Brothers being treated so differently financially

[perkybutfull]

So AIBU? I’ve been over thinking this for too long. My husband and brother in law (his brother) are close in age. Not the best of friends as in they don’t socialise with each other outside of family events but never any falling out. He and his fiancé call in about once a month to see our children and catch up with us. Their maternal grandmother has always treated them totally differently. Maybe as brother in law is slightly older (18 months) if it isn’t this then I have no idea. We got married 4 years ago, bought a house quite quickly and then have had two children since. They are expecting a baby this year, bought a house a few months ago and are getting married next year. Grandmother (just making conversation) told my husband last week that she had to go to the bank as she was giving them £1000 as a wedding gift and that she’s said she’d give them the same for some new furniture in their house. He then said ‘gosh lucky John, why didn’t we get that’ she said she’d given us £500. I checked later (as I’d written it all down for thank you notes) and she have us £100. Also she didn’t give us anything for moving house. I’ve also been told by brother in law in the past that their Christmas money from the grandmother pays for their holiday. Sister in law said she thinks it’s £800 between them. We get £100 and out kids get a small gift. There have been a few issues like this over the years, before either partners were on the scene My husband was upset by this but doesn’t see how he can push it without looking bad. After all she is entitled to do what she wants with her money. For context our household incomes and circumstances are very similar. It’s upset me seeing my husband so upset. How can we get over this?

@monotata

Perhaps your parents are horrible people? Favouring a child so blatantly is disgusting

Perhaps they are. However, in the more than 4 decades I spent with them, I don’t think they are.
I think it’s more likely that they are aware of some reason why that sibling needs assistance more than the rest of us, and that I just don’t know that reason. But I could of course be wrong about that. Doesn’t bother me at the end of the day- as I said, I don’t believe I’m entitled to their money and they can bequeath it however they wish.

And calling my sibling a child is a bit emotive- we are all well into adulthood.

Bit old for sibling rivalry is n’t he ?

I absolutely hate these posts on here - smug poster after poster criticising the OP for being childish, grabby etc saying grandma can do what she want with her money while OP patiently keeps replying she knows that and it's not about the money but what it represents. She's not suggesting she ties the grandma up at gunpoint to get the money - she's pointing out that the choices the grandma is making about how she is distributing her money are hurtful.

OP - ignore the smug and condescending comments, of course it's hurtful when a sibling is so obviously favoured in this way. That's exactly why the grandma is doing it and letting your DH know. It's manipulative.

Unfortunately there isn't anything you can do but it would certainly make me reflect how much I invest in a relationship that obviously doesn't mean as much to someone as it does to me.

Being the unfavoured one is awful, I know from experience, its nothing to do with the financial aspect but the blatant favouritism that hurts, especially if you are the one who has helped out but receive constant criticism and the favoured one can do no wrong and is selfish. You cant change the person, the best thing you can do is rise above, do not let what that person does define who you are, they have the problem.

And calling my sibling a child is a bit emotive- we are all well into adulthood.

@sammylady37 emotive? Oh give over and stop being so precious. You’re still your parents’ children 😂

@monotata

emotive? Oh give over and stop being so precious. You’re still your parents’ children

I’m not in the least bit precious. You’re the one who when talking about my parents and my siblings, all adults, said that “Favouring a child so blatantly is disgusting”. And I merely pointed out that that’s using emotive language, implying there’s a neglected child somewhere, when that’s clearly not the case. I don’t find what my parents have done to be “disgusting” at all. Strange it would elicit such a strong reaction from you though.

@sammylady37

Neglected? Ok well I can’t help how you interpret things 🤷🏻‍♀️

@sammylady37

100% true but of course it is totally up to my husband how he feels about family who treat him unfairly

Of course. He can stamp his feet and whine and ask why he didn’t get the same, like a petulant child, or he can reflect on the issue, recognise and accept that he has no right to his grandmother’s money and she can do what she likes with it, and generally behave like an adult.

I’m appalled at the suggestion that you ‘pull back’ and not spend time with or help her because of that. It implies that the poster thinks people only do those things for family because they expect financial compensation for doing so, and if it’s not forthcoming they’ll stop. That’s abhorrent to me.

This.

Excellent post.

