One child has inherited AGAIN

I think that’s unfair. It’s possible to know someone is entitled to do something AND be worried about the impact on the children.

OP has asked for advice to come to terms with it because she can’t contemplate her two sons having such vastly different lives.

This has the potential to create a rift between two siblings. A mother wants the best for both her children.

It’s possible one day if the two siblings are close then the younger sibling would want to share his good fortune with his brother, but he should never feel expected to.

It’s also possible that the older sibling becomes more successful in his choice of career and health. Luck can play tricks on us all. Money is not the be all and end all, we can’t take it to our graves.

Her child will inherit from his bio father. Why should her husband give his step child money when he will inherit more.

The fallout was quite seismic for lots of reasons. My partner felt that as he only had one child the family of the brother with 3 children benefitted disproportionately.

This is just silly, and illogical, as someone else pointed out. The money was not left to the adult children, it was left to the next generation down, to the GRANDCHILDREN, and therefore it was right that it was split equally between all of the members of that same generation. Why should your younger child get a larger amount than each of his cousins? It makes absolutely no sense. One grandchild would only get more (eventually, potentially) if the money had been left to the generation above, but this didn't happen so....

It was said at the time and I believe this to be the case that the will was designed like this. to stop my elder child from a previous relationship from benefiting as he might have done 40/50 years later if the money had gone directly to my partner.

That's a lot of years. If that HAD happened, in my mind that inheritance money would by that time definitely have become solely your partner's to decide what to do with. In those 40-50 years while he was in possession of that share of the money he may even have spent it all, gifted large amounts for property deposits for all his children etc, could have gambled it all away, moved house with you, split up from you and bought his own house etc etc. Any of the members of the family could be dead. It is a loooong time when anything could happen to change the status quo, and therefore to what makes most sense in any will that your partner wrote.

😥

I’m from a step family myself and this isn’t what my step-parent chose. Once my parent married - they became a family unit and all their children became equal together.

i wouldn’t be happy if my partner - who I shared property etc with wished to exclude one of my children. You’re either a family, or not, together, or not.

bloody hell modern life is tough.

No, wrong, assuming you're talking about the UK. A spouse's Will has to state that everything is to pass to their spouse on their death. Alternatively, it could state that a proportion of their estate passes to their spouse and other amounts pass to other beneficiaries. If a spouse or civil partner dies intestate (i.e. without leaving a Will) the rules of intestacy apply and spouses/civil partners with children will inherit all the deceased's personal property, the first £322,000 of the estate and half the remaining estate – the other half goes to their children.
The advantage of being married is that you can inherit your spouse/civil partner's estate free of Inheritance Tax (which unmarried partners can't).

Only to the male grandchildren? Revolting.

I would speak with my partner, and all my children, and advise them I am choosing to leave my inheritance to X to balance out the financial situation.

I’d make my views on this well known and give all the kids time to discuss it with me, time for them to change my view if they wanted to, time for me to reason with them.

My will would be written with a solicitor but I’d try and write compassionately. Id make sure to even out sentimental items etc.

And when necessary throughout the time I was alive I’d give a foot up to the one who did not receive an inheritance when I could.

You can’t make your partner do what you think is fair with his will.

Having done a quick advanced search, it seems this has been a constant issue for you, with you hating your in laws and refusing to have anything to do with them. Your eldest thinks you forced him onto them, making him feel awkward, embarrassed, and disappointed all the time, and would have preferred you just accepting and acknowledging that he wasn’t their relative in the same way your youngest was.

There is no magic bullet piece of advice that people can give that will make you come to terms with this, but maybe try taking the lead from your son and working on accepting reality for what it is, rather than what you think it should be. Why has this impacted you so much? Is it entirely to do with your son, or is at least some of it to do with your own feelings about having children with different fathers? Is that something you feel badly about, because despite having one you feel blended families are lesser and a source of shame? Because you feel looked down upon and rejected by your in laws for having already had a child? I’m not saying any of the above is true btw, or that you think those things, what I’m saying is it’s worth examining your own thinking, and why your triggers are your triggers.

