Inheritance dilemma

Too true
my dh loves to see me waring his mum gold necklace - only worn on special occasions- must give it an airing soon.

Well done for being deliberately obtuse.

Because I don't think it is relevant to MIL's decision to give jewellery to the OP, her choice to accept it, or the SILs indignation at this outcome. All human relationships can be complex. If you don't want to be "replaced", go and visit your mum. Especially if you do sweet Fanny Adams with your time at home anyway.

If inheritances are fraught as seen as proof of love, then so is managing to visit an ailing parent once in 4 years.

You missed the bits where I said, 1. The MIL can leave what she wants to whom she wants, and 2. The SIL’s upset over these jewellery pieces jewellery may well be misplaced emotions about her relationship with her mother and her mother’s relationship with the OP.

Inheritances are more often than not extremely fraught because they are seen as proof of love/value by both the donor and the recipient. In this case, the OP has clearly been left something out of love and not just out of obligation on the part of MIL to hand over her assets to her next of blood kin. And the SIL was not a part of that conversation and we don’t know if the piece OP has been left was also important to the SIL, or whether she is kicking off because she feels devalued in some way, or if she is simply a selfish person who wants it all. We don’t know the history of the SIL and MIL relationship or their current relationship. A 4 year absence of meeting isn’t indicative of their history, nor is it necessarily indicative of a rift. It could point to laziness or incompetence on the SIL’s part or it could be something like fear or enforcing a boundary or plain denial that she’s dying. We don’t know as we only have the OP’s unflattering portrait of the SIL and idolisation of the MIL to go on. My point is, what is done is done, the OP has her gift, and as it’s the SIL losing her mother, not the OP, the OP should cut her some slack if emotions are running high.

And yet she hasn't visited her now, and MIL has chosen to give some things to OP. Either stop projecting, or, if everything here is genuinely close to the bone, and you see yourself in OP's SIL, then maybe be nicer to your mum

Lucky for sil she doesn't have sisters. Then she would have had to share it with them. As it she gets to keep almost all of it.
Why are her brothers deemed less worthy to inherit jewellery anyway. They might not want to wear it but they might like to see it on those they love.

Your posts about all about yourself. Get a grip. The woman chose to give her daughter 90% of her jewelry and 5% each to her DILs. And learn how to use zoom if you are indeed "a professional" in 2025.

@midlifesharpplease graciously accept what your DMIL has gifted you, she has expressed her wish for you to have the item/s as a token of her love for you.
For those posters arguing that jewellery should pass through the female line only are you aware of the history behind the tradition?! All property passed through the male line (the patriarchy, yup 😉) except the jewellery which was the ONLY thing owned by the women... If you really want to go backwards then keep arguing that a lady who is totally aware of her own mortality is not allowed to dispose of her own property as she sees fit !
💐for you @midlifesharp, I hope you are able to find peace in the fact that your DMIL loves you x

To those saying all the jewellery should go to the daughter, why? I have 2 brothers, they are no less a child of my mothers than I am. My mother died without leaving a will. My brothers expected that I would have her jewellery, but I offered it to them to either give to their wives or daughter. Both decided that our mother wasn’t close to either wife and so refused. However one of my brothers wanted 2 items that our mother wore daily, to remember her by, which I gave him as I was no more entitled to it than he was.

You remind me of my manipulative sister-in-law who acts like the suns shines out of my mother's arse. All sugary sweet and fake.

You have no idea as to what kind of relationship blood mother & daughter had growing up so you have no right to judge.

Painting yourself as a martyr whilst sneaking away with the goods. Karma will catch up.

Maybe it would be more appropriate if SIL waited a year or two after MIL passed, to contact you in a non-aggressive way and explain her reasons why it means so much to her to have that item in her possession.

I agree that she seems both lovely and also very wise.

Yet she's been blamed on here for wanting to very sensibly use a simple and common-sense technology for people who live a long way apart to discuss and explain her decisions for whom she wants to have her treasured belongings whilst she's still alive.

Apparently, she should just hurry up and die and quietly leave a written list of items and names with her solicitor, without actually wanting to trouble her family with a final significant (online) meeting - so that her entitled, argumentative daughter can make demands and sully her memory.

This. And it was weird that you allowed the zoom call to go on for so long without her actual daughter present. Very rude.

Ppl might not agree but morally that jewellery is not yours. You've trespassed.

