Reply to DH and I both lost parents recently - feeling like we are in a "grief contest"

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Reply to "DH and I both lost parents recently - feeling like we are in a "grief contest""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm going to go out on a limb here and perhaps others will shoot me down or show me why this isn't so.

From what you describe, this "grief contest" centered around the funeral and two things happened:

1.  Your husband asked that the viewing take place in a different room from his mom's viewing.
2.  Your FIL walked in supported by relatives and was crying and somewhat over the top.

OP, I'm not surprised by any of this and I don't see your level of anger as, well, appropriate.  It wouldn't have surprised me if your husband asked to have the service at a completely different funeral home, and that wouldn't have been inappropriate in any way, in my opinion.  Why would you not accommodate that?  And more importantly, why do you see that as somehow attention-getting or manipulative on his part?  Ditto his father's behavior.  The entry into the funeral home was in reality the onset of a freshening of the experience of his wife's funeral.  You seem to view this as him putting on a show, moreover, him putting on a show when it was your family's turn in the spotlight.

OP, funerals are not staged events with spotlight moments and attention due to the grieving family.  They are raw emotional events.  The fact that your father was extremely elderly and his death was not a surprise nor was it particularly hard for you makes you kind of immune to the flavor of grief your inlaws are experiencing and continue to experience.  In fact, you sound a little jealous.  And you sound a little mean.

You may, in fact, have to give more to your husband right now than you get from him in terms of your father's death.  Because an empty well cannot provide water.  That's what marriage is all about.  Sometimes you have to keep going even when you feel like you didn't get quite what you were supposed to in terms of attention from your spouse.  Next year, you will be the one to get more attention.

+1 to this.  It is sad that your 90 year old father died.  But that is not an unexpected thing at that age - how lucky he had such a long life.  70 (these days) - is a whole different ball game.  Your husband and FIL feel like they were cheated out of a lot of good years - that you got to enjoy with your father.

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