Part vent, part advice request.
I don’t want to only give part of the story but I dont have time to explain all the past issues now. I keep our children ‘no contact’ with this man due to his abusive behaviour towards my husband throughout his childhood and many times that I’ve witnessed in adulthood (even tried to flirt with me, just to tick off all the narcissist points) and total lack of acknowledgement of harm, no apology, just a general ‘I made mistakes’ attitude. My husband is low contact - very difficult for him to be NC as his sister is married to their step brother (their dad’s wife’s son, met in adulthood so not like it seems but still complicated).
My husband’s maternal grandad died just a few weeks ago, he was a lovely and kind man who my husband looked up to as a dad. He is obviously heartbroken and is feeling more of a parent-like loss. It is also bringing up a lot of feelings about his dad’s behaviour towards him. A lot of ‘why? what did I do? why wasn’t I good enough?’ A lot of anger (which I’m pleased to hear tbh, seems like he’s managing to switch the blame away from himself).
The funeral was yesterday.
Important context: his grandma despises his dad, only last week she told me again how she ‘doesn’t know how he could treat such a lovely lad like that’. His grandad was less vocal but felt the same, as she told me again. The wider family dislike him but his abuse is always too subtle for anyone to call him out on it.
There was no reason for him to think his presence at the funeral would be welcome or helpful to those grieving. Grandad wouldn’t have wanted him there.
So of course he bloody turned up without warning!
I was dealing with our children so I didn’t have to interact with him.
I am absolutely incandescent with rage. How dare he? He must have known that my DH needed to say goodbye to his father figure. He was twisting the knife.
He even brought DH’s younger sister to make sure everyone had to be nice to him. Importantly, his wife (younger sister’s mother, also mother of DH’s brother in law) is receiving palliative care and sadly isn’t expected to live very much longer. So there was no way he could be challenged with her there.
I was already worried that he might try to hurt DH again once he no longer has his wife to feed his ego. DH doesn’t know what to think or feel. He was angry. He’s just in a turmoil of grief for his grandad, grief for the relationship he should have had with his dad, worried that he’s like his dad and will let our children down (he won’t, he’s just like his grandad), lingering of feelings of ‘badness’ of not being good enough.
How do I support DH? How do I stop myself messaging this vile man to stay away from my family? I want to scream at him.