SHOULD I TELL THE TRUTH AT HER FUNERAL?

My mother-in-law’s funeral is in two weeks. She was 93 and had been in a care home with dementia for some years. She was always critical of me and how I brought up our three children. She was embittered, supercilious and judgmental about almost everyone who wasn’t a blood relative. She was also a racist, and appallingly rude to the kind black nurses at her care home. My husband was not fond of his mother either but he seemed to soften after she got dementia. I am going to the funeral for his sake only but I honestly don’t know how I’m going to manage not to tell some other members of her family (who can be equally unpleasant) what I really thought of her.

At funerals everyone is expected to say nice things about the deceased. However, your late mother-in-law does sound pretty unpleasant and it would be wrong to portray her as someone she was not. It is important to acknowledge to yourself how hurtful this must have been over many years. So you don’t have any obligation to pretend that you liked her. If someone else is nice about her, you don’t have to agree with them. There is an argument for simply ignoring the views of other family members if they are similarly unpleasant – not to avoid a scene, but simply because these people are not worth your time and effort. But it’s important to call out racism and other unacceptable views when the situation arises. So if, at the funeral, you are put on the spot, as long as you remain calm and polite, I see no harm in saying that you found her very difficult and that some of her views were abhorrent.