Why do we attend funerals? Several reasons. To show respect, to be a supportive shoulder for a family member who is grieving, to get closure, to grieve...if you aren't going for any of those reasons, don't go. Don't worry about what people think. The ones that matter know the truth. The ones that don't know the truth don't matter.

My mom died in March. I had been estranged from her for years because she was an abusive addict and an alcoholic. I had not seen her for a decade, and had only heard from her when she wanted something. Summer of 2011 she was diagnosed with an aggressive and terminal form of cancer. I was demonized by my aunt and grandmother (my mom's mother and sister) for not going to see my mother when she was hospitalized, dying. The thing was, I had been disengaged from her for a decade, and had mourned her the loss of her some 15 years ago when she dumped me off like an unwanted mangy alley cat.

The sun still rises and sets over my house every day. My coffee still tastes just as delicious. I enjoy holidays now more than ever, and there is no lack of love in my life. My aunt and grandmother are free to go fuck themselves. I have since disengaged from them, so I wouldn't know (or care) either way.

Go to visit or to the funeral with your husband, for his sake. He will need your support. Don't worry about anyone else.

Depends very much on how your husband feels. If he is devastated by the death of his mother and he needs you there to support him. If you feel you can deal with it go.

However if this is one if those deaths that people have almost a sense of relief about (and there are many) don't go.

My FIL did something a year ago that was do hurtful I have had nothing to do with him since. I will not attend his funeral I will not step foot in the town he lives in. I know that at the big Italian funeral people will be weeping and wailing and trying to throw themselves into the grave with him. I also know that despite their best attempts no one will actually do it, they always make sure someone is blocking their attempt. And besides that they need to hang around to get their share of the spoils

My husband will not be heartbroken when his father dies. If course he will feel sad at the passing of his father, but he will not be devastated. I suspect his biggest emotion will be relief. Under those circumstances there is no need for me to be there.

You have no respect for this woman she had none for you. There is nothing for you to mourn and I imagine part of you will feel relief just as I and my DH would in regards to his father

The decision is yours to make and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling the way you do. Under the circumstance you could hardly be expected to feel anything but a sense of relief.

Not sure how an evil manupulating hag goes to heaven but if that makes you feel better so be it. Yes you should go. Funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living. You need to be there for your DH. However, do not tolerate one microgram of crap from anyone. If they get nasty, go factual on their toxic asses. If SDIL says one word about you contributing to MILs death you should very directly point out that negative toxic people do not need others to motivate their demise, they cause their own misery. Etc, etc, etc..... If anyone goes there just give them a hug and say "I understand that you are hurting because your mother/sister/aunt/etc has passed, however if you insist on blaming others for her and your state of toxic anger you will die angry and alienated from many of the people that love you just like she did."

Again, be supportive of your DH but do not be anyone's door mat. Facts are not good or bad, they are just facts and if you have to recount the facts of your MILs toxic life to get her toxic minions to STFU so be it. Just because you are a Christian, as am I, no one said you had to tolerate crap from people in your life. You can stand up for yourself and be both assertive and forgiving.

I am sorry for your loss.

Your MIL sounds like my mother: a classic NPD.

My mom pulls the same crap: playing the victim and making up lies to blame and deflect her behavior onto everyone else. Especially me. It's the exact reason why I haven't spoken to her in 9 years. Why bother when she is just going to treat me like crap; disrespect my boundaries; make up bullshit lies to tell everyone about me (to make them hate me and like her); and sabotage everything positive I've ever had in my life.

You're better off with her hating you, because frankly, the alternative is that she likes you. And if she likes you, what would that say about YOU? You know?

Sorry things are hard for you though. I totally get it. The games NPD's play are ridiculous.

In regards to attending her funeral: What does your husband want? We don't go to funerals to honor the dead (at least I don't), but to honor those who mourn their passing. I would say that if your husband wants you by his side to support him during his time of loss, then you should. However, if HE doesn't care, then there is no reason for you to attend. Who cares what other people think. Your choices are between you and God, no one else need to understand. Especially not people who, no matter what you do, simply want to believe the worst in you because of what someone else told them about you. Those people are the ones who will have something to answer for at the end of their lives, not you.

