To think that this fundraiser is strange

[parasolle]

I’d love your thoughts because I find this bizarre and am wondering g if it’s just me ! A neighbour of mine took his life last year . He was early forties and was found out to be having a long term affair with a colleague. His wife also worked at the same organisation. They were all friends and socialised together. It was his affair partners husband who found out and confronted him . He then took his life leaving three young children and a shocked wife .
Thw funeral was unusual I thought. His wife stood and spoke with great adoration for him and placed him extreme t high pedestal as husband and father and employee and local volunteer .
si twelve months later there is a fundraiser for a local charity in his honour .. think mountain rescue… Huge advertising and again massive pedest al placing .
my personal thoughts are that like all cheaters, I find his behaviour reprehensible but to do so with his wife’s best friend and take his own life rather than facing the consequences … I have zero respect for that. His children are absolutely devasted needless to say as are his entire family.
AIBU to think that this’ll s strange and frankly weird ?

Please explain this gobbledegook

I know what you mean OP, if it were me I wouldn’t want to be drawing attention to his death through a public fundraiser, I’d assume people would be talking behind my back about how and why he died, but then I’m a very private person. Some people need something to focus on or to feel something good can come from his death. We’re all different.

Ok… your post im trying to understand why there is such a massive fundraiser in his memory considering everything that happened surrounding the tragedy and the ripple effect on so many. The children will of course be told of the tragedy when they are older and hopefully by a trusted adult.
what is your issue and why on earth do you believe you’re owed an explanation, given your previous posts on his “fucking up”?

OP, do you not think your speculation and personal info sharing is in pretty poor taste considering a woman and her children are so recently bereaved and the info you’ve posted is so identifying?

you’re coming across (to me) as a judgmental gossip with no compassion for the family.

your posts are solely focussed on the apparent sins of the man yet give no consideration of how those left behind might be struggling to process their loss in a manner that acquaintances approve of.

His children are having to grow up without him and will likely have to deal with gossips their whole lives. Sounds like his wife (and parents?) are trying to keep the good bits of his life going so that his children have something nice to know about their father.

The fact he had affair doesn’t cancel out every single good thing he ever did. Fair play to his wife for not allowing the understandable anger to dominate their children’s knowledge of their father.

Why is it OTT and hypercritical? His affair wasn’t the only thing that defines him- it’s a small part of his life and it’s a very common situation. Killing your self in response to getting caught is in no way a “normal” reaction so I don’t understand how the kids are collateral damage either

I’m quite surprised at the answers on this thread, given the general MN stance on cheating men.

Whilst his affair obviously doesn’t define his life, I can understand the surprise of the OP that his wife has taken this approach with the fundraising and honouring of him when she must be so devastated by it all.

It’s bad enough that her children have lost their dad in any circumstances but to think it could be all down to his affair (with a friend, so a double betrayal) must be unbearable for her to cope with. I can only imagine she’s trying to bury those feelings of anger and betrayal over his cheating by focussing on positive times.

I’m quite surprised at the answers on this thread, given the general MN stance on cheating men.

maybe that’s because the posters can see that yes, cheating is shitty behaviour, but bloody hell what that family are going through is horrendous, and they don’t want the focus for the children to be “ my what a fuck up your dad did!” ?

I think dying is an excessive punishment for cheating, I don’t see why anyone would expect him to be further shunned after that!

the affair didn’t cause his suicide, that’s in no way a natural reaction to a fairly normal life event. Maybe it was the trigger but there was clearly a lot more going on with him.

I would imagine his wife wants to remember what he was for the majority of his life, particularly for the kids

I think it would hurt her and her children more to hold onto the resentment. He’s not coming back, she can’t get closure and probably wants her children to have happy memories of their dad. We never know how she’s feeling behind closed doors or what she’s going through but forgiveness brings peace

Agreed l find it odd. It’s safe to say my time and energy would most likely be put into my children, myself and re-building our lives. It’s an indulgent chain of events for him -shagging your wife’s friend is so tacky and grim. Leaving his wife, children and affair partner to pick up the pieces. If he has life insurance then it might not have even paid out as he killed himself

I don’t think it’s up to you to police how a widow feels about the death of her husband, or about his infidelity. And whatever he did for the community isn’t somehow invalidated by him having an affair.

It’s incredibly unpleasant and mean-spirited to start a thread sneering about a dead man and his widow’s choice to remember him in a certain way. It’s also ignorant to imply that suicide is a) selfish and b) an ‘easy way out’. It’s neither of those things and someone who takes their own life doesn’t do it for one reason. He would have had a whole host of mental health issues you didn’t know about.

I really hope you never lose a loved one to suicide.
I have. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Being bereaved by suicide is so heartbreaking and complicated. She is putting the best foot forward and putting her children first by choosing to celebrate everything that was good about her husband.

Who are we to judge such a situation. She is doing nothing wrong. I would only have compassion for someone in her situation.

OP has asked if other people think it’s strange, l think it’s strange under the circumstances it occurred. Unless l have missed the posting where the OP have said they are going to protest at the fundraising with placards and run it down verbally / online to all and sundry. Then whats the problem? OP (and myself) can think about it however we like

Human beings are messy and complicated. You are suggesting he should be posthumously 'cancelled' because he did one wrong thing, in what appears to have otherwise been a good life.

Here's my perspective as a child of someone who killed themselves. You are left with so many questions about who your parent was. You want to feel connected and proud of the people you came from.

This mother is doing amazingly. Yes, those kids will hear rumours. But when they do they will be able to say 'yes, that was part of my dad. But so was the charity work he did, and so is the fundraising that people did in his name because he was a good person, and I'm proud of that'

His colleague or her best friend?

I do understand your confusion as there are complicated feelings going on here.

Typically, a man having an affair with a friend and colleague would be a terribly devastating thing with the potential to disrupt and fracture the family. However in this case, the subsequent suicide obliterated the hurt and fallout from the affair. It seems that his widow has chosen to focus on the greater part of her husband's life and not the seedy, comparatively short term affair.

I certainly don't feel in a position to pass judgement on whether how she is handling this is right or wrong.

I hope the widow doesn’t read Mumsnet, or, God forbid, a tabloid picks this up, because the details would likely make the family very recogniseable, to those who know them…