The OP has posted on their situation on an earlier thread (link above from a pp)

It would appear that they are likely tenants in common. The DH has apparently already said that he wishes to leave his own 50% of assets to their joint child and believes that OP should leave her 50% share of the assets to her two children equally.

Tbf to the uncle, we don't know why or how it was worded, and I'm not convinced we'll get an honest response from the Op here.

She says "Younger son and partner’s nephew and we think 2 or 3 others." so shared between his two nephews, that he may have had a special relationship and they only think 2 or 3 others, who may have also had a similar relationship.

It could be worded "I leave x amount to Timmy and Tommy who have visited me often and brought me much joy".
Or "I leave my estate to be divided amount the Rabbit Keeper Troupe, headed by Timmy and Tommy who made me an honorary member".
"Or I leave my estate to be divided between Timmy, Tommy, Tolly and Theo, my nephews, who all found time to visit me in my last years".

Those are very different from the impression "I leave my estate to my male relatives" gives.

But no, she shouldn't be pressurising her younger ds to share, nor dividing hers unequally. She especially shouldn't be pressurising her dh to share his unequally.

Yes I mean mirror wills, not reciprocal.
They both agreed to this. They rewrote their wills in their late 70s when my mum got cancer and didn’t have long. She wanted us completely protected as she was worried my df would be conned into selling up and moving back to Ireland and giving everything to his sisters kids.

Oo the family drama !

This is one reason I personally don't think it's right to produce offspring by different co-parents. One and done.

Doesn't your older son have anyone to inherit from? His dad's family?
You can always give all your wealth to just your younger son?

This seems sensible but for some families the remaining partner may end up with a house to live in for the remainder of their life but very little actual money to live off if all other other assets are left to children. They could live a long time on a very small pension or salary in an expensive-to-maintain house while the adult children are rolling in it, cash-wise, from their inheritance of other assets. I wonder in that case if the adult children would be willing to pay for expensive repairs on the house out of their inheritance, knowing they are going to benefit from the sale of it eventually?

It gets quite complicated and each family will have a very unique set of circumstances. Wills should be reviewed regularly.

Just wow @CovertPiggery (apt name btw) . Your marriage must be utter shit for you to suggest that.

As far as I understand it, the OP has two DC; one with her current DH and one with a previous partner.

I am pretty sure that’s not the law when there is a will.

What is interesting is that it was seen as his assets but I assume everything was in his name.

Maybe I watch too many Jane Austin adaptations, but it's not 'just' money. Money affects every aspect of life, including health and education. It equals choices and freedom. Money is crucial to having a decent life.

Personally, I'd change my own will to leave everything to the disadvantaged child (assuming the definitely won't inherit from anyone else).

No need to even tell your partner if he might kick off or change his to then not leave you anything.

The more I read this, the more I can quite see why family members have been careful not to leave money to OP and DP. With feelings this strong, odds are they've been noticed.

"Please don’t let your partner stay there until he dies."

You do realise, that works both ways? If he dies first then you are saying that the OP should not be allowed to remain in the family home afterwards?

Did You read the OP?

She knows there's nothing she can do - she asked for advice coning to terms with the hurt this has caused.

There are various things to consider when having multiple children, especially with different fathers.

Inheritance is one of them.

Theres always the chance that one family is going to be better off/have less family members and one child is going to receive more than the other.

This can also be the case for pocket money, holidays, presents etc when you have kids with different families.

Instead of seeing it as a negative thing, I would look at the positives.
Your first son is set up, which is great.

I absolutely would not be changing my will as that may cause issues between the siblings.
Instead, I would try and give the 2nd son more financial help whilst I was still alive.

Oh here we go again. Today's installment of the soap opera of "blended families" where people have children who have complex step/half relationships and don't like the fact that children are not inheriting apparently large sums of money from people they are only very tangentially connected to.

It's almost as if these situations could be predicted...

I mean, some people have money in life and some don't. That's just the way it is. At least your eldest son is on the property ladder.

Spouses inherit automatically only if there is no will stating something different.