AIBU to distance myself from in-laws after they skipped my mum’s funeral?

[Pinkyroses08]

Basically the title. I am 33 and have recently lost my mum to cancer. I’ve been with my partner for 9 years and although unmarried, we are planning on getting engaged and potentially trying for a family this year… our plans have been derailed the past few years with mums diagnosis. I have know my
inlaws for 9 years and we got on ok as far as I was aware. It was mums funeral a month ago and aside from a text from his dad the day prior, not one of my partners parents or siblings came to support. It’s really taken me aback and I truly don’t think I can ever sustain the same relationship with them. I’m even at the point where I want to remove them from social media and cut them out of my life completely . My partner knows I am upset but I don’t see by him saying anything to them will change how I fundamentally feel. For context they fully knew when and where the funeral was.

Seems OP’s in laws show it by…not bothering.

I’m sorry for your loss. But I do think you are being harsh, unless you asked them to come, they said they would and then never showed up.

A lot of employers will only give paid leave for funerals of immediate family. Maybe they couldn’t afford to take any unpaid leave off work. Maybe their employer wouldn’t let them take time off work for their “son’s girlfriends mothers funeral”. Maybe they’re worried about being pushed out at work so they didn’t want to take time off.

You said your brothers in laws attended - is your brother married or is your SIL a girlfriend? How many times had her parents met his parents? Maybe they were just closer than you realised. Or maybe your SIL was really close to your mum, so her parents were supporting her rather than your brother.

if my in laws turned up to a member of my families funeral, I’d be pissed off because I know it would be performative bullshit. They didn’t even ask if I or the kids were ok, or say sorry for your loss, after we mentioned my grandad had very suddenly passed away and they knew we were all incredibly close to them and that our kids would have been devastated. My parents have tried so hard with them, but I think they’ve only met them 6 times in the 26 years we have been together (married 22) and they made it very clear they look down on my parents. They disapproved because they ran a pub and they didn’t like seeing the kids running around in it.

Long winded way of saying I wouldn’t automatically expect in laws to show up for funerals without explicitly being asked.

If you’re seriously going to use this as a reason to cut off contact with them now, you need to tell your partner this, as he has the right to know that if he marries you, his parents won’t be in his life as much because if your choices. He may well choose to leave rather than pick between you over a perceived wrong doing. So be very careful in what you choose to do - maybe wait until your grief has settled. Also, be honest with yourself... If your boyfriend’s brother‘s girlfriend’s mum died, would you even know it had happened, and would you take unpaid leave off work to go and attend her funeral?

this. thank you

YANBU at the very least they should have been there to support you and your partner and to pay basic respects. It doesn’t cost anything to show compassion. I would be super hurt.. even if they didn’t know each other too well..

I don’t know what my next steps would be…

or believing that its not appropriate to go.....

Sorry for your loss , I'm irish so funeral culture is different here , the in laws would definitely come to the funeral here. At my fil and bil funeral all my family came even my aunts uncles cousins. It must be different there . I'd give them some slack ,you are still grieving so I understand why you feel so let down but maybe they didn't think it was something they should do without explicit invite or maybe they couldn't attend for other reasons. If they are generally good people who support you otherwise I'd let it lie for a while .

I would find that seriously weird. They’re strangers.

I think funerals are for the living not the dead. Their relationship with the OP's mother is irrelevant. They should have attended if the OP is important to them. Clearly she is not.

Ive been with my husband 23 years and our parents have seen each bother briefly for literally 2 mins in thst whole time so I would find it incredibly weird if they came to each others funerals. If theyre not close, I wouldn't expect it and definitely not cut them out if there were no other problems. My parents were good friends with my brothers in laws so they went to one of their funerals, but otherwise...no.

Mine have met once, in tbe very early days of our relationship, when his mum picked me up and they had a two min chat through car window. Weve been together iver 20 years, married for 6. We dont have birthday parties, we got married during covid so my parents came and his sister and her husband, and that was all the guests we could have - his mum was too medically vulnerable to attend. Otherwise there's been no opportunity for them to meet, and theyre very different people who, while they would be polite and friendly, would not have anything in common other than us, and wouldn't choose to be in eachnothers company.

We only recently got married for IHT purposes. We didn’t tell anyone.

There is literally no crossover between the 2 families. It’s not just parents not meeting, my siblings have never met DH’s siblings. Most live locally but would have no idea who each other are and would know nothing about each other.

Any family events are very much my side or DH side.

If there are any family funerals it wouldn’t even be considered for someone on one side to attend a funeral of someone on the other side. I doubt they’d even be aware someone had died.

