Community Chat

[luvmyteddy4]

I think parents have the best intentions when they write their will while they are still fairly young and healthy.

But what happens when the parents lose their spouse, grow old and sick and there is only one of the siblings taking care of the remaining parent. Even when they were healthy and keeping tabs on them and helping out when no one else would. I am talking about rare phone calls and no help at all and then still no help when they are sick and have dementia. Years of no help WSE, are they still entitled to an equal split? When they would have put them in a nursing home and the money would be long gone before they pass or you take them in and care for them on your own and they live longer and have anything they need plus the personal care?

What are your thoughts on that scenario? Even if you live out of town there are still things siblings can do if they care and the ones that live in town and do nothing is so much worse.

[hckynut]

On 5/7/2014 nantucket shore said:

Mom isn't even gone and already my siblings are expressing their greed.

unreal.

When my mother died decades ago my 3 older sisters and I had no issues on anything to do with what she left behind. What each of my sisters valued the most, we all could agree on who got what. My mother had some valuable furniture left to her when her mother died. These things I valued as a remembrance of my mother and grandmother, but my sisters were the ones that would actually use them and present them in their homes way more than I ever would have done so.

I've seen way too many families split apart after the death of a parent and I "just don't get it". I don't care how many $$$$ of how many "emotional value" one places on "things". Spitting a family over these things tells me a lot about the type of people that would put these things before a relationship with their own flesh and blood.

These types of people are not honoring the memory of the loved ones that have passed on.

[maryebrown_1]

On 5/9/2014 Ford1224 said:

We kids (four of us) didn't get a thing from our parents. My poor beloved mother died of lung cancer at the age of 49. My father married his old high school girlfriend several years later and moved to Florida. We had very little contact after that for 25 years. They never invited us down in that whole time, and he became very invested in her children and grandchildren, he didn't even know our grandchildren's names. He rarely called us, we had to call him which we did at first, but little by little we tired of the rejection.

When he got sick at the age of 83, she sent him back up here to Jersey with a little old suitcase that had two pair of pants, some underwear and tee shirts, and his shaving kit in it. He died several months later crying "I just want to see her one more time." She didn't even come to his funeral. And everything he had went to her and her family, even the gold ring he promised to one of my brothers was gone from his finger when he arrived.

We never expected anything, so there was no animosity when he returned, his mind was kind of gone by then anyway. We gave him a proper burial next to our mom and that was that.

Wow, Ford, your "stepmother" sure was a piece of work! I thought my MIL was a cold-hearted witch, but she was not half as cold as your Dad's wife. I'm so sad you had to go through all that heartache in your life. I certainly understand the decisions you are facing regarding your daughters and how you want to provide for them and your grandkids after you're gone. You are a gentle soul who wants to do the right thing, without regrets or revenge, and I commend you for that!

[LilacTree]

On 5/9/2014 maryebrown said:

On 5/9/2014 Ford1224 said:

We kids (four of us) didn't get a thing from our parents. My poor beloved mother died of lung cancer at the age of 49. My father married his old high school girlfriend several years later and moved to Florida. We had very little contact after that for 25 years. They never invited us down in that whole time, and he became very invested in her children and grandchildren, he didn't even know our grandchildren's names. He rarely called us, we had to call him which we did at first, but little by little we tired of the rejection.

When he got sick at the age of 83, she sent him back up here to Jersey with a little old suitcase that had two pair of pants, some underwear and tee shirts, and his shaving kit in it. He died several months later crying "I just want to see her one more time." She didn't even come to his funeral. And everything he had went to her and her family, even the gold ring he promised to one of my brothers was gone from his finger when he arrived.

We never expected anything, so there was no animosity when he returned, his mind was kind of gone by then anyway. We gave him a proper burial next to our mom and that was that.

Wow, Ford, your "stepmother" sure was a piece of work! I thought my MIL was a cold-hearted witch, but she was not half as cold as your Dad's wife. I'm so sad you had to go through all that heartache in your life. I certainly understand the decisions you are facing regarding your daughters and how you want to provide for them and your grandkids after you're gone. You are a gentle soul who wants to do the right thing, without regrets or revenge, and I commend you for that!

