Girlfriend wholly misguided on his perspective of funeral

This week, a co-worker died in a motorcycle accident. I didn’t know her well, but she was very well-connected and her death directly affects many people in our office. I wanted to go to the funeral to show my support for the family. The victim’s brother works in our warehouse, and I see him frequently.

When I told my girlfriend I was going to attend the funeral, she didn’t understand why and seemed offended that I would even consider attending. She tragically lost her mother five years ago. I lost my aunt three years ago, also very tragically, and a childhood friend this year to what seemingly was an opioid overdose.

My girlfriend compared the co-worker’s death to these and is critical of the fact that I would consider her death tragic given that death is a fact of life. In her opinion, attending this person’s funeral is insulting because I didn’t have a personal connection with her.

My moral compass (and the consensus of my co-workers) says that I should be there. I’m torn between attending the funeral and offending my girlfriend. What do I do?

Check your girlfriend’s brain for loose hardware?

Attending a funeral doesn’t commit the deceased to your inner circle of intimacy. Therefore, going to the funeral of a colleague you didn’t know well doesn’t devalue your presence at the funerals of those you love most, or cheapen your (or her) feelings for these people or your (or her) grief at their deaths.

I assume that’s her objection, but I readily admit that I’m groping for some interpretation of her fury that might make the remotest bit of sense.

I also feel compelled to type out loud that I find it bizarre and surreal that anyone would require you to justify your impulse to be there, and that you’d actually comply. Funerals honor the dead but also comfort the living, so it’s perfectly customary to go to a funeral when you know the survivors better than you know the deceased.

The funeral will have come and gone by the time this column sees daylight, so attendance itself is a moot point. But you can still get to thinking — the sooner the better — about the broader implications of being with someone who feels as entitled as your girlfriend does to wedge herself into your professional relationships, public gestures and “moral compass.”

How often does she use her outsize emotions — or just the threat thereof — to sway your decisions? What other parts of your life does she presume to control?

— Torn