Husband not included me in will

[Finallyfeelstrong]

I’ve just been given a copy of will my husband had done at Christmas.
We have been together for 7 years and married for 1year. He has grown up sons, grandchildren and a son who lives with us as his home life was chaotic. I also have two grown up children and a younger one living with us.
I work full time and husband has a business. When I met him it was only just keeping a float. Since then he has built it into a million pound business. I have worked, payed the mortgage and the cost of renovations on the house we bought that I lived in initially as I had all children at home and neither house was big enough. So I lived across the road and paid £650 a month rent as it covered full renovation and the mortgage is £210. I continue to pay the mortgage on that house and renovations and my adult children with one of his live in their. I also pay towards bills and groceries etc in the house we all live in.
I look after both his and my younger children and raise him as my own. My own child goes to his fathers every weekend and half of every holiday and his son sees his mum for a couple of hours once a week.
Anyway I was given a copy of the will my husband wrote after we were married as he had promised his exw that kids would be looked after. Which is what I also would expect.
The will states I’m to be guardian of his younger child, his mum hasn’t been informed, that the business, all the properties, 500k in life insurance will be given to children of his marriage and kept in trust, for his kids and their futures.
That I can live in the house I’ve actually paid for rent free for the rest of my life but can’t sell it etc even though he told me it could be and on death to be split between all our kids
It explicitly states that other than the house I pay for that is already covered in a different clause. Should-my name- benefit from any part of my estate other than the property named.

My goodness, OP, what a very complicated and stressful situation . I’m so sorry about your DD.

Thank you for explaining how things have come about. Does the fact that his ex wife is so difficult influence the way he treats you, do you think? She sounds completely toxic to any children around, grown up or otherwise. It might explain his attitude towards marriage, if he’s been “burned” before. It does sound at least that he wants to do the best for his children, which is a nice thing, but in doing so he has forgotten to include you as a “dependent” too.

it is such a complicated situation I think it’s hard for anyoke to give advice. I don’t think it sounds as simple now you’ve explained things as “leave the bastard, he’s treating you like shit.”

You need to had a very open and frank discussion with him and give him a chance to see how HE would feel if the situation were reversed.

Bandara

I’m not stating, or have ever stated in any post, that I should gain all financial assets.

I agree his children should be given the assists he built alone. But what if we are married another 25-30 years before anything happens?

Should I just lose everything alongside losing my husband. But to then worry where I would live? My pension is automatically halved and given to both husband and wife, so I would then struggle to live, have to ask who ever lives in my house to leave and move into a strange home, alongside grieving for my husband?

How is that fair? How is it just because I’m his second wife and he my first husband, that I’m a lesser value person? I didn’t destroy his marriage -that happened 6 years prior to meeting me. So why should I not have security in my future just because I happened to meet after his first wife left him?

I look after his children, grandchildren, I organise family outings, holidays, Xmas and everything else a mum and wife would do for a family and it’s future!

I did nothing wrong except meet a man who I fell in love with, who happened to have been married once before.

I don’t want his assets but I should be thought about and made sure I’m secure if he died.

I thing it’s incredibly heartless to say a person who wants to create a second family for everyone rightly deserves to lose anything they built. To hear the pride in your statement makes me feel very sad that your undertone reads of gloating that everything was left to kids and she was forgotten. Why was her life with your father so meaningless to not warrant looking after in some way. If she had been the first wife then it’s automatically catered to. Second wife’s are really viewed in such a disrespectful light. When actually most deserve a medal as it’s very very difficult been the second -especially if it’s their only and first marriage!

Sorry cross posted Bandara

No wonder you feel hurt, so would I

It’s deplorable, he’s basic gone behind your back and done all this

Can I ask
What his he like otherwise with money with you in a general way?

I’m so sorry for the loss of your child.

To be clear, you didn’t pay the mortgage and for renovations on the original house. You paid your landlord (who happened to be your DH) rent, and paid separately to have the house adapted to suit your DC’s needs. There is no legal equivalence, however it may have felt at the time.

Setting that aside, because it’s really not important (and I can’t get my head around a wife paying her husband rent), the fact your DH told you before marriage that you’d go on the deeds of the house then changed his mind post-marriage, tells you everything you need to know. You were thinking of your big, crazy, bustling and busy family life, pitching in, pulling your weight. He was thinking of himself and his children. You were thinking “us”. He was thinking “me and mine”.

I never tell people to LTB on MN threads because nothing is ever that straightforward. But honestly, here, it’s clear as day. You’re a serf, living on his estate, doing his cooking and cleaning and raising his children and running around doing all the admin, paying him rent out of your actual paid work. Because he’s “a good man”, he’ll see you right in your dotage by allowing you to live in one of his houses rent-free until you die. That really is how he sees it. It’s modern-day servitude, it’s how the plebs in Downton Abbey lived! It’s certainly not marriage. Don’t be fooled by the crumbs of cheap words he throws at you.

