Attendance at ex’s funeral determined by relationship

My husband’s ex just passed away. His adult children are planning the memorial service and expect him to attend. Apparently, there is a history of bad relations between my husband and his ex-wife’s family. My husband is reluctant to attend, but I suspect he will for his kids’ sake. Is it appropriate for me to join him?

If there were no kids. the answer to your question would be simple — although he could go because there’s no formal restriction as to who can attend a memorial service, it’s certainly not expected that he be there, no protocol stating that an ex should attend their former partner’s memorial service.

The rules change somewhat if you shared kids with the deceased. That means, hopefully, over the years you have put aside your differences to set a positive example for your children. Even though you are no longer together, the best role model you can give your children is how you interact with their other parent. Under such conditions, attending an ex’s funeral or memorial service would be completely appropriate, expected and good ex-etiquette.

You expect your husband will attend to support his children — as he should — and his children should give their mother’s extended family a heads-up, saying they have invited him because he is their father and they want his support at this difficult time. Whether you should attend with him is dependent on the relationship you have built with his children over the years. If you are on the outside, attending might be just salt in the wound. If you have built a loving rapport, they would probably be insulted if you didn’t attend.

Some might say if you are married, when he goes, you go. I understand that, but I am also of the mind that you do what you must do to bring comfort to those in mourning.

Where someone might sit at such a memorial service is again dependent on their relationship with the deceased and those attending. In other words, if dad was on the outs, he might attend to support his children, but stay in the back and not bring attention to being there. If dad openly respected the deceased as the mother of his children, co-parented over the years and comfortably interacted with new partners and former extended family, then he would sit with his children at the funeral and memorial service and openly offer his condolences to the deceased family and friends.

In my case, there would be no question that I would attend my ex’s memorial service. My husband attended as well. This was based on years of co-parenting, some not so good, but better as time went on, and developing a mutual respect as our daughter’s parents. I also had built a rapport with his wife of 25 years, but more importantly, my daughter was close to her. Truth be told, we all were there — ex-husbands, ex-wives, bonus siblings, half-siblings. His passing was all our loss, and we came under the same roof to honor someone we missed. What you called our relationship with him didn’t matter. The love and respect did.

That’s good ex-etiquette.