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No reason not to go and pay your respects if you feel it's right. Still the father of your children, whom you had a life with. No wrong whatsoever in going.
I totally agree with this. Being divorced from somebody doesn't mean they cease to exist or that the years you spent with them never happened.
Unless your children for some reason object to you attending -- and it's hard to imagine why they would -- I would consider it petty and disrespectful not to attend.
First off, you are talking about a theoretical situation a decade+ down the line. Either you or the ex may move to France by then, for instance.
Depending on how nasty the divorce was, and how long the butthurt feelings last, (do you stoke the embers to keep the hurt alive?)
still consider that you produced children together, and there were years that you were happy, right?
I would go - if you still hate them you can spit on their grave.
However, if you forgive and you're the bigger person, you can make a quiet supportive presence for your sons. It is YOUR life, and I wouldn't neccessarily need to take a poll (sons, inlaws, whoever) to decide my own feelings.
- - - I regret not attending my ex-es grandmother's funeral. She was a kind woman, and had little to do with her granddaughter's transgressions.
It matters what is in your heart. After all , you had a family together, with 3 sons, no one is going to say anything to you. your ex husband and you had a relationship, that not many other people in the funeral has ever had with him, besides his mom .I would hope your sons would defend any BS that might happen, and people will think twice before starting some mess. Even if he is re married, his widow should understand the relationship you and the ex had.
Its very tough for me. I just dont like funerals, they make me numb. Its hard for me , viewing my first funeral at a very young, choking up in tears, cant even get a word out. the formalities and all , are just not my cup of tea.
My mother attended my fathers funeral, their contact was 95% fighting and 5% reaching for air to yell louder.
Her precence at his funeral made my fathers relatives(with whom she'd also been fighting) more uneasy than it did anything else.
For me it turned my fathers funeral from a moment of grief and taking farewell to a balancing act in trying to avoid world war III between the branches of my family tree.
My advice is don't go, if your sons are >12 they'll manage.
When the time comes and your ex passes, ask your sons what they want you to do, then act accordingly. If they’re indifferent, tell them you’ll avoid the funeral because you don’t think it’s appropriate (especially if your ex has a living spouse that will be there), but tell them you will be there for them in any other way they may need during their grief.
I was about to type exactly this but you did it for me - LOL.
I did not attend my ex father in law's funeral, though I did tell my kids I would do so if they needed me to (they were all adults). He was an abusive man and raised an abusive son (my ex husband and the father of my kids).
I was very relieved when they told me they were fine with me not going. In fact, only two of my four adult kids did attend the funeral. The others were like "who needs this drama?" and didn't go either. The two who did go came immediately to my house afterwards and expressed their amazement at the ridiculousness of several people (including their father, who...well, I won't go into all that but I'll just say it was a bizarre eulogy and he didn't even get his own son's name right - or the name of his deceased brother!) and both said they wished they hadn't gone.
When my dad lay dying in the hospital, my ex husband, who hadn't seen or talked to him for about fifteen years, actually called my daughter and asked her if "Kathryn needed him to come." Here she was, dealing with her beloved grandfather's imminent death, and various family members' grief, and the last thing any of us needed, including my dad, was for this yahoo to show up. Besides that - I'VE BEEN REMARRIED FOR TWELVE YEARS. Yeah, uhhh, no, I don't need Angry Dude around. Still, in the midst of all this, my ex husband, the Narcissist, convinced his grieving daughter to actually show my dying dad a picture of him and had her call him so she could lay the phone next to my dad's ear and he could hear this disgusting man tell him how much he loved and admired him. My dad couldn't stand the way he had treated my kids and me, and the last thing he needed to hear as he lay dying was this idiot's voice.
After that, I told my daughter, "Please don't do that to me if I'm laying helpless in a hospital bed." And I hope she doesn't feel some sort of need to bring him to my funeral either because I can assure you that no one else would appreciate it. He'd probably go around mispronouncing my name to everyone anyway.
To add to my earlier comments, it depends on the circumstances. I attended a funeral a few years ago for a fellow who was a rounder. All 3 of his ex-wives showed up and sat on the front row. One of them spoke briefly and said, "John was impossible but he was kind and we all loved him in our own way."
It was one of the nicest things I've ever heard at a funeral.
On the other hand, if somebody was evil and harmful, I might not bother to show up.
I think it would depend on if you remained on good terms or not. When my father passed away my parents had been divorced 25 years. They had also been on bad terms since the divorce and my father was not a very nice man and was abusive towards my mother during the marriage. My mom did not go to the wake & funeral and no one expected her to! Totally up to you. Do what YOU want to do, not what others expect you to do. Who cares what others think ‘
Funerals are for the living, not for the dead. So you have to look at how your presence would affect the living. If your sons want you there, you go. If your ex's relatives don't want you there, you don't go, even if your sons do want you there. You don't want to give grieving people more grief.
What the deceased would have wanted should be taken into account first. There are people I would not want at my funeral. They know who they are.
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