I'm really interested to get people's thoughts on this as a friend has recently been through a very difficult situation with her dad and his decision over his will and it's got me thinking.
Her dad remarried when he was in his early sixties after having been married to her mum for 3 decades. Work wise he's a very successful man and as with any high flyer quite a lot of sacrifice had to be made by her mum and by extension my friend to facilitate him being able to build that career. Things like moving abroad when work dictated, limits on the amount of time he was around when she was growing up when the hard graft had to go in, all for the long term intention that the hard sacrifice would pay off in the end for the family. Sadly the pressures from it contributed to the eventual divorce.
That then leads me onto the current situation. As said above he went onto re-marry shortly after the divorce. Her step-mum has kids of her own but all kids on either side were young adults when they married. They were in very different situations financially and at the time he had made sure my friend knew that his will would be such that his wife would be looked after if he pre-deceased her but that the lions share would be protected for her (his daughter).
Her dad has continued on with his financial success, a few years ago even came into a large sum of money when he sold a company he started when my friend was younger. That triggered him to re-visit his will and he has since decided that his current wife is entitled to 50% of everything due to the length of marriage (of which the law agrees), he briefly had it that his wife would inherit everything trusting that she would divide it equally between her kids and my friend when she then passed (assuming he predeceases her as he's older). This has caused a great deal of upset. My friend isn't close with her step-family and is finding the idea very hard that they are effectively profiting off of something they've not themselves made a sacrifice for as by the time they married kids were already grown up and the hard foundational work requiring the big sacrifice had long since passed.
This brings me onto the thread title. I've tried to put myself in her shoes and honestly I think I'd feel exactly the same way even though the sums in my case would be much smaller.
It feels to me that the laws on marriage and inheritance were written at a time when second, third (fourth even!) marriages were so uncommon it didn't need to account for how you can legally protect assets for your children (or whoever) without having to do a serious amount of mental gymnastics to achieve it. I do actually know of another friend whose dad thinks it's so important to protect his finances for his kids he refuses to even live with his long term partner, let alone marry her. That to me seems sad that actually should he want to marry her (which who knows maybe he doesn't want to), he is choosing to not as the complication it would cause for him and his kids inheritance is so great.
YABU - yes the law is fine as it is
YANBU - things have changed a lot and law needs modernising to better protect everyone given blended families are on the rise, not just your spouse