But if you have such a complicated relationship with a parent you won't visit them in years, you can't reasonably demand that all the additional jewelry inheritance (over and beyond the equal split between you and your siblings) goes to you alone. Complicated relationship means just that - it's complicated. You can't have your cake and eat it and adults have to get grips with that when it comes to their responsibilities and rights.

I think it was awful and horribly cruel to allow the zoom call to go on for 35 mins without her daughter linked in. Id find that extremely cheeky and I'm not surprised SIL was upset.

Im a professional woman, and even I have technical issues with zoom. It was as though you set her up to fail.

Yes, it's absolutely shocking for an adult child to not even want to ensure they visit their parent, when they know they will very soon be dead.

Of course, it's completely different if they've been terrible and/or abusive 'parents' (not worthy of the name) to you and you've long been no contact with them; but when you have a 'normally' affectionate relationship with them, but just think it's a bit too much effort to even bother doing that one final thing for them whilst you still can.

Even more so if you're merrily (and 'furiously' defended) feeling entitled to inherit £50K or more of just jewellery from them, let alone all the rest of the money or property that you stand to gain.

Why shouldn't the MIL in this case leave her stuff to whomever she wants? In this particular instance it sounds as though the piece in question has a sentimental value too. It's not weird to leave something to a treasured daughter in law because our possessions are not portfolios that need to be kept together at all costs, so even if there were a divorce and the jewellery (gasp!) left the family - so what? The relationship that the MIL wanted to honour has still happened.

Inheritances bring out weird stuff in people and can turn them, or at least make them seem, incredibly grabby when they're not normally. I would simply say that it's not your decision to make and let your SIL process her disappointment in time.

I’m sorry you’re going through this.
When mil died SIL more or less grabbed the lot (Jewellery).
it upset dh a lot.
Your mil sounds lovely
Ignore SIL and her tantrums.
I and other sil have a few peaces that we treasure ….sadly the ripples of SIL’s ‘attention seeking ‘ are still being felt , some years after …. Even today , after sil falling out with everyone , several months ago….sil is causing drama.
It’s just grabby and leaves a bad taste.

@Robin67 completely missing the point I am making about complicated relationships.

Well then she could always jump on a plane and visit her. She isn't dead yet.

It's not unnecessarily dramatic, the poor MIL os dying. That is a fairly dramatic thing for her to have to face. They don't all live in the same country. Also, a letter to read or unexpected will findings would be far more dramatic and unpleasant

I think @midlifesharp your MIL is at liberty to leave what she wants to whom she wants. Whilst having a video conference to discuss inheritance sounds needlessly dramatic and over the top, you did nothing wrong organising it or giving your SIL the tools to join it.

However, your posts make me uncomfortable. You sound like you don’t think your SIL “deserves” or is “worthy” to be the daughter of your high achieving MIL and think that role belongs to you; or you wish she was your actual mother and that your own mother hadn’t been. Whatever the rights and wrongs of SIL’s behaviour (including not visiting her mother for 4 years), and no matter what rapport/love/respect you have with your MIL, your MIL is SIL’s mother, not yours. Familial relationships are complicated, if not minefields of years of built up expectations/hurts/let downs etc, and it is much easier to come in as an outsider and see the confident matriarch only through the lens of her present, shiny, polished self, and not the person she was leading up to that point - not seeing the potentially messy person her own children will have seen and had to put up with, resulting in a less close relationship in their adulthood. You are losing someone you admire and love but your SIL is losing her mother, so you should cut her some slack on this. Her upset over these jewellery pieces may well be displaced emotions about her relationship with her mum and feeling “replaced” by you.

And for heaven’s sake, keep your nose out of the inheritance distribution and “accounting” for the value of the jewellery. That really is none of your business, your husband’s inheritance is not a marital asset.

This thread reminds me of one from some time ago, where OP's DH had tragically predeceased his own mother, and the mother responded by redrawing her will to leave everything solely to her surviving children, with nothing whatsoever to her late son's widow OR to his children.

To her, a direct next-generation blood tie was all that mattered. Once her son had died, his beloved family were nothing to her.

You can be gutted. But if your mum decides to give it to sil, a friend, the deliveroo person....tough.

What an incredibly rude, unfeeling thing to say to someone who loves you enough to bequeath you jewellery while they are still alive but unwell. "No"..."screw your beautiful sentiment, but I reject it, and you"... Or the ever-patronising "you don't know what you want.... I know what you want... this is what you want..."

you asked me who to give your jewellery to without giving me any further info! That’s why I had to make an assumption. But you’re right, I could have asked your exact circs. Mostly, I’m glad you have someone nice to give your jewellery to x