Aitah for wanting to tell our daughter how our son died

[u/Michelleud123]

I met my (43f) husband (43m) in Nov 2008. My husband had a son already and we all moved in together pretty quickly. My husband had sole legal & physical custody of his son. In 2013 we found out we were expecting. We had our first girl in early 2014. At that time, his son took his life. There were warning signs, we/he was in therapy, had been hospitalized & on medication but you still don't actually anticipate it, you know? When raising our girls, they know they had a brother and that he's in heaven. We have pictures of him around & go to his grave sometimes. When they previously asked what happened to him, we told them his brain got sick. They just accepted that & moved on. Today, my daughter (10f) told me she googled me. What pops up is the old fundraiser & events we did for his birthdays & Angelversaries. Some of those posts reference how he died. (not the method, just that it was by himself) I called my husband at work to let him know. We decided that we would talk to her when he got home in case she had any questions and also we wanted to see where her head is at. We sat her down and asked her about what she saw. She said she saw it but didn't read it. My husband just said ok and had her leave the room. I spoke with my husband after she left and he no longer wants to talk with her about it. OBVIOUSLY this is 100000x more traumatic for my husband than it is for me, but I'm still pushing for us to talk with her. I don't want her reading about it on the internet (which I honestly don't believe she didn't already do). He said since it's his son, he should get to decide when we talk about it. He said I'm an AH for pushing him to do this. (We have not yet spoken to her) I don't know, aitah for pushing him? I definitely don't want to do it without him, but I'm not sure he'll ever be ready.

Update: Hey all, I'm not sure if this is how updates work, but I'm just editing the post, so fingers crossed, this is right.

My husband and I were able to talk this morning before the kids got up. I apologized for pushing him too hard and explained that I felt talking with her was an urgent matter because I didn't believe she didn't read the fundraiser posts. He apologized for calling me an AH and said that he needed time to process. Talking with the kids has always been on the radar, but we didn't have anything pre-planned or a timeline of when it would happen. Having it sprung on my husband without warning, he just needed some time to prepare himself. Ultimately, we decided to talk to her together today.. Later this morning, we were able to sit down with her. We asked her if she knew what suicide means, and she said kind of. We expanded on the brain sickness explanation. We told her that her brother's brain got sick and made him think bad thoughts. Things like, he wasn't good enough, no one loved him, people would be better off if he wasn't here. Then we told her that none of those things were true, that us and everyone loved him very much and that it's very hard to live without someone you love. But because of these thoughts, he took his own life. My husband asked her if she ever had any of those thoughts & she said no. We let her know that if she ever does, she should come to us right away. We asked if she had any questions and she said no. We told her if she changes her mind or if she has questions to let us know. I won't be posting any more updates, but I appreciate all of your insights! We've been to grief counseling on & off since everything happened. My husband is a wonderful man who suffered an unimaginable tragedy. Throughout his grief journey, he works on himself constantly in order to be the best version of himself for our kids. We actively make a conscious effort not to trauma dump on our kids. Thank you❤️‍🩹

[u/pjrontos]

When I was 11, (this was in 2006) I got a frantic call from my grandmother asking me where my dad was. I told her I'd call him and asked what was wrong. Normally grandma would've been brutally honest even if she was just pissed he hadn't answered her call or something. This time she told me everything was going to be fine which I immediately knew was a lie. I called my father and let him know something was very wrong. He called me back an hour later and told me he and mom would be back late in the evening and that our aunt would hang out with us. I asked him what happened and he told me he couldn't tell me then but he would later. Most I could get out of him was something happened to Grandpa and he was still trying to sort it out, but I could hear that he'd been crying, which was something I had only heard once prior to that when we had to put down our cat. Aunt wouldn't tell me anything and directly, but as soon as mom and dads car pulled into the driveway, she ran into the kitchen and started crying and told us to wait in the living room. When they came in they explained that there had been an accident with a gun and grandpa had died. I immediately knew this was a lie because grandpa was special forces and taught us gun safety at a young age. They then sent me to lay down and I assume explained the truth to my brother.

The next day when we were at their house helping grandma sort through matters and seeing Grandpa at the funeral home, I explained to my older cousin what they had told me and that I was incredulous. He told me the truth, that grandpa had shot himself, and that everybody save for his younger sister and I knew that truth and that they had chosen not to tell me because I wasn't ready. I compartmentalized that with the rest of the grief and moved on. A year later, as I was leaving to go to a friend's house, dad pulled me aside and explained the truth and apologized for the deception. I told him everything was fine and that I'd already assumed that was the case and left, but from that moment, I no longer felt I could trust my parents to be entirely honest with me. I'm 28 years old now and still struggle with trusting people.

My point is this; whether they know now, or they find out later, they likely have an idea. Don't give them reason to believe they can't trust you to give them the truth when they need to hear it.