together in times of grief. The neighbours will come in make tea and sandwiches and chat and reminisce and hug and comfort, the family and friends will celebrate the life of the person who has passed. Almost always open casket. Often in the house. This is day two after the person passes. There is comfort in having community in difficult times, there is comfort in having family and friends around you. My friend’s husband was a paramedic and extremely well thought off, literally hundreds visited her and him in the open casket proudly wearing his uniform in their home two days after he passed and she still talks about how much strength that gave her as a very young widow with children to continue to rear during that enormously difficult time.

The way that some of you are having such a visceral reaction to a person having support during their father’s funeral, and families often are not great support to each other at these times because of very differing expectations as you can see in the OP, is extremely sad to me.

@Aintnomountainlowenough I’m actually from a communal country where I can guarantee our funerals, weddings, etc are at least ten times the size of UK ones. But

(1) In my home country we all grow up together, live together, help each other out all the time. If your household is already like something out of Coronation Street I’m sure the presence of your close neighbours will be comforting to you. Here, that is not the case. It’s as good as holding the event with random strangers on the Tube. Intrusive, painful and awkward. Sorry but you can’t just decide to magic up non existent closeness and kinship overnight.

(2) There are spheres of community. In a communal event, others close to you but still not the main bearers of grief bear the burden of hosting, arranging, and even distracting other visitors.

Again, this is clearly not a communal event and so that burden will fall solely on the grieving family. Of course I am sure / I hope the gf is not expecting an elaborate warm reception but as it stands it’ll still be awkward and random having a stranger floating around in one’s own intimate moments without anyone as your privacy “wingman” (as I’m sure you’d know happens in any huge communal event).

(3) Finally, even in communal countries, there are community things and there are private things - private ceremonies after the funeral, and being with the body being the latter for my family, as it seems to be for OP’s family. As I’ve said multiple times, this is clearly not an open casket thing. You yourself talk about Day 1 and 2, suggesting Day 1 is more of a private affair. Another analogy could be that baby showers (or 100 day baby birthdays, which are massive events where I’m from) are not the same as giving birth. Just because some people hold huge baby showers doesn’t mean you can muscle in on the birth itself…

When my mother died I'd been going out with my boyfriend for about 9 months. I'd met his parents quite frequently but he'd only met mine once because of my mother's illness and he hadn't met my wider family

He was a great support to me, privately but he had nothing to do with her funeral or anything else related because they didn't know him and he didn't know them and they didn't need a stranger in the middle of it all.

I’ve read the OP and a lot of the responses - I got that they had been together 3 weeks and this was the first time her family had met her - I didn’t know whether she was a colleague or someone he’d known for a while but just been involved with for 3 weeks. If it is him meeting her and taking her to view his father within 3 weeks that is even less sane behaviour for both of them - altho as I said, she’s in a difficult position, and if the death was sudden and he is a proper mess, or it wasn’t but he is still a proper mess, she may have felt she couldn’t say no.

Weird for him to start OLD while his father was dying though. Maybe he didn’t care as much as ppl on here are assuming.

What? Life goes on, you know! And in my experience older people are very encouraging of that.

I don't think on line dating was specified. I imagine people still do sometimes meet people in pubs and clubs; so could as easily be that. Not that it matters.

This didn't happen at a chapel of rest, or the funeral. This was the day after OP's father's passing, in her mother's house, full of people in shock and raw grief. It is not appropriate to bring a stranger in, unasked.

Thank you all for taking the time to input your views ! I think what every is saying about the funeral is right .. I’ve come to terms with her being there and it’s not the end of the world I’m really happy for my brother he has support . I do really think her seeing my dad was inappropriate though but I can’t change this now . What’s happened has happened . My mum was absolutely furious but she is too kind and emotional to say anything with everything going on she doesn’t want to upset my brother and cause family drama , he should have thought more carefully about this .. like I said no one would have had an issue if he had brought her and she waited in the cafe or waiting room etc but I do feel a line was crossed .

Everyone is different, for some it can be incredibly tough to go visit their deceased loved one. Not to be dramatic but when I walked into the room and saw my mum dead laid there I was very glad to have my boyfriend of a few weeks to hold onto and give me a hug. You just can't judge, everyone copes differently. Would it have felt different to you if he'd taken a friend with him I wonder?

