WIBTAH for demanding my Nana’s husband doesn’t attend a family funeral?

TW SA

My (F31) Great Grandmother recently passed away at the age of 97, and her funeral is scheduled for tomorrow. Her daughter is my Grandmother - I call her Nana (F72) - and we’ve all been very distraught over the loss even if it was mostly expected at this stage.

When I was between the ages of 8 and 10 years old, I was repeatedly SA’d by my Nana’s husband (M65), but I never told anyone until much later into my adult life after my younger sister (F27) confided to me that the same had happened to her. We never pressed charges or informed any authorities mainly because we had no evidence and so much time had passed, but also I wanted to protect my sister from being dragged through the court system, as I knew it could be brutal.

My Nana was devastated and while she at first was adamant that she would stand by us, a little while later she and her husband planned to - to put it delicately - “unalive” themselves together. They sent us goodbye messages and we had to race to stop her from going through with it.

Eventually we reluctantly agreed that we would go completely no contact with him, but she would remain married to him. For additional, my Gran suffers with many health conditions, including COPD and emphysema, and relies on him for day to day activities. We have all repeatedly offered solutions but none have been accepted. I was never happy with this resolution, but honestly I wanted to just get on with my life, as did my sister.

It’s been well over a decade since then and now with this funeral, my Nana has asked if it would be okay with us if not only could he attend and take part in key aspects of the funeral, would we also continue to act like everything is okay with our relationship in order to stop gossip by extended family. For context, our family is Irish Roman Catholic, so very large and have a culture of spreading stories like wildfire.

I absolutely refused, though my sister was tempted just to agree in order to get through the day. My Mum is very much on my side, as are my partner and my sister’s partner. My Mum is of the opinion that I’ve done her enough of a favour even allowing things to remain as they have for so long.

My Nana is now calling us selfish and saying how she feels she has absolutely no one on her side or supporting her on what is going to be one of the hardest days of her life. She doesn’t understand how we can’t just give her this one day to grieve like a normal person. She’s even gone so far as to say she will skip the funeral entirely as her mother wouldn’t want her put in such a position and would understand.

I have put my foot down at this and have told her that if she misses this day or brings him along, I will never speak to her again. My sister has suggested that maybe he can just come but not take any part in the funeral just for peace’s sake, but I don’t even want to be anywhere near him.

Am I being unreasonable? Because as much as I keep telling myself that I’m well within my rights to be against this, there’s always that old glimmer of guilt that I was the one that ruined her marriage in the first place by speaking out initially.

Could use some outside opinions for clarity’s sake.

Posted Nov 14, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

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