Inheritance dilemma

Mother’s help? Slacker’s help more like @midlifesharp 🫣😱🤣 she sounds awful. She could have joined the call if she had practised. She is jealous of you. Do NOT give her the pieces - it is up to your MIL who has what. You have done what you were asked to do and MIL chose to go ahead. So tough luck SIL, get over yourself.

Annoyed on your behalf OP!

I do agree with you overall on this.

I was given jewellery from Great-Grandmothers and Aunties, not my brother.

My Mum doesn’t have much jewellery, but would give it to myself and my sister, or a daughter of my brother’s, but not my brother directly or his wife.

It is already in my will that my daughter will receive my jewellery. My DH will leave our son all of his valuable watches, cuff links, etc. My daughter already knows the huge importance of my eternity ring in particular marking her birth and being linked explicitly to her name, we discuss it a lot and she’s understood it will be hers from age 3. My daughter and I spend time together daily doing our hair, choosing clothes and jewellery together. I will update my will if my son has a daughter with a special piece of jewellery for her too.

It’s not the fault of this OP that she has been left some jewellery though- her SIL should take it up with her mother. It doesn’t sound at all like the OP pressured her MIL for some.

That's basically what the suggested 'practice' would have been.

If the daughter had been bothered, she could have very easily asked to have a test teams call with OP or one of the others, so she knew how to do it for the 'big one'.

Or if she's so hopeless that it's beyond her, she could have asked her son from the start. I know very little about fixing cars, but if I have a car that needs fixing, I ask a mechanic; I don't just assume that, because I can't do it, nobody can.

Once somebody is an adult, it is up to them to start learning how to do important things in life themselves or otherwise seek help from somebody else who can do them. You can't expect other adults to keep on treating you like a baby forever.

The only important thing in this whole situation is that she hasn’t been out to visit once. She sounds completely self-absorbed and entitied. Her behaviour is what you’d expect from someone like that. No more needs to be said. Ignore her.

You're making assumptions. I'm an only child. There's no point in passing my mother's jewellery or mine to my female cousins - they actually sold their own mother's jewellery. Mine will be going to the family of my nephew through marriage.

But it very rarely works that way.

Possessions usually get handed down directly, so if you have, say, three children and something goes to one of them, it will almost invariably go to their children and not to their nieces or nephews. Also, what about if you only have sons and no granddaughters when you die, but they go on to have daughters at a later stage?

In OP's case, you're potentially relying on the goodwill of a son giving £50,000 of his inheritance to a niece, rather than to his own son, purely because of her sex.

no. The rest of the estate should be split up equally between siblings

The old laws about sons being the inheritors of money/real estate are wrong and so is the idea of daughters being the inheritors of jewely. It's 2025. If your kids/grandkids are in the fortunate enough position to inherit something, sex should not be a factor.

Despite my rather grabby SIL moaning about not inheriting any of my mum's jewellery, I don't think you should allow your SIL to bully you into defying your MIL's wishes. It sounds like you deserve those few bits of jewellery far more than your SIL.

I suppose you could have set up a test zoom or teams call between the two of you in advance of the family meeting - but why pander to the 'helpless little me' act?
she sounds a pain in the ass

There are no guarantees.

I know of cases where the daughter has sold the jewellery.

your granddaughters if you have them? Or your brothers’ daughters

But if you're looking at it purely from a financial pov - the same as with valuable art or property - the blunt truth is that in three generations' time, the owner will care very little (if they even know) that it once belonged to a woman whom they never met or knew.

Why is it more virtuous for a great-grandaughter to whom it (and the original owner) means virtually nothing sentimentally to eventually have it, than for a very close and much-loved DIL to have it now?

Its very simple. Mil possessions, she decides.
You dont dishonour her wishes by giving sil anything

I’m really surprised by the posters saying jewelry should only go to blood daughters. My mum thinks this too. I think it pains her to think of an unrelated woman walking off into the sunset with jewels that were bought for her by my dad, especially as they both would have thought long and hard before spending that money and probably went ahead knowing it would go to their DD/any GDD. I think it would be cruel to leave out her DILs, mothers of her GDCs! Maybe it’s a generational thing. My mum’s parents had nothing to leave her so this is the first generation of stuff. My dad’s family did, but not loads. Maybe it’s different if an item has been in the family for decades/centuries.

This is possibly the most amazing post I have ever seen on Mumsnet!
I cannot believe people are so entrenched in their views - many of which are so entitled.

Weird to read people say jewellery should be passed from mother to daughter! Why??

The jewellery is MILs to divvy up whatever way she sees fit. It sounds like she has two lovely DIL and she is leaving them something to remember her by. They both have a daughter so the pieces will probably pass down to her granddaughters.

The daughter is still getting 90% of the jewellery. She is not hard done by.

OP, let your DH deal with his sister. Don’t give it another thought. Continue to carry out your MILs wishes.

Oh come on, it's an admin task. Who's got the time and capacity to do it best.

Would it be ok if she'd given the jewellery to her son's?

OP, you're fine, of course your MIL wants to pass something onto her DILs and that it will one day end up with her grandchildren. And you're fine to have set up a call that a 10 year old could connect to and to have not gone over and beyond. If a 10 year old can connect to it, your SIL could connect to it. You knew she'd make a drama etc. but the pandering is going to stop now.

I have a really lovely daughter-in-law and if I had a lot of jewelry I would certainly want to leave her some of it. I think it's a significant that she wants to leave you something she was wearing on the day she met you. It's very moving. I hope she will soon be finally at peace and never gets to realise what an absolute cow her daughter was.

D'oh, sorry - of course it wasn't Mrseasy who made the same point - she apparently expressed the opposite opinion!

And? So what if it ‘leaves the family’? It may well ‘return’ in time anyway, if the hypothetically divorced SIL leaves it to her daughter, but even if it doesn’t, so what? Not everyone values family above all else. Some family relationships are great, others much less so. The quality of a relationship is what’s important, not the ‘blood connection’. My SIL was far better to my mother than some of her own children were, and also than other SILs who had known my mother for far longer. I find those who go on about ‘faaaaaaamily’ are very often those who do precious little to nurture relationships but expect everything because ‘faaaaaamily’.

It's not: the lady's sons are just as much blood family as is her daughter - and as in most marriages, their spouses jointly own what they do.

It's just that the sons are unlikely to want to wear the jewellery themselves and are obviously going to pass it to their wives to wear - but it's still owned by their family, and they will probably love seeing their treasured mum's jewellery being worn by another treasured woman in their life - so why not give it to the (much-loved) wives directly?

I think there are a lot of entitled daughters on here who are projecting.

Even if £50k's worth was going to you and the remaining £5k split between your brothers' wives?

Even if the answer is still yes, you'd need to take it up with your mother. It's her decision.