When illness shattered the fragile peace, the past seemed to blur into a painful present. Watching the woman who once left him face a brutal battle alone, he was haunted by a quiet ache — a sorrow for what was lost, and a deep, unspoken regret that lingered long after goodbye.
My kids were young when I left their mother. She decided that she preferred the company of another man to mine. I was heartbroken and humiliated but I dealt fairly in the divorce. My alimony and child support were set and I never missed one payment or a chance to spend time with my kids.
Beyond our scheduled time together I did all the dad stuff I came to see them perform in school plays and play sports. If they wanted to talk I made myself available. I never spoke about their mother other than to say she was a good mom and they were lucky to have her.
When she remarried my alimony ended but obviously not the child support. She had another kid with her husband. When my kids were 18 and 17 their mom was diagnosed with cancer and it was very aggressive.
She ended up needing a lot of expensive treatment and it ended her marriage. He left because of the debts and he could not care for her. I don’t really know more than that. She didn’t make it five years.
I felt bad at the time but it had nothing to do with me any more. I had just become engaged to my fiancee. I sent my kids invitations to my wedding. It was just small in my back yard.
They both said they would not be attending and that I was heartless for getting married just two months after their mom died. I said that I understood their grief and that I hoped they changed their minds.
And then I dropped it. I got married on Saturday and my kids found out. They called me and said I was a dick for not postponing my wedding or at least calling to ask them to come. I just said that they knew the time and place and I would have made room for them and had food if they had shown up.
They are both pissed at me but I don’t think I’m wrong for not changing my plans over the death of a woman I divorced over a decade ago. The invitations were sent before she died. My kids are in university.
I do not live in the same city as them. From the moment their mom went into hospice care I checked in on them every day. Sometimes a call but usually a text. We didn’t always connect but we did connect.
The invitations went out four months before the wedding. We planned the wedding to happen over the winter break so my kids and my new wife’s children could attend. We saw the kids at Thanksgiving and we had a long cry together over their mother.
They sent their RSVP just a few days after their mom passed away.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) finds himself in a difficult situation, balancing his right to move forward with his life and new marriage against the deep, unresolved grief of his adult children concerning their mother’s recent death. The central conflict is between the OP’s adherence to previously made plans, which he views as reasonable given the decade-old divorce, and his children’s expectation that he should have paused or significantly altered major life events out of respect for their mourning process.
Should the OP prioritize maintaining his established boundaries and commitment to his wedding date, even if it causes significant distress to his children, or was the obligation to postpone the ceremony to accommodate his children’s acute grief over their mother a necessary act of familial support?
Here’s how people reacted:
I don’t think that there is anything wrong with not postponing a wedding that was planned for 2 months after a death in the family. Life does go on.
I also don’t think there is anything wrong with grieving people opting out of family events if they don’t feel like they are emotionally able to attend. Self-care is important and everybody deals with grief differently and at different rates.
The kids’ reaction – declining the invitation, then getting mad that the wedding went forward and they weren’t re-invited after they declined – this sounds like their grief talking, so I would give them some grace.
The only real issue that I see here is the OP’s hands-off approach regarding his ex-wife’s illness. His kids went through a major thing – their mom was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer when they were teenagers, was sick for years, step-dad left during her battle with cancer, and ultimately died a couple months ago. My god that is a lot. I may be missing some of the story, but it doesn’t sound as though the OP was really there for his kids like they needed him during this time. His getting married 2 months after the death of their mother may just be the event that illustrates how he has let them down these past years.
I’m really not sure why your kids are conflating your marriage to their mom’s death when you weren’t married to her for MANY years. The only thing I can come up with is that they’re being irrational in grief. There was no reason to invite them more than once. I think this was a catch 22 situation. No matter what you did, it would be wrong. Even if you postponed the wedding, you’d have been wrong for even thinking about getting married so closely after their mom’s death. Perhaps because you’re both their parents, they are connecting the two but it seriously doesn’t make any sense to me.
If they bring it up again, remind them that she had remarried years ago, and even divorced before you even got engaged. That her death really played no role in your life as your ex-wife. That you’re sorry for THEIR loss but that it didn’t have any direct effect on your own life. They need to understand that your life decisions stopped having anything to do with what was going on in their mother’s life YEARS ago.
You invited them before she passed away and they said no. Then they came back and asked you to change the date? Personal opinion as I’ve lost a parent recently: there is no specific timeframe for grievance but I think 2 months is not an inconsiderate timeframe. It’s been over a decade since you were marriage ended and she has obviously moved on and I think you are in the right of moving on as well.
From what you say above you did all the things you were expected to do in terms of dad stuff.
I think you are NTA for going ahead with your wedding, but I’m sensing that you may have not been supportive or in close contact with them during the most traumatic loss of their lives, and for that you may be an AH.
Also, this is a woman you’ve been divorced from for several years. I don’t think anyone should expect you to put your life on hold because someone that’s not in your life anymore passed away.
Just keep in mind your kids are still grieving and probably had expectations that you would help in some regards in her final days, whether voiced or not.
I won’t call your kids AH’s for how they acted due to extenuating circumstances ONLY, but only just.
And congratulations on the new nuptials.
Congrats on your wedding.
You invited them. They declined. I don’t understand why they expected you to interpret their RSVP of No as a “please come beg us to come anyway.” You’re not psychic.
I also don’t understand why they “found out” you got married on the date listed on the invitation that they clearly read and responded to. They already knew because you told them.
2) you’d been divorced for more than a decade.
3) you invited them formally. They declined.
I get that they’re kids and they’ve just lost their mother which is a horrible loss. But you’ve done nothing wrong here.
NTA
You sent wedding invitations 5 years ago and got married now.
Not buying it.
This isn’t about you not having feelings for your ex anymore or being impacted by her death, this is about a father not caring that his children are hurting because their mother died.
They said no and you respected that. What else are you suppose to do? I’m sorry for the lost of their mom but there really isn’t much you can do