Consider Proverbs 16:2 (NIV): All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

Honor your husband, pray for her soul and for comfort for those who mourn, and you will have done right by our Lord.

You don't need to go unless DH needs you. You say you are moving away, so whatever happens after the funeral you won't be around to be witness to it.

These toxic people will never realize they are the makers of the own misery. They like to blame others and will not change. Protect yourself and your DH - live your life and let it go.

i don't think i would go. i would be so uncomfortable waiting for the inevitable snipe, and you know it's going to come based on past experience.

what's the result of you not going? they hate you more?

if i were you, i would speak to my DH and tell him what you fear will happen. i would also tell him that you WANT to be there for HIM and to support HIM, but should some of his relatives be nasty to you, you will expect HIM to support YOU and put them in their place.

the key ingredient here has to be YOUR interpretation of what they're doing, not his. he can't be allowed to say it's all in your mind or they didn't mean what you think they mean. if it's going to be that way, then i definitely would NOT go.

he may elect to skip the drama and just let you stay home.

This does not make any sense. First of all, you say that you hate your MIL, but then you invite her to live with you. You blamed everything on your MIL and gave your DH a pass. I'm sure your DH will expect you to go to the funeral of his mother, that is if you intend to stay in this family.

My DH will not be with me at all because he physically has to attend to other things.

My DH actually probably want me to stay home

If your DH is not going and does not want you to go, don't go and do not feel bad about it. You did not respect her and the rest of the family doesn't seem to want or need your support so there really is no reason for you to attend.

My biological mother in law died before I met my husband (she was only 50, breast cancer -- he was about 20). His father's third wife is an artist -- at life and at painting, blah, blah, blah. She and the father were narcissists with a hippie slant and we were like atheists at a Bible Convention but with the gloss that we didn't drink or worse yet indulge in marijuana and psychdelic drugs. Nor did we adore the Greatful Dead. When we arrived at family gatherings (my own disfunctional familly members lived in separate countries). Like many adult children of alcoholics plus, my husband was an adultified child who wanted to take care of everyone. He wanted our kids to have a normal life and big mistake, I played along. My kids evaluated their paternal grandfather and his wife at their own estimate and adored them even though it was pretty clear to me these folks didn't love anyone but themselves and wanted fans not family. That they knew people who knew members of the Grateful Dead was a big support to their monstrous self-esteem. I mean, I liked the music but don't attend subscribe to that religioun. When it comes to idolizing, I've always had an attitude problem. Except for my lack of feeling, I did everything that could have been expected of a daughter-in-law like a good little hypocrite in order to avoid upsetting my husband. I even kind of spotted the time FIL went into final decline and coereced BIL and husband to take turns spending the night at the family "home."

I belabor all this as an entry into immortal words of advice given casually in an Agatha Christie murder mystery. DON'T BOTHER TO BE NOBLE,DEAR. NO ONE EXPECTS IT OR WILL NOTICE IF YOU DO. There is no heaven for unfavored daughters in law. You walk onto a fixed stage. I'll never forget the mother of a boyfriend who commented to me "You'll do very well with [my middle son]. You both think you're better than other people." She'd known me for one weekend in which I had been as plesant as I could be in the hope of being shown some clippings from her exciting professional life. And this is what she said to me! If I had married her son, thirty years later, she would have hated me even if I were a sort of married Mother Theresa. I can't say I made got a better set of in-laws in the end.

Daughter in laws are not blood. When push comes to shove, your out, they're in. Bad blood is better in the family than good in-laws to some people.

My FIL had a good relationship, well very good actually, so I thought.

When I had issues with his grandaughter, who by the way had barely spoken to him in the last 10 years that I know of, couldn't even be bothered telling him she was pregnant, only told him when the baby was 2 weeks old. However, because of years and years of her abuse, which she took to greater heights when baby was born, I banned her from my home. She suddenly felt the need to be close to her Nono, went straight to his house and told him her sob storry. Obviously didn't tell him what she had been up to, only that I had banned her from my home.

