Cremation and burial with the first wife, mother of his children. What would you do?

divide the ashes.
His children can do what they want with some and you can keep some and you can have his mixed with yours when it is your time to be cremated.
As far as the actual ceremony you do and plan what you and he talked about, what his wishes are.

Let the kids have some of his ashes to be buried with their Mom, and take the rest to be with you. Cremation makes it easy.

When we knew my husband was going to die soon, he had cancer all over his body, he asked me to buy burial lots for us, his wife, mother of his grown children , was buried at a place he purchased when she passed away. That request was only a few weeks before he passed and he never asked me about it or said anymore. I gave it much thought, he was 58 and I was 52. I decided to bury him next to his first wife so if his children wanted to visit the graves of their parents, they would be together. I thought perhaps I would move to a different state when I retired and it would also make it easier for my children, when I pass. I pray I made the right decision. I have decided to just be cremated and let my ashes fly in the wind.

You are your husband's next-of-kin and he is yours. If he's already expressed what his wishes are then that is what gets done.
It really doesn't matter all that much where a box of ashes ends up because the person's soul is not there. It has gone on.
What your husband should do now is sell the other plot in the double. Cemataries allow that. And if his name is already on the stone, what about some of his ashes going there and the rest of them being disposed of as he wishes?
My husband's first wife, the biological mother of his only child is buried in her family's plot. He's not going there. We are getting cremated and our ashes put in Israel. Our boy is fine with that. He doesn't remember his birth mother because he was a baby when she died. Her memory was kept alive for him though.
Your husband's daughters need to understand something. Children no matter how old they are will always be the children of their parents.
Husbands and wives, no. Their father remarried to you. He is yours not his dead wife's. The daughters need to be told this and knock off their crap about where his remains go when he dies.
They go wherever he says they go. Or wherever his wife says if you're still living.
The same flies for you and any grown kids you may have from a previous marriage.

You can be married 50 yrs but it not be a good one. Sometimes spouses just stay together because its convenient.

I saw on Facebook the other day "Funerals are for the Living". I don't agree. It 3 days of stress for the family. The ad was a Funeral home so of course they are trying to drum up customers. Funeral Homes have been hit hard by COVID. Lots of money lost with those graveside services. A viewing itself is costly. Then people are leaning more towards cremation. People are finding its ridiculous spending thousands of dollars for a funeral. My DH wants to be cremated. I wanted a burial. After my Mom died I thought why have my girls go thru all of this. Told them to cremate us. Neither of us are go to Church so seems to be hypocritical to have a minister do a service. I think viewings are archaic. I have told my girls I don't want one. Do as simple as possible and go out to dinner on me.

Personally, I find that all of the hoopla surrounding death is unnecessary.

We purposefully chose a ‘celebration of life’ ceremony when my mother died. It was short and simple. Mom chose to be cremated with no wake or funeral. She was buried in our family plot.

People get crazy over this stuff and it can get ridiculous!

My mom and dad were devout believers but they weren’t ‘preachy,’ I am happy that my parents did not feel as if everything had to revolve around traditional beliefs.

My mother did have the traditional wake and funeral rituals for my dad, with the exception of a viewing. Daddy wanted a closed casket because he was extremely thin when he died. Mom respected his wishes.

I will never forget that some of our relatives were upset with my mother because they couldn’t gawk at him in the casket. This is what I mean when I say that these situations become ridiculous!

Everyone should do what is best according to their own individual preferences.

I prefer to celebrate a person’s life, rather than to focus on their death.

My best friend died last year and she chose ‘Let it Be’ to be sung at her ‘Celebration of Life’ ceremony. That was her philosophy. Just, Let it Be. Live and let live. She accepted everyone for who they were and wanted people to accept her as she was.

This comes up with a lot of second marriages. One argument that I’ve heard was that their mom and dad always, since their marriage 50+ years ago, planned to be together for eternity under the same headstone, and the grown kids can’t understand why their dad, still living and remarried, changed his mind. Plus the kids (in their 50s) said that burial is for the convenience of the survivors and they want to be able to visit their mom and dad together. The mom’s been dead for over 7 years. A family member asked how often is it realistic for them to visit the gravesite from more than 3 hours away? Turns out they haven’t visited since the first year! But they still insist on creating havoc over the issue, mostly with the second wife, to whom dad’s been married for 5 years. Tha whole family is tired of this.

