DH lied after friend died

[wonderings2]

DH's old school friend met a girl about 10 years ago and we all really hit it off, we had holidays together, nights out, DD was bridesmaid at their wedding etc. we were all very close. Around two years ago she started getting poorly and was admitted to hospital on and off but they could never get to the bottom of it, then fairly suddenly she went into organ failure and died. Although she had been poorly it was a huge shock to everyone and I was devasted as I didn’t get to the hospital in time to say good bye. Due to the way she died her DH insisted on a post mortem and so it was over two months before the funeral. I kept asking when I could go and see her but DH said there were no viewing's as it had been so long after she died and she wasn’t fit for viewings.

I'm struggling to process her dying and I know it sounds totally unhinged but it's like in some ways I haven't grasped she's died, I keep having to correct myself speaking about her in present tense and I have dreams where she didn’t die and it was all a mistake. I've said many times to DH that due to the circumstances it would have really helped if I could have seen her and said goodbye.

It was the 1st anniversary of her death at the weekend and I was speaking to one of her friends who made reference to her going to see her after she had died. It turns out you were able to see her after the postmortem in the funeral home.

I confronted DH and after some more lying (the friend was in hospital with her when she died and he tried to say that was what she was referring to) he eventually admitted that he thought it was best I didn’t go as it would upset me too much. I'm so mad, I'm in my 30's, I've been to see relatives after they have died, I don’t know why he thought he could make that decision for me??
I was very upset after she died and took the following day off work (much to his horror - he literally went straight back to work from the hospital the same day) but there were things I wanted to say to her and I wanted to be able to say goodbye.

I've told him it's his fault I'm struggling to get over her dying and I'll never forgive him - an overreaction I'm sure but I'm so upset. He has said I just need to get over it, obviously I can't go back in time but I'm really struggling.

There is the potential that the DH could have hurt OP just as much if not more by telling her that he thought it was inappropriate for her to ask to see the body or by saying that his didn’t want her to see the body.

I find it amazing that this is something OP feels she had a right to do. She absolutely didn’t.

When I was in the DHs friends position the funeral hime asked me if they should allow other people to view the body if the contacted them and when I said no, they were perfectly willing not to allow it. Honestly, I’d have thought less of people if they had asked, I had enough to deal with without worrying about other peoples temporary grief. It’s the choice of the chief mourner, not something that any random friends get to choose for themselves.

It doesn’t depend. Bodies that have needed a traditional post mortem and have not been embalmed can be prepared perfectly well for viewing by the family. It’s fine. Fridges exist.

I've told him it's his fault I'm struggling to get over her dying

Its infantilising and patronising for him to decide what you can manage and not. Unless you are very vulnerable, I would not expect any adult to make decisions like this for another adult.

However. It is not all his fault you are struggling. It sounds like a complicated reaction, and seeing her may not have made a difference.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but rereading your OP you sound entitled. You have no right to go and see her dead body. Your grief doesn't trump her family's or anyone else's. You weren't a relative, she was the wife of your husband's old school friend, you got on, you presumably went to the funeral and said your goodbyes there. Her husband had an postmortem, the body would have been all cut and sewn back up. The other friend seeing her is nothing to do with you. You don't know how close they were or why she saw her.

I don't know any friend who has gone to see a dead friend's body, and I've had several friends die in the past 5 years, all very much before their time. I haven't even seen any of my relatives bodies, personally I would rather remember them how they were.

You blaming your husband for your grief is unfair. And by the sounds of it he quite possibly had your best intentions at heart and knew you'd over dramatise it.

Making decisions for other people is controlling.

Whether the op's h is a controlling person or not, we don't know. But this was a decision of a controlling nature and not his to make.

They still don’t get to lie repeatedly to their partner and patronise them to fuck!

Personally I think that wanting to view the body of someone who isn’t even a close relative to satisfy your own need is incredibly distasteful. And if it was me I would probably lie to my partner as well, because it would have been a better option than the argument over how inappropriate I thought it was.

interesting comment there that reminds me if another thread running now asking why people are making up lies instead of telling the truth - talking about saying to an invite for example.

Because clearly, this poster thinks it’s better to ,ie than actually telling their own partner they think it’s disrespectful.
of course, it might look like it’s an easy way out to have the outcome you want Wo the argument.
But ta
k about destroying the trust your partner has. Or imposing your own ideas.
In some ways, worse that the OP’s dh who, at least, clearly didn’t think.

@xxSideshowAuntSallyxx youd have been right if the OP had asked the friend. And if she then had been upset he had said NO.

But that’s not the case.

The OP and her dh were clearly close enough to be there that her own dh was there at the time of the death.
So yes another friend going to see would make you think she could have gone too.

