Stepchild wants to see finances and money spent on his stepsiblings.

It has nothing to do with second family dynamics. Some on MN and in the wider world believe that their parent's assets already belong to them, and their parents are merely keeping the funds warm until the day they are inherited.

This delusion is driven by envy, entitlement, ingratitude and utter disregard for the rights and well being of their parents.

Any functioning adult with a shred of self respect will hope their parents enjoy all their wealth in their lifetime, hopefully a long lifetime. This child has every opportunity to build his own income and wealth, he would do well to focus on that.

Well put - and exactly what I was thinking about all these "I'd sock it to my kid" posts.

You'd think less of your own child rather than wonder what had happened to create such a situation? You'd imagine this all happened in a vacuum and take everything completely at face value? The whole situation can be summed up as easily as "it's my 18 year old's fault, they're just a bad person and love money"?

I suppose when parents with second families see things like this with the depth and introspection of a puddle, it at least explains why the kids haven't learned to navigate the situation much better, but the parents don't have the excuse of youth and, almost certainly, complicated feelings about how they moved on.

I don't think I've seen venom like this on here outside of threads about OW.

Is it a case that he wants all his father’s money spent on him or he just has an issue with his father paying for stuff like ski trips for OP’s kids?
Op’s kids have two parents why can’t they pay for their kids trips? I doubt DH has endless funds.

No, I don’t think an 18 year old has a right to see his father’s finances. But I think it’s a lot emotionally for teenagers to see daddy playing happy families with someone else’s children.

I also think Op is very clearly putting her own kids first as nearly all women do, but men don’t seem to.

The reality is that RG uni or not life is very hard for young people today and I would hope that DH has ringfenced his assets to pass to his children. Your children should always be your number one priority IMO.

Yes, that was me who said it is seldom about just money and I completely agree.

I feel sorry for the son and actually think he is showing some spirit to be challenging the situation he finds himself in. I see it to some degree as loyalty to his grandfather.

I find that in blended situations, dc are labelled difficult if they don't just fall into line and accept whatever. It is more often than not a situation resulting in a difficult balance of conflicting interests and loyalties and the dc are expected to provide the wriggle room for resolution of that.

Actually there was more detail provided.

this kid has been fully supported through education and RG uni. the mother has been meddling and the child is being manipulated and wound up.

similar situation with my H and his DC. They’re all fully funded through private schools and RG unis, paid for by an inherited income. We had one demand for a post graduate course, with a fairly heavy foot stamp of “the trust can pay”

DC was told that the divorce agreement was that all school and education be funded until completion of uni, including the maintenance for the dc, and that the mother had more than enough to take her turn in putting her hands in her pockets to help her child with post graduate education.

This kid will have had a fair chunk of change spent on him already but that’s not enough he wants ALL money, he thinks all his fathers income should be spent on him.

he has no right to demand to see any financial information at all. Its not his money.

Your husband will need to have a difficult conversation with his son. Difficult because it seems that your stepson does not understand how the world works. He has no business or entitlement to know about your husband's finances. Your husband needs to actually go nuclear with this and instruct a solicitor to lay out the rights responsibilities clearly in a legal letter to ensure comprehension.

Unfortunately some of the current upcoming generation are very grabby and entitled. He is already making plans for the money he has not yet inherited!

I don't see any way for this to end happily unfortunately - perhaps he will come to his senses when he is older...

The DSS who is being fully supported through all education and RG uni?

he will have had his skiing trips paid for, plus, plus, plus

no, he just wants ALL money spent on him and has been wound up by the mother. Who I dare say gets/got a healthy maintenance agreement too.

Amen!

Sounds like someone is stirring the pot and you (or your DH) needs to get to the root of who and why.

we had an unexpected family meeting a couple of years back where my cousin advised our uncle his other uncle had showed him a property and said our mutual great grandparents had sold it and everyone but his parents had been given funds. It was simply not true and I managed to work back addresses etc to prove they never lived there.

we have no idea but geese it cause a lot of grief for the lie to exist for years.

You need to get very clear on ownership. I don't think you are right now because you're using words like deplete, subsidise, use as he sees fit.

From what you've written it sounds like:

There is a mechanism (why is it not a Trust?) whereby funds that generate an income ARE NOT OWNED by your husband and his siblings but the income from those assets is divided and then YOUR HUSBAND'S SHARE OF THE INCOME IS OWNED BY HIM.

Your husband's other income is also OWNED BY HIM.

On the death of your husband and (all his?) siblings (ie when the last of them dies?) then the assets in the Trust-like mechanism get divided between your father in law's grandchildren, at which point it will be OWNED BY THE GRANDCHILDREN.

At that point your by then late husband's assets will also be inherited (OWNED) by whoever he leaves them to in his will, likely a combination of you and his children.

Whilst someone OWNS money, they can spend it, keep it, burn it, give it away. They have zero obligation to account for it to anyone else.

Once someone else owns money, the same applies to them.

There is huge, huge 'mumsnet spite' towards children of first families who are supposed to suck up unfair treatment at the hands of one, or both, of their parents, who put their all into new relationships. Posts where a new family inherits everything leaving first children with nothing at all are not uncommon. The OPs DH would do well here to reflect more broadly on his actions and behaviours before declaring his relationship with his children destroyed. It seems unlikely this has come out of the blue, even if crass and unpleasant

"What is motivating the much older adults who can't fling enough shit at this kid they don't know?"

I think it may be because he is demanding that a parent account for how they spend their own money and also demanding that any money that is not spent on him or his sibling is accounted for and reimbursed to him at the time of the parents death.

