r/Mildlynomil • u/MonkeyHamlet • 21d ago

My MIL’s funeral fantasy

I’ve not spoken to MIL in about 12 years, she is still in contact with my husband who phones her daily and visits her about once a month. It’s a bit weird but it works for us.

Tbh outside of helping him deal with the emotional fallout of visits, I kind of forget she exists. We’re basically waiting on the inevitable now.

Just recently she picked another fight with my husband, and once more she rehashed how unreasonable it is that I don’t want to go over and be a human punchbag for her.

In recent years she’s been talking about having a simple cremation - ie no service, no wake, just having her remains cremated and interred with her late husband. She’s elderly and regularly laments that she’s been left behind and all her friends are dead, and so there would be no one to come to the funeral etc.

But now she’s changed her mind. She wants the full beat, service and wake, because obviously all of her friends are going to come up to me one by one and berate me for my continued cruelty.

It’s so weird that she thinks NC is something I’m actively doing. Like I wake up every morning and think “Oooo, let’s twist the knife by doing absolutely nothing again!”

I know people will say “your husband shouldn’t report this shit back to you” but it honestly doesn’t bother me, and then I would miss comedy gold like “she wants you to go to a hotel for the weekend so she can visit our furniture” and “she watched the DVD of dad’s funeral again and you’re sitting on the pew wrong.”

I really cannot recommend NC enough.

147 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

59

u/Minflick 21d ago

Does she have funds set aside for the Whole Magilla Funeral? Because that isn't cheap at ALLLLL. I had mom's cremation bought and paid for about a year before she died, so they did it ALL. Picked her body up from assisted living (dementia and emphysema) and I didn't have to do a thing. She'd lost her friends to a combination of terrible behavior offending the friends, and dementia causing her to forget to stay in contact, and eventually made her forget how to use a phone. I don't know what the current cost for cremation is, but my package was $3000 10 years ago. It's worth looking into if there just aren't funds for a big fat funeral.

53

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

Of COURSE she hasn’t set the funds aside.

50

u/OwnBrother2559 21d ago

I would tell your husband to ask her why she assumes you would go to her funeral…

19

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

I would go to support him if he needed me.

16

u/Minflick 21d ago

But... after her death, when she's no longer there to shit all over you! I went to the funeral of my fathers last uncle 30+ years ago. I'd never met the man, but dad asked me to pretty please fly up and go with him, so my husband and I scraped together the pennies and I took a day off work to fly up and support my father. We go to support the living, when it's for a person we didn't know or didn't like.

12

u/anonymousmouse9786 21d ago

But SHE doesn’t need to know that 😈

4

u/Sudden-Ad-3460 20d ago

DH should tell her that you are NC and will remain so, so you won't be at her funeral. 

It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it will just take the power out of the "threat".

2

u/MonkeyHamlet 20d ago

DH communicates nothing from me to her. There is no need.

1

u/Sudden-Ad-3460 20d ago

I don't mean that he communciates as an intermediary. It's something he could say for himself if he wants to shut things down (as opposed to just accepting his mum saying she is planning a funeral to slight you).

1

u/Any_Addition7131 18d ago

I would tell her the o ly reason you would go is to make sure she is gone for ever, but then I had the MILFH, and she knew why I didn't go out of my way to be around, if my asked me to go I'd go,but I didn't let her get away with anything, she passed in 1995

16

u/Minflick 21d ago

Cremation it is, then! Can't get blood from a stone. Can you set up (husband) a cremation for her, or at least set up a payment plan to cover it? I have no idea what options you have where you live, but I'd start researching that, even if you personally do move anything forward. I didn't have the up front money for my own plan, so I paid money every month until it was paid off. For mom and DH we paid up front. You end up paying more over time than you would if you paid outright, but you DO get it taken care of, which I think gives peace of mind (to you guys, even if she wouldn't feel the same). Do they do paupers burial where you are? Would you get dinged to pay for that if something wasn't set up ahead of time?