Don’t beat yourself up. Lord knows you were on your knees when he came into your life. But he’s not the knight in shining armor you thought he was. He’s taken advantage of you, used you. That’s worse than ignoring your plight and not getting into a relationship with you. He knew what he was doing all along.

God life is cruel sometimes, and people evil. So difficult not being bitter.

Maybe you should suggest to him that as he is unwilling to provide you with the financial security you require you will have to focus your energy on building a career and earnings in order to be able to provide for yourself. Obviously that would mean that he would need to address his own childcare needs......

OP you should get legal advice. It might actually put your mind to ease. I'm not in the UK and am no legal expert, but I believe that as his wife, anything you both accumulate during marriage is for both of you. So he can pass on to his children everything he accumulated before marriage, and half of what you both accumulated during marriage. But he can't pass on your portion of marital assets.

However, get legal advice so you know where you stand financially.

How you feel towards him knowing he could do this to you is another issue.

Sorry, in reply to the question: yes he should provide for his children, but he should also do right by you. That has to be an arrangement you both agree on, nobody else can decide whether 10-90 is right or 90-10, or any number in between. The law tries, but doesn’t always get it right.

I'm so sorry for your loss
You've been so vulnerable and he's taken advantage of it. What a horrible person he is.
Do you have any emails or messages from him stating that the house would be put in your name or any paperwork/receipts showing the money you have spent on the house? I'd gather together any evidence and make an appointment with a solicitor. If you're still making payments towards that house, I'd stop them too until you can put it on a formal legal footing.

He has 15 properties and begrudges you just one, your own home, that you contribute financially to? Jeez, that's appalling. I echo getting legal advice. Is he financially abusive/controlling generally?

I'm so, so sorry to read your updates about your daughter. Please take on board the advice on here to see a solicitor ASAP. I'm concerned that you say you decided to live together after your daughter died. Was that his decision too? Was he supportive during her illness?

This will be very emotive, OP. Perhaps it might be best to engage your own solicitor if you can afford it and get an independent view of what the will says. Then explain the background about your contribution and the other background to the marriage and longer-term relationship. When you've received independent legal advice then use that to inform your next steps, whether to continue in the marriage as is, instruct your DP to 'change the will to something you feel is equitable or else' or, if necessary, go straight to 'or else' if your trust is permanently lost and/or you could/would financially benefit from a divorce. Good luck.

How awful OP. His response tells you all you need to know. Sorry, it must be so scary right now but in the long run, you will be doing the right thing. Divorce him and take 50%.

You need a solicitor, not MN.

Bandara: I guess if she was just his girlfriend and they had never sealed it legally by marriage then she must have guessed that she wouldn’t be left anything. But I guess it depends on whether she lived with him, for how long, etc

I had a relative who moved in with a much older man when she was in her early 30s, at first just because the flatshare with her friend had come to an end. But she ended up staying with this man and they grew to love each other, despite the age gap. She gave up her life for him as she was desperate for children but he refused as he already had a grown up son and didn’t want to start again with a young family. Of course she ended up being his nurse when he reached old age and she had had no life at all of her own. Thankfully he realised what she had given up for him and he insisted that they get married when he got older so that she would be provided for upon his death and could keep the house that he had bought just before she moved in with him. So the house became hers upon his death, after about 12 years of them living in it together . I’m not sure how his son felt when his dad died as that time he was just left some shares and a bit of cash but of course the bulk of his estate was in his dad’s house, which my relative was continuing to live in.

My relative continued to live in the house on her own many years longer than her husband had lived in it with her. With property prices increasing so much since the house was bought the estate was worth a lot by the time she died 30 years later. Who, then, at that point, did the house belong to?

She had lived in it a lot longer than her husband who had bought it, however did not sell it to buy her “own” new place that her stepson would have no legal or moral claim in. one could still have looked upon it as her house after all that time though and as such she needn’t really have considered her grown up stepson in her own will at all (they had little to do with each other really, but she was generous with him at birthdays etc) and could have taken the view that he had had money from his father in the form of shares and some cash when he had died many years before. She had also lived very frugally since her husband’s death many years earlier and so any savings of her own or shares she built up since her husband’s death could be considered all her own. She had her own blood relatives who she would have liked to leave some of her estate to (although these weren’t her actual children.). So she worried what to leave to whom. About what was morally right for everyone.

