thank you for your wall of text, I enjoyed reading it.

His mother refused to visit. Old world “A mother shouldn’t visit her son, her son should respect her and come visit”. So he did. Then she guilted him into moving back home, giving up opportunities farther away. He is happy in the sense that he’s married and has kids and a fulfilling life, but he will always have the what if questions. What if his now wife and him had stayed, what if they had done this or that. I promise you, if you let them drive your life you will never be truly fulfilled.

Don’t we all have those what if questions? Maybe I ask because I’m myself unfulfilled with some parts of my life.

I’m not sure moving them or the surviving parent closer to me would benefit them: they’ve living in GA most of their lives, are used to the way people act and speak, climate is warm, and I live in NY, where people move faster, speak differently and it’s going to be cold… It would be easier for me but I don’t think they would enjoy upstate NY much.

The sooner you accept that their expectations of a “good son” will never be met, the sooner you can think more practically about how you want to proceed with life.

This is very good advice.

I’ve just also done the “Mom I’m not doing the guilt trip today. Your feelings are your own, I’m happy where I live and if you have a problem with it that’s your problem to work on, not mine”.

Stealing this.

Thank you for your post.

Complete denial of the situation. Even refuses to wear a hearing aid. Will not tolerate any kind of house keepers or paid help.

Confused and keeps shopping for shit he does not need.

is there any solution at all for a problem like this?

I did mean that the funeral with relatives would still go ahead, but you would only attend something personal, as an extra to the traditional funeral.

this is a great idea.

the optics will be bad and people will talk shit.

no doubt about it, specially in the south.

I’m guessing the people in this thread calling similar feelings “petty” or “insane” just don’t have the same level of trauma.

correct, there is a huge bias on this thread about family, happy family, keeping up appearances… I never expected it to be that strong.

your first paragraph made me laugh.

Good luck to you.

You go to comfort and commiserate with the survivors.

agreed, with the ones I care about

Spending 2-3 hours at the funeral home with his open casket, is a more personal way to say your farewells and honour him.

as said, I wouldn’t mind a small Christian funeral where I could vet visitors. I’m all for a personal, even intimate farewell, but he wants the crowd.

Scattering his ashes at an agreed location of shared importance for the both of you, can be a powerful final goodbye.

Things I proposed already:

• burn his corpse, use the ashes to grow a tree, small ceremony with me, mother and brother. Even with a priest.

• burn his corpse to scatter his ashes on a river of his choosing, small ceremony with me, mother and brother. Even with a priest.

• burn his corpse, put the ashes in three small containers so each of us makes his own ritual.

• not burn the corpse, simply put the corpse in a hole, plant a tree over the corpse.

he wants the Christian cross with the crowd next to his mother. And me there, even if I feel is stupid. This is to be taken literally, he has already bought a place for my corpse to be buried next to him.

I feel he doesn’t care about how this makes me feel, which I guess happens to so many families when conflicts like this arise.

Are you even ever going to see these people again?

the only ones I care about are my mother and brother.

Ask your mom/siblings if they need the support, if you like them.

this is the best answer so far. With difference.

I can’t fathom why people want you to engage with people who make your life worse for no gain. Yeah, smile for your boss because you need the paycheck, but this?

cannot upvote this enough

I agree with you, just wanted to see how unpopular this position is

I agree with you but wanted to see how un-popular my take is

He isn’t going to bar his sisters from attending his funeral

true, but my mother might. There is really that much animosity.

As a matter of fact, on one of my great grandfather’s funeral 2 brothers banded together to exclude a third one from the funeral. According to my father, this person had to leave the cemetery but then climbed up a tree next to the wall to watch the ceremony.

So there is already a precedent about excluding unwanted visitors from a funeral in my completely normal family 🤣

That doesn’t make any sense.

if what I described happens anywhere, why even change jobs?

Why is this such a big deal to you. So what if your co-workers enjoy their work. That has nothing to do with you.

because I feel this is a trap where I’m supposed to say that I love my job more than anything, because I think this is how managers search for the ones who only want a paycheck and to leave work stuff at the workplace, because I work to live, not live to work, because I only want to do my hours and enjoy my life away from my coworkers, because managers actively search for the ones who drink the kool-aid and believe they will get a promotion if they just try harder, because the ones who ‘enjoy’ their jobs are the ones happy to work for the manager for free, because the ones who ‘like’ their jobs are the ones less likely to establish boundaries (and enjoy being exploited).

Trying harder just means you get a pat on your back and a bigger shovel, not a raise.

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