First of all you are next of kin... you have say so, unless someone else has been made POA of him. But I understand you wanting to keep peace. Separation of ashes could be suggested and the daughters could be happy about that. Also, your husband can make a will of what he wants, sign it and date it. This is legal in California and the Mortuary has to go by it. Also, funeral insurance will help with what he wants.

I prepaid my funeral recently. I'm being cremated. Ashes divided. Half for my stepsons to buy with their dad and the other half sent to my son to scatter at the family farm in WV. Problem solved. My son is an atheist, and the death hoopla is something he's not into.

My husband and I feel like you and your husband about death. We aren’t interested in long drawn out wakes and funerals. We both feel that simple graveside services or a memorial is adequate.

Plus, what difference does it really make? We will be dead! We won’t care.

When I asked my husband what his wishes were he said that he honestly didn’t care about having a wake or a funeral at a funeral home. He simply said, “Cremate me. Keep it simple.” That’s how I feel too.

Your husband doesn’t want any big fanfare. He doesn’t feel that it’s important to have a gravesite. Nor does he feel compelled to satisfy his children’s wishes. He sounds perfectly content with his decision to be scattered with your ashes and your dog’s ashes.

I suppose it’s a good thing for him to place his wishes in writing. It doesn’t sound like his children are going to accept his wishes whether it’s in writing or not.

The bottom line is that he is married to you. You get to choose. What do you want? What is most important to you? Is it going to bother you if his children aren’t satisfied? Would it bother you to object to your husband’s last wishes?

Did you or he ever consider dividing up his ashes before it was suggested to you by the previous posters on this forum?

That may work for some. Others it could be a problem. I am thinking of my brother. He is on wife number four! LOL, he would have to have a four way split of his ashes.

Ironically, all of my brother’s wives and kids get along. I have had all of them, plus all of the kids at my home at the same time for holiday dinners. My kids refer to them as Aunt no. 1, 2, 3 and 4! LOL 😂

Would your husband and your step-daughters go for a division of the ashes. I never understand all this after death stuff at all. The person is gone. But if your step daughters want a place to visit "Mom and Dad" that would do it, and most of him could remain with you.
In the end, the decision is yours and yours alone. If I really cared about all of this I would sit the daughters down and I would tell them that I loved their Dad a whole lot and had a wonderful life with him, and that you wish to honor his wishes as he has given them to you all. I would tell them that I am so very sorry about their feelings being hurt by this decision, that it is one of the sad side effects of our broken families, of our going on with life. I would tell them I am, again, SORRY, but that I am going on with my own and my husband's wishes.
Some things can't be fixed so that everyone is happy. That simply isn't life, and never was.

Even if the ashes are split, he needs to put it in writing. Do a prepaid funeral. He can make his wishes known to the Funeral Director, too.

Your situation is different than most. He does not want to be buried with his first wife. His daughters need to respect whatever he wants. I just saw a picture on Facebook where the husband was buried and on each side of him were his wives.

Please get him to put what he wants in writing.

The idea of the 2 memorials (as mentioned below) sounds like a good one.

It's nice you are considering the feelings of your stepchildren. It is usually the children who carry on the memories and will visit his memorial in years to come.
My stepmother was awful to me, and had no respect for my wishes at all (she told me I was the 'enemy' and she kept my Dad isolated from everyone), so it's kind you are considering the requests of your stepchildren - and they will think well of you for including (not excluding) them.

Interesting answers. But what if a husband doesn’t want to be cremated and prefers to be buried with his second wife rather than his first? With the situation exactly the same otherwise? Just curious what people think. My friend went through this a year ago, and the daughters won, so friend’s husband is buried with his first wife. Friend now figuring out where she’ll be buried and not speaking to the daughters.

Easy -- cremation with half his ashes interred next to Wife #1 to satisfy the daughters and half go with you and the dog to Maui.

Unless he was miserably divorced from the first wife, I'd do that. If he didn't like her anymore, then gently tell the daughters that his wishes are not to be buried with her.

The fact that there's a precarved headstone is irrelevant. They can get it carved with his dates of death if they want.

That's why you don't do that in advance, though -- things can change.

Kgshub - I recommend your husband put his wishes in writing and give his daughter a copy. He should make it clear to her what he wants now so there will be no arguments later.

I also agree with dividing his ashes. You can give the crematory 2 nice urns and have them put 1/2 in each.

Divide the ashes in two?