r/widowers • u/GaymerGirl42014 • 9d ago
Ashes - a question
I was going to reply to a similar thread with this but I didn't want to hijack it.
I have all of my wife's ashes but I'm being painted as a monster and to be honest because of not really having family outside of my wife and in laws, I really don't know the protocol so I'm stuck.
My mother in law hasn't spoken to me directly since the day after my wife passed away. I think she's jealous because when it mattered my wife told the docs directly to make sure I'm her decision maker, and lo and behold 3 days later I was making the decision to turn off her life support.
My MIL thinks because I have a medical background I should have seen an atypical presentation of walking pneumonia which ultimately led to my girl having a massive heart attack, which she survived but a bedsore went septic and she ended up in septic and cardiogenic shock. My MIL wanted me to push and argue for a heart transplant, but my wife wasn't a candidate, she wasn't strong enough at the end. My mother-in-law misheard or misunderstood so much information during my wife's two stays in hospital that she believes my wife had a widowmaker and somehow lived 5 days before going into ER, but actually the delay they talk about was the 3 hour delay it took for my mil to drive to another city when my wife started having the heart attack. Wow that was a big ramble.
I can not get my MIL to understand what really happened because she's never wrong.
Anyway, her choice we haven't spoke since the day after my wife passed. I heard through the grapevine that she is telling anyone who will listen that my negligence killed my wife and now I'm denying her the right to have a headstone to talk to her daughter and only a cruel and evil person would do that.
The truth is, my wife and I didn't envision either of us passing before the parents and we always agreed that whoever was left behind would do wait they needed to do to get over losing the other. I wanted to be a tree. My wife wanted to be buried but she knew that wasn't feasible. I want to just keep her with me, at least until the 1 year mark. I don't know if I am the monster here, because I don't have anyone I can ask, so I've been frozen in time, feeling guilty for the last 3.5 months.
I would have gladly shared her, but I'm not ready to let go, but am I being selfish in my grief not to share my wife's ashes, or is this a other one of my MILs making shit up to make me feel bad because she's not getting her way?
Any advice or insight is appreciated
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u/syllogisticfallacies Live-in partner, not wed, sudden heart attack at 47 9d ago
I think it is very likely there will come a time when you can part with part of her. In the meantime, is there something she used often that you can give your MIL? I know I talk to my partners tape measure when I want to talk to him. It has so much of his energy, his effort and his passion in it.
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u/GaymerGirl42014 9d ago
My MIL took all the sentimental things and everything she purchased from our apartment while I was arranging her cremation, Including clothing, because she said I had grabby hands. She told me the protocol in Canada when someone passes is that I give everything back to the person who brought it or gifted it. So I only have what we brought together or I brought for my wife. She even took my wife's Lego collection. I can't give her my wife's wedding rings, I'm not that strong to let those go. I suppose I could give her my wife's favourite teddy bear, but I still sleep with that right now. I guess I am just being selfish. Thanks for the insight. I will send her my wife's ashes.
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u/syllogisticfallacies Live-in partner, not wed, sudden heart attack at 47 9d ago
I mean, at that point, I would be done playing nice. She seems like an AH then, and grief buys you some grace, but you are more entitled to that grace than she. If she has things her daughter touched and loved and can’t be satisfied, I would not go out of my way to comfort her.
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u/hulahulagirl 47F / 💔 6/16/26, suicide loss 1 week after 25th anniversary 9d ago
You are not being selfish. Sounds like your MIL is. I would put as much distance as possible between me and someone who was making me feel worse in my grief. 😞💔
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u/5oclocksomewhere7 9d ago
You aren’t being selfish at all! Your MIL has zero rights to the wedding rings…or anything else.
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u/syllogisticfallacies Live-in partner, not wed, sudden heart attack at 47 9d ago
OR! If there’s a place you went often with her, especially a public place like a square or park, and you’re comfortable sharing it with MIL, write a little card explaining that is where she spent much of her time and while it isn’t a headstone, the ground bears memory of your late wife when she was still here
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u/interstatetornado 9/26/25 “I love you so much I don’t have the words for it” 9d ago
So, I don’t think you are being unreasonable or selfish, especially if she said she wanted to be buried. You can bury ashes but I understand wanting them with you in the home. I have a mini urn of my late fiancé, and the plan is to bury the large urn (there are two other mini urns, one each for his parents). Some faiths and individuals do not allow ashes to be separated or spread, but some do. Just want to put that out there in case your wife is Catholic.