For those that think this is all fine and dandy- I’m interested to know whether you also think it’s fine that the brother seemingly didn’t ask his family if it was ok to bring the gf- or even tell them that’s what he was intending to do.

If so, I can only assume we have very different perspectives as to what it means to be respectful and considerate!

You could read this as your brother wanting support and his girlfriend not wanting to let him down by saying no. He may have felt he wanted them to "meet" as this was his last chance. I think you may be angry because of your grief. I'm so sorry for your loss. Wishing you all the best in healing.

But this is his DAD not his SIL. He does have some say in the matter. Sorry for your loss also.

I feel like those who are ok with it have not experienced raw grief and bereavement.

quite the opposite. Some of us know what it feels and what difference being supported makes.

Some posters are making up ridiculous scenario
magine dating a guy for three weeks and him saying ‘Do you want to meet my Mum and sister? My Dad died yesterday so don’t worry if they’re a bit quiet and tearful!’
How stupid does this sound?

As opposed to what normal people go through: "would you like me to stay with you, would that help?" Or "please stay with me, it's too hard".
But it's MN, some posters are just here for sake of arguments.

The thing is at times like this you want to lash out at anyone and this is easy prey

I get it’s a very personal time and it can seem like an intrusion I wouldn’t bring up any past visits but going forward if you want time with just your mum and siblings tell him in advance but nicely

Thanks a mil. And yes I see your point but I still think it’s totally wrong. Who wants to meet their sons/brothers gf for the first time when their husband/dad has just passed away. And at his funeral. That’s not the time at all. Gf could have been there for him afterwards.

But OP's mother DID bat an eyelid. She was distressed and angered by this. So OP is not unreasonable to be upset about it.

One very simple thing would have changed this situation completely. That one thing is OP 's brother asking his mum if it was okay to introduce his new girlfriend that day.

Loads of posters are offering their own anecdotes about when bringing a new partner was absolutely fine. I'm going to guess that on almost, if not all, those occasions, the primary bereaved person was asked first.

Huh, when you lose someone who had a partner and kids and potentially other family too the 'primary bereaved person' is the deceased's partner, parents, siblings, and kids. One doesn't trump others. I didn't really see any one in particular as being the primary bereaved person, that feels a really strange way to look at things.

If the brother had asked the mum, it sounds like she'd have said no. Therefore depriving the brother of clearly needed support when dealing with this.

It's not unusual for someone to go a bit unreasonable when grieving and start drama over something that wouldn't normally bother them, I wonder if that's what is happening here with OP's mum. It seems unusual to me that she'd really aggressively begrudge her child the support of a partner or close friend when viewing their deceased parent. When you've lost a loved one people can pick up on random things and attach their emotions to it. In our family it was apparently what wording to use on the funeral flowers lol. Some of her kids called her mum, others mam, and there was a big drama between which to use. Something that in the grand scheme truly doesn't matter at all.

But the mother is not aggressively begrudging her child of the support of a partner or close friend. This man has known the woman for 21 days… she is a stranger. I have cheese in my fridge older than their ‘relationship’.

She is begrudging her son bringing a stranger to view the dead body of her husband, before she had even had the chance to view and spend time with him.

We don't know that OP and her DM are supportive of DB. They might feel they are, he might feel differently and feel he gets better support off a new girlfriend then them

Of course 3 weeks is different to a day or some one night fling...

"Primary mourner" is bollocks. Everyone who is family is mourning. No-one's grief outdoes someone else's. When my Nan died I felt I had to mask my grief for my mother, since it was her mother who died, until I had a break down and my mother? Said she'd been waiting for it because she knew I'd been bottling it up and I shouldn't have had to

And as for the funeral - MN has such a weird attitude to funerals and how "closed" they should be. Whereas I've always believed you can and should go to funerals to support those left behind even if you didn't know the person

Bringing her to the funeral would be ok but not go view his body. That’s awful and I’m surprised anyone would agree to seeing a dead body of a person that they didn't know.

I've had two immediate family bereavements of young people, my child and my sister and when they passed I got massive comfort from my friends, family and wider community coming together to support me and grieve with me and my family.
Just because some customs and traditions differ from others doesn't make them worse or mean people don't know grief. It's just different.