In the end a solicitor advised her to look upon her estate as half belonging to her dead husband and half belonging to her, and so she wrote her will to reflect this. When she died her grown up step son received half and her own blood relatives received half. Her grown up step son received far more than if she had sold the house at the time her husband died and given the stepson a fair share before buying her own house afresh and kind of “wiping the slate clean” in terms of having to consider him at all in her own will.

Seems fair to me but it just shows how many factors there are to consider in step families. Not every case is the same I feel.

Sorry, OP, this has completely veered away from your dilemma. But I do feel that with step families it’s not cut and dried a lot of the time. Your situation also shows this.

I was under the impression that, unless you sign a pre-nump prior to getting married, you are legally entitled to half of all assets accrued within the marriage as once married, you are financially tied to one and other as well as legally. I wouldn't imagine that his will, preventing you from inheriting these funds would stand up in court. However, I may be wrong.

Either way, he doesn't value you so he doesn't deserve you x

So what are you really - a housekeeper? You have lost a child and been through a lot, you sound completely ground down by it all and he's taken advantage of it.

You aren't even 40 yet OP. Please make a new and better life for yourself.

Will you get one house in its entirety that you are free to do as you wish with and leave in your own will if you want? Or does it revert to his children on your death?

I honestly couldn't live like this. We aren't talking about you taking everything from his first family here-something that sadly happens a lot.

We are talking about him leaving you one of 15 homes and some money to live on. I'd be leaving him if he begrudges you this. You need your own security and you will probably be better off if you divorce.

@Finallyfeelstrong I apologise. I erased my post because I was thinking of my own situation and not yours. And I could see how my post would hurt your feelings. And I see your valid concerns with your situation, and you should talk to your husband. However I was not gloating about my situation, that my father did not leave anything to his grilfriend. Every situation is unique. My father's girlfriend was really nasty to me and my brother, and she went out of her way to try to stop my father seeing us. She caused all manner of access problemd which shouldnt have happened. I have since has a boyfriend that has a child, and I was always happy and respectful for him to see his child. Seeing this as an adult made me more annoyed at how cruel she was. She did not want my father to see us all all and caused so many problems due to being heartless. This is why I am happy that my father did not leave her anything. If she had loved me I would have liked to see her being looked after. She was cruel to me so I feel that she deserves nothing

@finallyfeelstrong I'm very sorry about the loss of your child.

As you are only in your 30s, you can change who will get your pension. You have to name a beneficiary in a pension contract but my understanding is this can be changed- it does not HAVE to be a spouse. You can look into this. I only had to name the beneficiary a few months before I took my teachers' pension. You have a long time to go before you retire.

From how I see it, you will get financially more than you would have had as a single woman- namely a house (the one you rented originally and which he bought), plus your own pension and a state pension. That is what most people have if they a) own a house and b) have a company pension.

I don't see why you feel you have a right to his assets? You are working, you have your own house (I think- still not 100%clear if it's in your name?) a company pension and some state pension. Is that not enough? Bear in mind that by the time he dies (if he dies first) the house market and value of all his assets could have changed.

was under the impression that, unless you sign a pre-nump prior to getting married, you are legally entitled to half of all assets accrued within the marriage as once married, you are financially tied to one and other as well as legally. I wouldn't imagine that his will, preventing you from inheriting these funds would stand up in court. However, I may be wrong.

@xElenx You are 100% wrong. In a will, someone can leave whatever they want to whoever they want. Being married does not entitle the remaining spouse to everything if there is will in place stating otherwise. Assets are not 'joint assets' in a marriage and where there is clearly a business, the assets do not automatically pass to the spouse.

@Finallyfeelstrong
Can you confirm, finally, that you do own one house- the one you rented and he then bought?

You seemed to say he is leaving you that house in his will- or do you jointly own it already?

If so, you will not have to move when he dies. You have a home.

As I said above, he is not doing anything illegal by not leaving you his money, but he doesn't sound a very nice man.

You would not be penniless- you'd have your own pension and a state pension. why are you saying otherwise?

I think OP is allowed tolive in the house she paid for until she dies - at which point it reverts to his kids.
She can't sell it either because the money from the sale goes to his kids - so she's be made homeless.
His kids would also be allowed to continue living in that house for as they wanted.
It is not OP's home and he's ensured that it never will be.
She's just a live-in housekeeper/childminder/personal assistant....and she's expected to continue paying for that 'privilege'.

He's used you as a live in house keep, nanny and tenant OP. Run for the fucking hills

I am so sorry for the loss of your daughter .

I think your starting point could Be as he doesn't want to make sure you can manage, never mind enjoy life with half of 15 houses ffs, then you won't be providing a home for his child when your husband dies. If you are good enough for child care why aren't you good enough to be looked after?

I thought there were two houses? The one that was jointly hers and outside the parameters of the will, and then the one that they currently live in that she is allowed to live in rent-free forever?