Am I the A-hole for blocking my late husband's family after they excluded me and my children from his funeral?
I know the title sounds harsh, so here is the background.
I was married to my husband for 20 years. We had children together. For most of our marriage, things were normal, but eventually he started associating with the wrong people and became addicted to drugs.
He went to rehab twice. Both times, he relapsed.
Eventually, I had enough. The final straw was discovering that he had taken some of my inheritance and pawned it to get money for drugs.
One day, I came home from work to find a letter saying he was going to "rehab" and that he would see me in a month.
That wasn't what happened.
I changed the locks and started divorce proceedings. When he eventually contacted me, I told him he was no longer welcome in my home.
At first, his family actually supported me. They went no-contact with him too.
The next two years were incredibly difficult. He refused to cooperate with the divorce, and it took approximately two years before we finally managed to get divorced.
During our separation, however, things became frightening.
He stalked me. He broke into my house on four separate occasions. I never knew when he might appear or what he might do. I eventually obtained a protection order against him.
He also posted a photograph of me on Facebook with the words that "only death will part us" and that he would make sure that only death would separate us.
So even after the divorce, I lived with the constant fear that he could hurt or kill me.
Eventually, he moved several towns away from me and our children.
Then, one day, I received a phone call from people I didn't know—the "new friends" he had been living with. They told me that my ex-husband had died.
Apparently, when he moved away, he had left them with my telephone number.
They told me I needed to come and claim the body and arrange his funeral.
I contacted his family immediately and told them that he had died.
Suddenly, two of his brothers went to claim his body.
The family decided everyone should contribute financially towards the funeral. They asked me for $2,000.
I was actually willing to contribute.
All I asked was that they tell me and the children when and where the funeral would take place because we wanted to attend.
For me, there was another reason I needed to be there.
I needed to see him.
After years of stalking, break-ins, threats and living with the fear that he might eventually kill me, I needed to know for myself that he was actually dead.
My children also deserved the opportunity to say goodbye and have some closure.
Instead, there was silence.
Then, at the last minute, I received a WhatsApp message telling me to report to the funeral home at 10 the following morning.
The funeral home was literally at the end of my street.
So my children and I got dressed, thinking we were finally going to attend the funeral and say goodbye.
We arrived at the funeral home.
And instead of seeing my ex-husband, we were handed copies of his death certificate and other paperwork.
The message from the family was essentially: "You will need these in future."
They had already collected his ashes the day before.
There was no funeral for us to attend.
There was no opportunity to see him.
No opportunity for the children to say goodbye.
And, perhaps most importantly for me, there was no way for me to independently reassure myself that the man who had terrorised me for years was actually dead.
I know some people will say, "But you were divorced. He was their brother/son, not your husband anymore."
I understand that.
But they knew everything that had happened. They knew about the stalking. They knew about the break-ins. They knew about the protection order. They knew how afraid I had been.
And they knew that I wasn't asking to be involved in his life again. I simply wanted to attend the funeral with my children.
The whole experience messed me up mentally. I had spent years looking over my shoulder, never knowing whether he would appear again. Even after the divorce, part of me was always waiting for the next incident.
When his family deliberately excluded us from the funeral, it felt like they took away the one thing that could have helped me finally close that chapter.
So I called them.
I told them they could all go fly a kite and that I never wanted to hear from any of them again.
Then I blocked them.
Some people may think that was cruel because they were grieving too.
But I had spent years dealing with the consequences of their son's/brother's actions, and when he died, I was still expected to contribute financially while being denied the basic opportunity to attend the funeral.
So, AITA for blocking my late husband's family and refusing to have anything more to do with them?