Thank you Maryebrown. Truthfully, we never considered this woman as our "stepmother," we hardly knew her. I do know the few times I did speak with her I realized how very unintelligent she was, so in a way I think she was too incompetent to know what she was doing was wrong and unfair to us. We never had any objection to our dad getting married again, as he was in his late 50s and had a right to a happy rest of his life. However, we never realized how jealous of us his wife would get.

Her sons owned many gas stations in the area of Florida where they lived, so they had money, and my father was very impressed with that. My feelings for him at the end were of sorrow, not anger . . . although I admit I had lost some love and respect for him. I think he loved us, but got lost down there 1,500 miles away and they were thrilled with him because he married their mother whose husband had left her for a younger woman. All in the past . . . I save myself for my current worries, LOL!

Thank you for the rest of your kind words.

[occasionalrain]

On 5/9/2014 glb613 said:

"The issue is between the two daughters and it's unfair of the injured daughter to expect her mother to punish the wrongdoer. The mother is an innocent bystander and shouldn't have been brought into the fight. It seems the injured daughter is doing to her mother what her sister did to her, caused her grief.

I would do with my insurance policy what I wanted to do not what someone else demanded I do."

Why would her daughter be estranged from her if it's between sisters? NO never mind, I don't want to know.

The daughter is estranged from her mother because her mother took the side of her sister when she should have stayed out of it. These sisters were adults and neither should have brought their mother into their disagreement.

[tansy]

On 5/9/2014 occasional rain said:

On 5/9/2014 glb613 said:

"The issue is between the two daughters and it's unfair of the injured daughter to expect her mother to punish the wrongdoer. The mother is an innocent bystander and shouldn't have been brought into the fight. It seems the injured daughter is doing to her mother what her sister did to her, caused her grief.

I would do with my insurance policy what I wanted to do not what someone else demanded I do."

Why would her daughter be estranged from her if it's between sisters? NO never mind, I don't want to know.

The daughter is estranged from her mother because her mother took the side of her sister when she should have stayed out of it. These sisters were adults and neither should have brought their mother into their disagreement.

I'm close to my sons and would be aware of what was going on between them with a real estate deal.

[occasionalrain]

On 5/9/2014 tansy said:

On 5/9/2014 occasional rain said:

On 5/9/2014 glb613 said:

"The issue is between the two daughters and it's unfair of the injured daughter to expect her mother to punish the wrongdoer. The mother is an innocent bystander and shouldn't have been brought into the fight. It seems the injured daughter is doing to her mother what her sister did to her, caused her grief.

I would do with my insurance policy what I wanted to do not what someone else demanded I do."

Why would her daughter be estranged from her if it's between sisters? NO never mind, I don't want to know.

The daughter is estranged from her mother because her mother took the side of her sister when she should have stayed out of it. These sisters were adults and neither should have brought their mother into their disagreement.

I'm close to my sons and would be aware of what was going on between them with a real estate deal.

When children become adults they should be allowed to make mistakes and to learn from them without dragging their parents into it.

It's one thing to ask a parent for their advice before the decision is made, to bail them out when things turn out badly, to be sympathetic but it is wrong for one adult child to ask a parent to take their side against a sibling. It is unfair and the one who will suffer is the parent who is an innocent bystander.

To me the sibling who took advantage of her sister is no worse than the sister who took advantage of her mother.

[sunala]

On 5/8/2014 gazelle77 said: I have never understood why children expect anything from their parents? What is up with that? If I had kids, I would pay all my bills and donate everything I owed to a charity. They would get nothing and know that before I died.

That's how you'd treat your children?

There's no end to your bitterness.

[Venus]

I have a situation where I want to leave a large amount of money to a charity, skip my children and leave the rest to my grandchildren. I was told I could write in my Will that if anyone tried to contest it they would lose their ability to get anything from the Estate. I'm sure hoping that is true. I'm sure they will be furious when they find out, but they have brought this on themselves. And I left some to my grandchildren, so in my mind, that's good enough. I also wrote a letter to be delivered to them when I die explaining why I did what I did.

[gazelle77]

On 5/13/2014 sunala said:

On 5/8/2014 gazelle77 said: I have never understood why children expect anything from their parents? What is up with that? If I had kids, I would pay all my bills and donate everything I owed to a charity. They would get nothing and know that before I died.

That's how you'd treat your children?

There's no end to your bitterness.

Children should not EXPECT anything from their parents. Why should they???