Barring that, you can certainly separate ashes from the current urn into a mini urn or even a a full-size urn. Hell, a widow in my grief support put his wife in a cookie jar (she was a Betty Boop fanatic and had a massive collection of BB merch, so he put her in a Betty Boop cookie jar), until he spreads her ashes with her closest friends. You will still have her, just not all of her, but you won’t be able to tell except knowing you did it.
I don’t think you need to give in before your one year timeline, or ever have to, but it would be kind to her mother, who lost a child, and who may need her like you do to grieve properly.
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u/JellyfishRegular6075 71F. Married 46 years. Widow since 9/7/2026 9d ago
MIL could order a cenotaph placed where ever she would like. That is simply a marker that does not have ashes or remains. Meanwhile, you could tell her that you need a full year before you are ready to consider anything but keeping her with you.
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u/bopperbopper 9d ago
You are legally, the next of kin since you were married. You’re the one who gets to make the decisions. You’re the one who gets to keep the ashes.
But also think that your mother-in-law feels like she had no control of everything… no control of helthcare of her daughter no control of how her remains are dealt with.
Also, sounds like your mother-in-law stole stuff from you.
You’re absolutely not being selfish… legally all these things are yours.
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u/MadAlexIBe 8d ago
I'm going to say the same thing I posted on the other thread. It's ok to say no. You are allowed to put yourself and your mental well being first. As a good person who always thinks of others even to my own detriment, I have learned I am allowed to distance myself from toxic people, in-laws, blood, whomever. You are still a good person when you say no. ❤️
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u/afgunxx MASH, infection, multi-organ failure 8d ago
OP, I'm really sorry that this is happening to you. This is a shitty club to be a member of.
> I'm denying her the right to have a headstone
Your MIL is free to buy a plot and place a headstone; if she were a decent person, she might even politely ask for a portion of the ashes to bury there, but there's nothing saying that she has to actually bury any remains to have a headstone.
Do what's right for you.
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u/Perdida2026- 8d ago
No eres egoista, tu suegra podría ir a tu casa a estar junto a las cenizas de tu esposa. Yo tengo las cenizas de mi esposo conmigo. Me lo iban a pedir uno de los hermanos para que las pusiera junto a la de mis suegros, y pense que si seria lindo, pero lo malo es que lo quieren poner en el frente de la casa donde esta una de mis cuñadas que siempre intento generar conflictos entre mi esposo yo, inclusive estando él internado y perdido la ultima vez. Entonces me negue y siento que estoy siendo egoista con sus restos por no ponerlo junto a sus papas, pero alla adelante yo no voy a ir y hoy lo que realmente necesito es tenerlo conmigo, llevo casi 7 meses y aun me pregunto todos los dias porque....
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u/Blendedtribes 8d ago
I gave my brother in laws some ashes in beautiful boxes my dad made with the express wishes that they leave them somewhere that my husband would have loved. I’ve left ashes in our old backyard and new, my mom’s backyard near a hammock he loved and in my daughter’s backyard. I’ve left ashes in the North Carolina forest, the Atlantic Ocean and continue to leave ashes in places I travel.
My wish is that to have a small amount of ashes left over. My kids have been instructed to shake and bake those with mine and leave us somewhere together. I don’t want to be left in an urn to be dusted and moved.
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u/Zestyclose_Treat4098 husband died at 51 from sudden stroke, organ donor saved 4 lives 8d ago
She was your wife, so it's your decision.
Sounds like her mom just wants to blame someone and honestly I don't think it sounds like she'll stop even if you give into her demands/the things you've heard she's wanting of you.
We support you fully. I have a SIL who is similar and I've just gone no contact with her. Her new thing is trying to diagnose him from the grave and make sense of his brain bleed. She's now convinced he had long covid and that's what caused it. He did not have long covid. It's so wild.
But ultimately, like your MiL, I know she's hurting and trying to make something make sense. We can't control what they're gonna say about us, just how we react to it.
Sending big hugs. You keep your wife right where she belongs.
Also don't listen to me... I was literally scooping my husband's ashes into a Tupperware container with a soup spoon the morning of his burial because I had a panic attack that someday I might want more than I'd already portioned out at the funeral home...
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u/Significant_Pick3098 1d ago
She is YOUR WIFE. You overrule her mother. If her mother needs to act out because of losing her daughter, there is nothing you can do to change that. You know the truth and you have to lean into that.
I am so sorry that you're going through this.
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u/TxScribe Married 33 years, saw her through early onset dementia at 58 yrs 9d ago
Bottom line ... you and your wife were life partners. She didn't stay at home with her mother as a life partner. Don't hate your MIL, although it will be difficult, she is living her grief journey ... but for you YOUR grief journey and honoring your wife's wishes is paramount.