This thread has really made me think about whose funerals I would or have attended and the reasons why.

Would I attend funerals of my kids in laws? Yes to a couple, no to others. One set I have known all my DILS life, one I have only met once, at the wedding. I wouldn't think it was my place to go to a funeral where I didn't at least know the person involved, it would feel (to me) intrusive and as though I was just trying to get free food. I did, however, go the funeral of a close friend's DH, although I didn't know him at all, to support HER because otherwise she was alone.

It has all given me food for thought.

It isn't clear though. Not everyone believes that funerals are for the living. I would go if I knew the deceased regardless of whether I knew anyone else there. I generally wouldn't go if I didn't know the deceased.

It isn't common decency if it is not something people commonly do.

Did they actually know your mum? I would have expected any in-laws to come to my parents funeral

yup, and you need only to look at traditions and expectations in various cultures (even sometimes in various close villages) to understand that "common decency" isn't even global let alone universal.

But you've still not said whether your inlaws were actually close to your mum

I’m sorry for your loss. I’d be upset about them not attending too.

My DM and MIL are friends, so I’d expect a funeral attendance. Sorry if I’ve missed this further up the thread, but did your in laws provide an excuse as to why they didn’t attend the funeral?

I come from a very small family due to years of generational abuse. I have only been to two funerals in life and one was for a woman who I met through my Eastern European stepdad, it is the norm to invite community to funerals there. For my grandma's funeral it was Anglican and invites were sent out.

When my mum dies she doesn't want a traditional funeral per se but whatever I end up doing, I would be very upset if people I didn't invite just showed up. I love my in-laws and probably would ask them to come but if I wasn't close to them, I wouldn't want anyone uninvited showing up as a 'mark of respect'. That just makes me worry about managing other people's feelings and performing grief when I just want privacy to deal with my loss however I need to. For obvious reasons I wont be inviting all family members on her side either.

We're on page 22 of the thread and there are still so many people who are unable or unwilling to grasp that their ideas about who should attend funerals are not universal. I certainly wouldn't have considered it 'common decency' or 'respectful' for crowds of people who didn't even know my parents to show up at their funerals. I wouldn't have considered that to be 'support' for me and my family. For me, grief is a private matter and funerals are to be attended by those who were close to the dead person, not their neighbour's third cousin's brother-in-law's tennis coach who once said hi to the person in the street 25 years ago.

There are so many different cultural practices and beliefs about this, and that's great, but on this thread we're repeatedly seeing those of us who prefer small funerals called 'weird' and 'cold fish' and told that we don't have 'common decency' and are uncaring.

I agree but I would have thought they could have called and checked how she was. Texted to see if she needed anything. To be fair, the OP obviously thinks it is a bit off and maybe they do not know her well enough to recognised how she would react.

@Calliecarpa

Exactly. It's quite disappointing (but perhaps not surprising) to see so many people insistent on their perspective/way of doing things being the only valid way.

The world is diverse. Customs vary. What one person considers appropriate/correct may not be considered appropriate or correct by another person. Sometimes it's hard to know what's expected or desired of you unless you're explicitly told.

I’m English and my in-laws attended my parents’ funerals.
I have also attended my in-laws parent’s funerals. It’s completely normal to do that in England.

This 💯
You go to support the bereaved who in this case is likely to be their future dil and mum to their grandkids and who will need their support massively as she navigates her grief and potentially becoming a mum herself. I would not treat them any differently but personally would have lost a bit of respect for them
I haven't read full thread so apologies if this has been asked before but did your partner strongly suggest to them they should attend? I would expect mine to do that if he knew they weren't going to

@Pinkyroses08

You're not wrong to feel upset, which is probably being compounded by your grief (and I am very sorry for what you have gone through with your mother's diagnosis/death) - but I really think that making no further effort with your in-laws would be an over-reaction.

They could have done more to be supportive - and from what you say, they did make some minimal effort - but they may genuinely not have realised that you expected/wanted more than that.

If you've had good relations with them up to now, I highly doubt that they were intentionally trying to be insensitive. It may well have just never occurred to them that you expected or wanted more than the bare minimum.

Maybe they thought that you would appreciate space? Maybe they thought that a lot of reaching out would potentially be overwhelming? I don't know for sure, but there are possibilities in which they're not behaving badly.

I would advise you to give them the benefit of the doubt, considering your history with them so far has been positive. You have every right to feel sad and disappointed that they didn't do more, but I would suggest that you don't hold it against them and think the worst of them for it.