If you are a second wife, do you expect to inherit everything from your husband?

[rickyrickygrimes]

… or do you expect him to leave something to his children from a previous marriage?

This subject comes up often on here: man is widowed, inherits everything from his wife, remarries, then dies - leaving everything to his second wife and his children inherit nothing.

this happened quite recently to a friend of mine, which not only did not inherit but also lost his livelihood as he was employed in his fathers business, which his second wife chose to sell as she wasn’t interested in running it.

I’m in France where (as I understand it) children cannot be completely disinherited from a will i.e. part of the estate is always reserved for children and the spouse does not inherit everything. This leads to some very complicated situations but does mean that all children will inherit something from their parents, no matter what the relationship between the parents / children is like.

we often hear from the children on here but not often the pov of the second wife. So I’m interested to know what you think? Do you expect to inherit everything from your husband (which is pretty standard between married couples in the UK)? Or would you expect his children from previous relationships to be included / recognised in his will - especially if he has previously inherited from their mother?

It’s not ‘defrauding’ the children.

What is it then? We’ve accumulated our joint assets in a 24 year marriage. Who do you think should benefit from them when we’re dead?

In my case, my husband is my 2nd husband, my will leaves everything to him and upon his death it all goes to my child, his step child. If my husband had, had children with his 1st wife, then of course I would expect them to get some inheritance. Children no matter their age should inherit something from their parent/s, if an inheritance is there.

It can. But it’s not a given. And many things can go badly wrong in life.

Think this is probably very wise!

Lol are you serious? Of course they do

I’m sure that in the vast majority of cases it’s not a / the main consideration, but to imagine that no one ever does this is so naive!

I think a lot depends on what second spouses come into the marriage with. In our case, he had 2x thirds of the money and I had the remaining third. Tidily, he had two children and I had one. Our will states that the surviving spouse inherits everything, and then the estate is divided between the three children (all adult) equally, but with two exceptions; the money my parents left me,and which formed the start of my savings, goes to my child. In addition, she inherits whatever remains of my workplace pension lump sum. My DH gets an annuity from my pension, and quite a lot of my savings have been spent on improving our house, which will benefit all three children when it comes to sell. I worked for ten years longer than my DH did, and both of us have been extremely generous, and continue to be, with all three of them, and their children.

My mum died (without a will) and everything went to my dad (other than a couple of grand left to my brother and I from an insurance policy).
years later my dad met someone else and they both sold their houses to buy one together. At that point my dad gave my brother and I money from the sale of the house as part of our inheritance.
I've no idea what his will says now will happen after he dies, they own their house 50/50 and obviously the new partner will continue to live in it. I assume everything will go to her as we were already given money, but not sure.

I married a widower 20 years ago and he has two children from his first marriage. If he dies before me I get about 1/3, and the rest goes to his adult children. I would anticipate leaving some of that 1/3 to them on my death. I also own my own property.

One son has said he wants every thing when I die, rather grasping and unpleasant of him I thought, bearing in mind what I have paid while in the marriage.

It’s interesting how it’s often the stepmother/second wife who is thought of as grasping and a gold digger. But in my experience it’s not the case. Not sure, knowing what I now know, that I would have married a widower, I’m afraid.

I was a second wife, DH had one adult daughter. He left everything to me. I kept my pre marriage wealth then split everything we had accumulated/was his 50/50 with my DSD. She had no expectation. We’re very close, calls me her bonus mum. It felt right to do it that way. Whatever helps you sleep at night

PS We’ve made very careful Wills, so that when one of us dies and if the remaining person become vulnerable, that a grasping third person doesn’t pinch it all!

My partner’s father built up a business and was absent doing this for much of my partners childhood. He divorced my partner’s mother when my partner was a late teen, remarried, sold the business, sold his home (family second home) to purchase several properties with his second wife with whom he had a child. He then died and his second wife took everything. She even said to me that my partner inherits from his mother not his father because of the divorce? As the years have gone by her own son is now mid 20’s, has never worked (I mean not a Saturday job, a part time job nothing) but lives in a 600k property in SE England bought outright in his name with his parents money (hard now to distinguish whether that is his mothers money or his fathers). Meanwhile,my partner inherited nothing from his father; not cash, property or family heirlooms. I’m hoping his half brothers mother remembers her mantra of only inheriting from one parent in her will
but I somehow doubt that. Yes, it’s down to his Dad for not ring fencing his first family, but I honestly don’t know how the second wife sleeps at night. I think people make decisions in the moment and fail to see how the future will affect them. Yes, of course as a young family the second family needed security but time moved on and whilst my partner struggled at the same age to establish himself working multiple jobs, his half sibling hasn’t lifted a finger his whole life off the same
father’s efforts. It is galling and hurtful.

NO. However, everything my husband and I have now we have collected together, so over the years he has given everything he previously had to his daughter. So yes now that everything we have, we have collected together it will come to me, or to him and then my daughter through our will.

So if you have both collected it together, why will some of that go to your daughter but nothing to his?

I believe in England that everything goes to the spouse if there is no will. Therefore if someone re marries and wants their children to inherit then they need to write a will to say so.

Whatever your circumstance I would always advise writing a will with your wishes. Seen too many family’s fall out and fall apart over money after someone has died.

It's not quite true that everything goes to the spouse, it would have taken you about three seconds to look it up.

I honestly don’t think it’s over money though. It’s over claims to that person, and I think a lot of hurt gets played out with money as the currency, so to speak.

No need to be rude, as I said I believe not that I was certain. This was information given to me at a course at work.

MIL has a second husband and they have one child from this second marriage who is grown up and married himself. I expect MIL to die first as she's a fair bit older than her husband. I expect the husband to inherit everything and then pass on everything to his only child when he passes. I hope this is not for a very long time - also for DH's sake. I would feel so gutted if my mum wouldn't have left me anything at all (and there wasn't much to inherit but it was almost a point of principle for me). I hope DH will be able to cope. I will be gutted for him but will keep my mouth shut to not make things even worse.

Well done. I think we are really talking about the 70 year olds here. More a generation that will have a second family to (or not )think about when they die. That said iam with you on this.

My dad remarried when I was about 7. I expect to get absolutely nothing whatsoever when he dies, it will go to his second wife and children from their marriage. I don't care.

Had this situation within my family, MIL divorced and stayed single with 2 dc, FIL
remarried and took on 2 sc, their dm dies and ex FIL gets back intouch with MIL and his own now grown up dc, FIL dies 18 months later and his grown up sc inherit everything, nothing went to his own dc, very disheartening situation

We get married later this year. Dp has no assets and only a life insurance policy. The terms of his policy statement that it is calculated sp that his maintenance patments are covered until their son is 21, this goes to his ex wife. If his son is already 21 then it is split 50/50 between his son and I.

I own my house and we have a prenup to protect it. I also took legal advice etc.

My will needs updating but basically he gets nothing if I die as it all goes to be sold to help raise my dd or if she is an adult then it goes to her directly. When she is older i will speak to my dd, as I would like to leave him with right to remain until she is 25 should I die young.

@Brumbies I concur it is completely naive - numerous predatory vultures have been circling my father since about 3 months after my mothers death.

Of course his children should get something.

My parents divorced when I was very young, mum went on to remarry. I was told ( by her) aged 11 that she was changing her will and leaving everything to new husband and my half sibling. She died last year and sure enough I was executor of the will but not a beneficiary. It’s not the money at all but it hurts to feel excluded.