I don't think people usually go to see their friends dead bodies, do they? I've never heard of this. You said you had things to say to her but of course she wouldn't have heard. Can you visit her grave or go to where her ashes were scattered and say goodbye there? Write a letter with all your thoughts and feelings in.
Your DH shouldn't have lied but he had his reasons, trying to protect you or maybe he felt his friend didn't want many people viewing the body.
I'd stop fixating on this one issue and get some grief counselling.

I'm shocked at the people saying 'maybe he was acting in your best interests....'

No! The Op is an adult. An adult who knows her own mind much better than her DH does. She has 'viewed' bodies before so knows what to expect. She repeatedly said she wanted to.

He lied to her, repeatedly. Worse, he lied because he thought he knew her better than she knew herself. How patronising and disrespectful.

@xxSideshowAuntSallyxx spot on.

I went to the undertakers to see my mum when she died. I wish I hadn’t, cold hard skin like porcelain. What have been better for me to have not.

This. I would be furious with him. Probably not break-up furious, but it would take me a long time to get past this.

I understand OP, having lost a friend in similar circumstances it is very hard to truly grasp they are gone.

DH was 100% in the wrong.

You are an adult and can make your own decisions.

I would even let a teenager make their own decisions over something like this.

He does not know what’s best for you and even if he did, you are allowed to make your own mistakes.

However, I do not think you can blame him for this.

You were more than capable of asking to go and see the body and I find it odd that you would ask your DP to ask if you could see the body.

Surely even just out of respect, you would be the one to ask?
Why would your DH ask on your behalf when it was you that wanted to visit the body?

Is the relationship always so parent and child - like?

It sounds like you didn't have any direct contact with the grieving widower yourself after her death. If you weren't close enough to the girl's family to ask to view the body yourself then you really don't have any entitlement to do so. It's not a public spectacle, her body is not just a prop for your feelings. You were unreasonable to expect your husband to raise that with his grieving friend. How would he have even started that conversation?

Well on the bright side you've made me realise I should speak to DH and make sure he knows that I don't want people coming to view my body if I die. How ghoulish.

I would not be able to forgive. He robbed you of that time with her and you can never get it back

Then as a grown adult she can make her own arrangements with the family to view the body. If that isn't appropriate because she doesn't have a sufficiently close relationship with the family without using her husband as an intermediary then she shouldn't be intruding on a grieving family by asking in the first place.

This is the exactly what I came here to say.

My aunt died young and wanted very few people to see her. I was close to her, but I read between the lines.., that I wasn't to view her body, nobody said it to me but I just knew. Was there something like that? Maybe your DH didn't know how to phrase it because it wasn't said directly to him? These situations are very sensitive and sometimes you have to feel your way through them without knowing for sure. You kind of go with what you think is best for the immediate family at the time.

Thing is, if someone is young, then they have probably 100 people who are relatives, friends, family and work colleagues, and unless you are absolutely their one best friend in the world, not everyone can get to the hospital to say goodbye or see the dead body.

My husband was in a hospice for a few weeks, and a handful of people went to see him, probably only three or four and that was plenty, as it's difficult for the dying person to be viewed in such a compromising way by others. My friend who died in a hospice had a no-friend policy a few weeks before her death for this reason, she had hundreds of friends and being there as a receptacle for their distress and goodbyes and upset is not ok, they made it family only for those last few weeks and we all understood.

I think you might have to accept that if you weren't close enough to ask yourself to attend, you weren't close enough to visit her or view the body in our culture. In some cultures they have open coffins and so viewing the body has more of a public aspect to it which I think can be helpful.

Saying goodbye/viewing the body has to be good for the dying person (who in this case would very much not have been expecting to die) and their immediate family and I think that can get a bit forgotten.

Oh, I would chalk it up to the madness of joint grief. This poor young woman was your DH’s friend too and her husband is an old school friend of his. He was likely grieving himself while trying and slightly failing to support you in your grief and his old school friend who was now a widower quite young in a traumatic way.

I agree it wasn’t up to him to decide for you to go or not. He made a stupid mistake but no one is in their right mind so soon after a death and fellow grieves aren’t the best support to each other. It is like one drowning person trying to rescue the person also drowning next to them. I would accept an apology from him and move on. I think you also need to apologise for saying it is his fault you are struggling with grief as well.

Op I get that you were close but you really made this so much about you. Maybe your DH did not want to put this on the husband who just lost his wife. To them you were a friend just like many they probably had and did not want 'viewers'. It seemed at that time it really impacted you, and perhaps your dh did not want to upset his friend? It sounds like a traumatic loss so maybe they wanted privacy.

Your DH had absolutely no right to take away your right to see your friend, you are an equal not a child.

However surely you reached out to his friend following her death, why didn’t you just ask him directly?

What right to see her friend? Friends don’t have rights here.