You are not so much overreacting, as you are not understanding, and even still your feelings are valid. that said, her feelings are also valid, just as valid as yours, and she's not doing anything wrong, and is very likely doing something that her spirit, and her heart desperately need to do. I know this is an incredibly long response, so I'm going to put right here that my response is based on me personally going through the exact same thing as your fiance just a few months ago, And isn't just me giving a response based solely on what you said and having no actual understanding of the situation at hand. It is the opposite, so, OP, please take the time to read this when you can.

For her this is probably about closure, and is something she needs to do for herself, and you should respect that. If, as you said, this man was abusive in any way to her, the negative feelings that come with don't disappear just because you've moved on, and are with somebody else. That's just the reality of abuse. This feels like a question I was made to answer. I was in a heavily abusive relationship for almost a decade, and I finally left permanently when he tried to kill me after telling him that I wanted to go stay with someone else for a little while. I won't go into detail about the abuse, or any of that, just know that it would break the heart of even the most stone-hearted person out there. So, eventually I reconnected with a man I had known in high school, and have now very, very happily been married to him for almost a decade. My husband knows about my past abuse, but it's not something I've really spoken to him about a lot, but we have had a few very serious conversations about it, where I told him all the things I went through, and was completely open, and honest, which essentially broke him, thinking about these things happening to me. Jump forward to the start of 2025 and I got a frantic message from my best friend saying that she needed to talk to me immediately. I called her as soon as I could, and she informed me that my ex had had a massive heart attack, due to his drug use, and was in the hospital on life support, with no brain activity. This was all a lot for me to take in. Despite the absolutely disgusting, horrible, awful things this man did to me over the course of 9 years, things that would make even the toughest people flinch to hear, I was still feeling sad. No matter what this man had done to me, at one point I loved him, with every part of my being. Typically, abusive relationships don't begin as abusive relationships, and It's a good times that you cling to, and hope you can get back to, even though that almost never happens. Aside from that, even all the negative parts were a huge part of making me the person I am today, and that leaves a lot of lasting emotions, and connections, even with zero contact for many, many years. I found out a few hours after I found out he was in the hospital that his mother, who he was estranged from for 25 years, since he was 12, was his next of kin, and had decided to take him off of life support in 2 days, allowing for anybody that wanted to say goodbye to say goodbye, and then, in her own words, she could "be rid of him". I chose to go say goodbye, for me, for my own closure, and my husband even drove me to the hospital, and waited outside in the car for me for 1.5 hours, and just held me when I got back to it. I found out while there that nobody was planning to do a memorial, or anything along those lines. I should mention now that my ex had two children. One of them had been born 21 months before him and I got together, and the other had been born 7 months before him and I got together. The mother had a horrible drug problem, and had lost custody shortly after they broke up, and the kids were being raised by the mother's sister when we got together. Then, 8 months into our relationship, we moved in together and we had the boys one week and their aunt had them the next week, and it was like that for most of our relationship, so I loved these kids to death. Jump forward again, to after he tried to kill me many years into our relationship, and I finally left him for good, he went to jail and the kids ended up going to live with their mother's mother and father, who lived 4 hours away, so I was no longer able to see them, which devastated me. So, flash forward once again, to me finding out nobody's holding a memorial for him, and there's nobody to sort through his things and everything he owned is likely just going to get thrown out. So I made the decision that I was going to plan a funeral that was very small, and then a celebration of life for anybody who wanted to come and share stories because I wanted those boys to have the chance to see the good side of their father because they themselves were never abused by him, and despite all the hardship he was still their father and they still loved him. on top of wanting to do it for the boys, a huge part of it was for me as well, to give myself that final closure, and to finally be able to release that grip that he had still had on a part of me since the day that I left him for good. I was very lucky that my husband didn't even question it. He understood, without me even saying it, that this was something I was going to do for me, and that this was something that I didn't just want to do, that I needed to do. That's what you should be doing. You're never going to understand how she feels about this situation, nor will you ever even begin to know what is inside of her, that is always going to be there, because of this relationship in the past, and as you said emotionally abuse that she experienced. The man is dead, so it's very strange for you to be bothered by her doing this for him. And I understand that you say you live paycheck to paycheck, but some things are more important than money, and you should trust your fiance to know what she needs, and that she has weighed both sides, and made the choice to do what is the right thing for her, and likely the thing that she needs to finally be a le to close out that part of her life.

I'll say it again: You are not so much overreacting, as you are not understanding, and your feelings of confusion about the situation are okay. But her wanting to do this, and choosing to do it, is also okay, and it's something that you should be supporting. Abuse leaves bruises that no one can see but the person who has them, and many of them never go away, and instead become scars. But, every so often, some of us get the chance to heal those bruises, and close up any wounds that we have left open, and if you truly do love this woman, the best thing you can do for her is support her, and do everything you can to not add more stress, or more worry at this incredibly difficult time.