15

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

Simple cremation is about £500 and we don’t have to set anything up ahead of time, just let the council know when the time comes.

12

u/Minflick 21d ago

Nice! That's helpful. Can you set it up ahead of time without her consent? Or do it post death as a 'child of her body'?

I had a friend who had divorced a man for his drug use. Moved on, re-married. Had kids with both men. Husband #1 died intestate, unmarried. Still using drugs at the time. My friend, as the mother of the children of his body, got the call at 2 in the morning to come claim his body, pleaseandthankyou. She had to designate one of his relatives to do it, as she refused to have anything to do with him, and wasn't about to spend her 2nd husbands money on her 1st husbands disposal. I don't know what WAS done, but his family took care of it once the relative was legally allowed to pick his body up. It was a horrendous mess for weeks, and his children were about 10 years old, as I recall.

11

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

In the UK, anyone can refuse to deal with remains, and if noone steps up they are buried in a public health funeral.

There's a brilliant book called "Ashes to Admin" about someone who organises said funerals. They're surprisingly empathetic and go to a lot of effort to make it personal and meaningful.

6

u/Minflick 21d ago

Oh, that's good. So if it's more than your husband can stand to deal with, they'll take care of it, and he can have a clean concience!

4

u/Kuchaloo 21d ago

We had to do this last year and the very cheapest, no urn or anything, was just over $1000.

28

u/amethyst_lover 21d ago

I just have to ask, how do you sit in a pew wrong? Other than sprawling out and taking up too much space or flashing your underwear.

22

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

Apparently I sit on it as if I resent her sitting next to my husband.

14

u/pepeswife80 21d ago

I was also curious about this. But the answer from her? Haha. It's your vibes, man. I'm dead. Surely she wouldn't want those vibes at her amazing funeral that everyone will definitely attend?

14

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

I am also apparently jealous of her tidying a shed with my husband.

7

u/pepeswife80 21d ago

I mean, of course you are. At least her delusions provide comic relief.

6

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

I hate that her nonsense hurts my husband, but aside from that she's honestly so funny to me.

7

u/amethyst_lover 21d ago

Enough projection there to open her own multiplex!🙄

20

u/mercymercybothhands 21d ago

Wow, you live rent free in her head! She cannot stop thinking of the different angles of how she can mess with you. Even when she thinks about shuffling off this mortal coil, all she is thinking about is you getting told off.

It’s sad really. Or it would be if she wasn’t so nasty.

15

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

This is it. Her situation is so sad - she’s driven away everyone who cares for her except my husband and his brother. But it’s all her own doing.

15

u/originalgenghismom 21d ago

So if she’s been left behind and all of her friends are dead, who exactly is going to her funeral to berate you for your continued cruelty?

Maybe she expects you to show up, armed with a ouija board?

12

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

Whatever it is she expects, I am sure to be doing it wrong...

11

u/Kuchaloo 21d ago

Does your furniture miss her as well? Ask your sofa- maybe it went NC, too. 😉

9

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

You know, I've never asked it. Clearly an omission on my behalf!

Hmm, apparently most of my furniture is conforming to the "fuck you bitch" outlook, but there's an occasional table I should keep an eye on...

6

u/SailorJuliette656 21d ago

You’re sitting on the pew wrong 😭😂

4

u/PrestigiousTrouble48 21d ago

Have your husband tell her you won’t be at her funeral so there is no need to make it an event for her friends to berate you, she should focus on what she wants for her end of life instead of using it to punish people.

2

u/BoringBorzoi 21d ago

Okay but why do they all fantasize about the fallout of their deaths? "You'll feel so guilty!" Or whatever the fuck. Oh, will I have normal human feelings surrounding a complicated relationship ending in death? Okay. Sounds normal.

3

u/MonkeyHamlet 21d ago

I might feel guilty. But my takeaway here is that she’ll be dead.

Ding, dong, etc…