Ex fails to show at family funeral

DEAR ABBY >> My mom passed away recently, and the person I was in a relationship with from adolescence to my adulthood, “Charles,” didn’t attend her funeral. While I’m currently in a relationship with someone else I deeply love, I still feel my mother was fond of Charles despite our many hardships. Her affection for him showed without a doubt, many times without my involvement. Despite my resentment toward Charles, it never swayed her opinion of him.

I no longer speak to Charles. This pattern was well set before Mom’s death. Because she cared for him, I think it was wrong of him not to show up to pay his respects, regardless of what our situation currently is. For the record, I didn’t attend either of his parents’ funerals because Charles liked to gaslight and cause drama.

Now that I’m no longer a teenager, I see him for who he really is. I thought I was in love at the time, but I realize now that I was still in the “age of innocence.” While I no longer want him in my space or life, I still feel his not attending was selfish and pathetic. Are my feelings valid?

— Mourning in Missouri

DEAR MOURNING >> Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your dear mother. That said, the time has come to let go of your relationship with Charles. You wrote that you no longer want him in your life, yet you cling to your resentment of him.

Funerals are for the living. The deceased are past the point of knowing if someone attends or not. Charles may have stayed away because he knows you dislike him and felt unwelcome. Scrub him out of your head and stop living in the past. As the late Elie Wiesel once pointed out, “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference.”