FIL promptly took her side, he never question me, he may have questioned my husband, but he would have acted dumb so his father would have blamed me anyway, because this daughter walks on water. So, FIL stops talking to me, FIL tells SD and he boyfriend whom he had met 3 times (but boyfriend is Italian, I'm not), that they can both come to my house anytime they want and ignore me. Boyfriend made it a point to bail me up at the local shops to tell me this. Now, I hadn't spoken to boyfriend or Sd for a year, yet he couldn't wait to fill me in on this.

SD did nothing for her grandfather ever. I did every single thing that man asked of me. SD apparently has gone up to stay a couple of times and according to SIL FIL cracks it big time, he is almost 89 yet SD sits on her bum while he cooks for her and her family, and when she leaves she doesn't so much as strip the bed. Yet she is blood. So even though I cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed for him for years and did a lot of things for him, I was out and she was in.

I am gutted by this, but FIL has shown me loud and clear. I am not family. I owe FIL nothing, he in fact owes me a huge apology, but it will never come. Would I go to FIL's funeral, NO. He has in fact thrown me out of his family, just as I threw his grandaughter out of mine. Difference is of course, I did not cause FIL one ounce of grief or trouble in all the years I knew him. SD wants her father, this man's son dead, she wants me dead, always has and made no bones about letting us know. SDs boyfriend told DH if he wanted to see the baby then he had to leave me.
Not expecting they told FIL this, and my husband would never tell his father how bad his daughter has been. Not to protect his daughter of course, but to protect himself. A bad daughter he sees as a reflection of himself. Still, he is right there. He has been an awful parent to his children.

Amen Jenna, well said.

Walking away and having nothing to do with people who choose to abuse you does not have to leave you bitter. I have been terribly hurt by my husband and his family. I'm now done with the family. I'm happy with that decision. I am relieved by that decision. I am not in the least bit bitter. In fact I am completely content and at peace now. Something I haven't experienced in years.

I am sorry for my husband and his family. They are a very negative bitter never happy group of glass half empty people. Nothing ever seems to please then. They can never enjoy life. Someone or something is always doing then wrong.

The weight people like that put on themselves and others drags you down and keeps you down. Life is brighter knowing its over. I do not have to deal with them anymore.

I have come to the realization my husband cannot deal with his issues let alone the issues of his family. Ultimately his family will destroy him but I will not allow DH or his family to abuse me ever again.

I an grateful in many ways for the experience. Sure I didn't like how they made me feel but they did because if their treatment of me, make me a stronger wiser person. Sd in particular caused me to say enough is enough. Because of her I fought hard within myself to regain some self esteem. If only she knew instead of breaking me she made me stronger. I haven't got time to be bitter. I'm flat out laughing at how much confidence self respect and pride in myself DHs family gave me in their efforts to destroy me because I married their father.

Sandye you are absolutely right. And every day they are not in your life is a blessing. It only took me a few weeks to get over the last unexpected attack. Now that's down from a few years to wake up to myself then a few months to get over all the crap that came up after I sent Sd packing.

Best of all. The last incident with SD's boyfriend was a blessing in disguise. That cut all ties between myself and DH's family. You once said I would look back on this and laugh one day. I knew you were right. I just didn't think it would be this soon. Christmas is almost here and I don't have the slightest feeling of anxiety over it. For years Christmas has been made miserable by DH and his family This Christmas I will spend with my kids and grand kids and there will be no 4 hour drives for me to see FIL who would greet us with a long face complain we didn't arrive early enough immediately ask when we would be leaving then complain wr weren't staying long enough

They are a very unhappy family nothing ever pleases them and they let you know it.

Roll on Christmas 2012 I am going to love you.

Jennaspace you are rising to the occasion and behaving with grace. I doubt you will regret it and even though I said earlier that no one expects/notices you to be noble, I think a lot of people have noticed you behaved with grace, including me.

I'm still anti-nobility -- that just makes you feel like a chump. But grace -- that's when you lean without falling over.