Women doesn't want husband to go to ex's funeral; says, 'honestly I was relieved.' Updated!

Updated at the bottom of the post...

'AITA for not wanting my husband to go to his ex's funeral?'

I'll admit I'm biased right off the bat. I couldn't stand her. I call her 'his ex' to myself and others. He called her 'his friend'. We're all in our early 40s. She died recently - aneurysm. I've been with him 10 years now, but he'd known her for 20+.

The way he tells it: They were friends in college, decided to date, got married, then realized they weren't a great couple and decided to just be friends. All that happened years before I met him. He was clear early on that she was 'important'.

A couple months into dating, it came up that his friend was actually his ex-wife. He explained the above to me, saying she was one of his closest friends and that it was purely platonic.

I expressed some discomfort at him being so close to an ex, and he told me 'That's fine. If you have a serious issue with it, let me know now and save us some time. I'll choose her. I like you and all, but I've known her for over 12 years and she's one of the most important people in my life. You'll have to be ok with that if you want us to be a thing.'

When we were engaged I asked again. He gave me this perplexed look & asked 'Why would us getting married affect my friendships?' I sucked it up & went along. I resented every moment of knowing her, especially when we had to be social. She understood some part of him I couldn't. Her husband was friends with mine as well, so it's not like I could use him as an angle.

He'd have lunch with the ex, they'd go to their geeky movies, and whatever. The few times I brought it up he said 'We had this conversation before. You had your chance to back out.' She died after they had lunch the other day on the way to her car. He spent a bunch of time crying, but honestly I was relieved.

He was working with her husband on funeral planning. I told him 'You don't think you're going, do you?'

My argument, summed up: She's dead, so she's not a factor anymore. He doesn't get to use his 'she's my friend' excuse since she doesn't exist anymore. He had his cry for a couple days, he gets to be done with mourning her already. There's no need for him to go to her funeral, since I wouldn't want her at his.

He was the angriest I've ever seen him when I told him that, replying that he'll be going no matter how I feel, and that he's 'willing to burn this to the f**king ground' while holding up his wedding band. 'Besides you, she was the closest friend in my life.'

Him, her husband & my sisters are calling me an insensitive a**hole over this, all saying that there was no romantic aspect to their relationship, & that I'm heartless. Her husband went so far as calling me a 'ghoul' for how I've reacted.

I never felt their relationship was appropriate, and I hid that for years because I wanted to be with my husband. Now that she's gone, I don't feel I should have to hide it anymore, and can speak freely. AITA for just wanting him to be done with her, and for him to not attend the funeral?

Here's how people judged OP:

LadyCass79 writes:

YTA. When he divorces you, he probably won't have to explain his friendship with you to the next woman because, seriously... who'd want to stay friends with a woman who had treated you like this?

LadyCass79 writes:

I've been thinking about this a lot and based on the OPs behavior I am so sad the guy lost the only good friend in his life. The OP isn't one.

mdthomas writes:

Huge YTA. Not because you didn't like her. You're the AH because he is grieving the loss of someone important to him and you're trying to invalidate his feelings.

Update from OP six weeks after the original post:

We've been together for 10 years, but he's choosing to end all of that because of how I reacted to his ex-wife's death.

They were 'friends' when we met, and his claim was that they'd dated and gotten married while they were 'young and dumb' before realizing they worked better as friends than as a couple. He told me that if I wanted a relationship with him, I needed to accept she'd always be part of his life.

He'd do things like go to geek movies with her and sometimes her husband, they'd do their tabletop gaming, all of which I found boring. He and I had a mostly happy marriage, I thought, but I had to deal with her presence and pretending she and her husband were friends.

I hated her, and when she died I was relieved. I didn't want him going to his funeral, saying now that she was out of his life he was done with her. I was called cold and callous for wanting to put my foot down.

Yes, he went to the funeral, which I was very uncomfortable with. I asked him not to go again, and he just gave me this cold, expressionless stare. She was cremated and my husband was given a little bit of her ashes in a small urn the size of a pill bottle. I told him it was creepy to have them, and he flipped me the bird.

The past month-plus of my life has been a nightmare because of her dying. My husband has barely talked to me, and I've received texts from nearly all our friends and family calling me a monster. All because someone saw my original post on reddit and shared it with everyone they could, even people at my job.

Many of the posts here were nice in comparison to the things the people I thought were my friends said.

I was just out of town for several days on a work trip. On Friday I came home to a partly-empty house, his car gone, and a petty-sounding letter saying that we would be getting a divorce. Not that he wanted one, that it was going to happen, he'd already filed.

He said that my post was one of the most hurtful things he's ever read, and that my jealousy of his friendship was insane. He wrote 'I f**king watched her die. She was walking by my side when it happened. I have nightmares about it.'

He said I'd be keeping the house, because 'I don't want to spend every morning waking up to a reminder of the years of lies that was our marriage.' he left a list of what he's taking, saying I can keep the rest. His last line was 'If it'd been me instead of her, she'd have been there for you in an instant. Remember that.'

I learned he's staying with her husband, because that man sent me a long text telling me to stay away from his home, and he regretted ever letting me into his life. My own sister said if she learned I was dating someone, she'd 'fill him in on what a black-hearted c-word' I am.

So yeah. My husband is divorcing me because of his first wife's death. She's more important to him, and it seems to our friends, than keeping our marriage together is. She's screwing up my life even from the grave.

Here's what people said after the update:

MidiReader writes:

So glad there seem to be no kids.

hiimmichellee writes:

'Shes screwing up my life even from the grave.' G I R L.

Councillor_Troy writes:

Whenever someone’s own sympathetic account of events makes them look like a complete a**hole, you have to wonder how much worse it actually was.

Alternative_Year_340 writes:

Honey, she doesn’t have issues. She has a subscription.

Trickster289 writes:

I had to go back and check the dates because it felt like they were written on the same day. OOP learned nothing and took no advice.