I certainly wouldn't use some of the language used here, but if a child of mine tried to do that to me then I would very definitely think much less of them.

"He possibly doesn't understand how a 3 year marriage trumps his 18 years as this man's child."

It doesn't, but that does not mean that the DH cannot spend any money at all on his second family which is what the DSS is looking to achieve.

.

"There's also the slightly weird thing of why not show him the finances?"

I'm sorry, but what???

If anything, the father sharing with the son exactly what he spends his money on and having to account for how much is not spent on the child, his full brother or his mother is really quite bizarre.

I would never dream of asking my parents to show me their finances to check what they are spending their money on.

Likewise if my own DC demanded to know what I was spending my money on then they would not be told.

From my time on MN I find that women tend to always prioritise their own children in a way that men don’t seem to. And there does seem to be some hypocrisy on MN around this where women are told to keep their assets.

I think what happened to SS at wedding was awful - he was asked to move seats away from from his own father & aunt at his uncle’s wedding. This was to accommodate his 9 year old SS who wasn’t originally invited. Then his step-brother arrives at his table and announces that his dad has paid for his ski trip. Why couldn’t the kids just have stayed with their dad?

How exactly is a 17 year old supposed to feel about his dad playing happy families and funding other children?

And I think he has a point about the inheritance income. FIL presumably meant his money to go to his own family.

And as someone else said it’s never just about money. It’s often also about what it represents.

Well I get op's point. She massively benefits from husband's estate/income and from the sound of it from previous posts so do her own children.
DSS would also upset me if he inquired as to why he is left out/undercut by his dad's spending and he threatened me getting less.

Extraordinary that an 18-year old has the audacity to demand to go over his father's and step-mother's finances. To demand reimbursement from the stepmother to the 'estate' is outrageous.

He is already thinking ahead to the death of his father and stepmother - at which time he wants some of the proceeds from the house to go into 'his' inheritance as 'compensation' for what he perceives as 'his' money being spent on OP and her children by his (perceived) overly generous father.

It sounds as though he has possibly been put up to this. Plus, he is carrying massive resentment towards his step-siblings and OP. This resentment has led to this nitpicking accounting of his father's spending.

It's for his father to take him aside (even take him alone out to lunch or dinner perhaps) and sort out the facts with him. Fearing backlash is a nox̌nstarter - this son is being supported at uni and by the sound of things, he's dependent on his father to some extent. Father needs to bite the bullet and OP should back out

Explain:
a) son has No rights to father's financial information - it's private

b) how father spends his income is up to father, not son; there will be no
reimbursement from OP's share of house or in any other way

c) the assets left to the four siblings are inviolable - the siblings receive income from the assets but cannot touch the assets; these assets are not affected by father's day to day spending of his cash income

d) the assets will eventually be sold off and then GFs descendants will get equal shares

e) the shared house of OP and husband will... explain the intentions eg house will be occupied until death of both OP and father, sold and proceeds split accordingly, no 'reimbursements' to the 'estate'

f) father loves his sons, supports them fully, but at the same time is going to continue to show care and support to his stepchildren

g) father has a partner and they as a couple decide on arrangements, with consideration of all four children in mind; no further discussion is to be had about finances

OP needs to ensure her children are not antagonising the stepchildren and fueling resentment

This maybe isn’t about the money. Your SS sounds very resentful and may feel cast aside in some way.
Your DH should find a way to broach this subject. Your SS is still young and may need validation about perceived slights and some healing before a being told that he needs to have more respect for his loving father and forebears before presuming to inherit anything.

He definitely needs to be put back in his place. I have to wonder what sort of vile behaviour he generally shows for the husband to be worried about "backlash" and being "terrified" of the result that might come from telling the cheeky little fucker - who "bitterly resents" his father spending his own money as he chooses - to back off and mind his own business.

Asking to inspect personal finances and demand reimbursements from an estate feels quite overstepping, especially right before starting university.

also / inheritance and stepchildren is a tough one. My DH came into our relationship with very little and has hugely benefitted from my income and existing assets, similarly I have befitted from his inheritance (many years into our marriage) - I think it is fair to divide our shared assets and wealth that exist in the marriage (cash, family home, property etc) equally between our joint children and my stepchildren and that things belonging entirely to me (such as copyright over my works - I make a living as an artist) go solely to my children.

he is 18 and acting as a jumped up little dick with an overblown sense of entitlement - but that’s 18 year olds to some extent. It is for your DH to explain that DSS is not owed a living by his father, by you, by his grandfather’s estate or otherwise. I don’t see this as a relationship ending conversation/situation with a young adult child to be honest / there often need to be frank discussions about finances.

Because he saw his step-sister getting something nice and his immediate thought that his dad must have paid for it.

As hard as I try to cut him some slack, I keep coming back to him being greedy, selfish and resentful

You have presented this as coming out of the blue however the resentment your step children feel was apparent in the post you did about the wedding. You cannot be blind to that. Dss may well need income details from his dad towards his uni living loan which is fair enough. Nobody is owed an inheritance. If the grandfather left it so the money went to his own grandchildren then fair enough but if he left it to his son then it is up to him to decide what to do with it. You've stated those assets will go to his children and if tat is all set out and protected then there shouldn't be an issue.

What dss doesn't get to do is dictate how his dad spends money he earns and if it was my child I would be telling them that. Your dh needs to be firm in telling his children that he loves them but they don't get yo dictate to him how he manages his own income.

I would assume its about uni.
He maybe being expected to confirm parents money and his own. But anyhow it seems crazy he may need a loan if his dad is receiving all this money. Has he not saved to pay for the fees and living costs?

Has he not savwd money into his kids accounts for uni costs