I totally get you OP. My husband and his sister are treated very differently. I find it bizarre as me and my sister have always been treat the same. Ie my parents gave me and my sister equal amounts towards a car and towards our wedding.
They paid for the entire expensive wedding for his sister including her £2,500 dress. (I only the know the price of the dress as the women in the shop announced the deposit paid and the outstanding balance loudly when my MIL had her credit card out). We got a contribution to the evening buffet. (We were grateful for this contribution btw!)
We have a daughter now (MIL and FIL first grandchild). MIL gave us money toward car seat (again very grateful), my SIL is pregnant and gave her £600 MORE to pay for a pram from a certain shop (when she could have got it £150 cheaper from John Lewis).
I'm now just waiting to find out if the grandchildren are going to be treat differently, that is when I will say something! As my grandma has always treat me and my sister differently from our cousins! I hope to god she doesn't get treat differently 😞
Couldn't give a hoot about the money thing I just find it crazy that siblings are treat differently!

I don't think op is that fussed about the money. I think it's more that how to deal with her husband feeling confused and possibly bit rejected and like he's second best.
Absolutely it's her money to do with as she wishes etc but you have to question why they're being treated differently? I'd always like to think I'd treat my Children equally. Is it def not a loan?
We have same issue with DH family. He's eldest and siblings have been treated financially Better than him. I don't think it bothered him until recently. He knew one had been giving all living / accommodation costs and spending money through uni (didn't bother getting job at all and PIL aren't that well off, that's another story, not about money but about creating a lazy entitled adult!), middle child been helped out massively with money for debts and housing. DH not been interested or given it second thought. He's never received a penny for help as an adult. Scrimped and saved for deposit on house at same time as having unexpected new born. All fine, taken in our stride as we're both of opinion as adults we pay for own own life etc.
However recently lots of stuff has randomly gone wrong which has been costly and things have been tight. Again, no expectations of help from either my Parents (very wealthy but they worked hard for their money and have right to finally enjoy it themselves) or PIL. And we managed and are proud we've worked for everything we have. In all fairness it never crossed our minds to expect Money from family BUT recently PIL let slip that they've paid for other two siblings house deposits (all around same time). Although DH isn't saying much I can tell he's bit stung about why they've never offered the same to him as brothers.

I don't think you really have a right to confront/ challenge as like people said, it's her money, but I think the best way to deal with it is how my DH seems to have done and just ignore it. Carry on as normal. Difficult because no matter what her reasoning is, I guess there'll always be that child's voice in his head questioning why the Brother is favoured). Just something I think you'll have to process and bury in your mind. And be proud that everything you've achieved financially, you've achieved by yourselves and earned.

I think parents often forget what they have done in the past. My eldest dd (first grandchild) got £50 in an isa from my dad. My newest dd who is his 6th grandchild and was born the same time as his 7th grandchild got £500 (the other DG also got £500). My DS who was somewhere in the middle got £200. He is no better or worse off than before so it’s a bit of a mystery.

I wouldn't pull back because of the money I would pull back because of how it made me feel mom has cut me out of her will in favour of my daughter and my big sister its her money she can do what she likes with it but my daughter will not be taking care of her in her old age and my sister has said the same i helped take care of nan everyone is looking towards me to look after her.....I'm thinking I've been treated like a second class citizen my entire life by her and I will choose her a nice carer to help her out and swan in Christmas and birthdays like she did with her own mum

Or I will take care of her myself and feel hurt everytime she values my sister over me

Grandma can do what she likes with her money and the OP and her husband can do what they like with their time. I'm not sure I'd be spending so much of it on someone who treated me like second best.

The grandmother sound horrible. Yes her money and all that but showing such obviously favouritism is so unkind.

To all the posters who seem to have no problem with this treatment, would you treat your own children or grandchildren like this? Showering one in money and time (childcare) and not much for the other? The brother is clearly the favourite, and your husband the least favourite, and the grandmother doesn't care if he knows it. That must really sting, to know your own grandmother doesn't like you as much as your brother. I also completely get this is nothing to do with the money, money is just a measuring tape.

Well I can identify with what you are saying op. My mum was the eldest of four children. Her siblings had one child each, mum has four. Mum was always the doer. She sadly died young of cancer. We discovered that my gran changed her will shortly after mum died. When gran died, her will said she left her estate to be divided amongst her three children, all named, and if any of them died before her, their share was to go to their children. No mention of our lovely mum’s children except all the grandchildren were left £50 each.

To be honest it made my siblings and I feel that our mother was quickly forgotten, and me and my siblings less loved than our cousins.

We laugh about it now. It was never about the money, such as it was, but for a while we did question our relationship with our gran.

As a consequence my husband and I are very mindful of treating our adult children openly and fairly, not that they are ever jealous of each other, but we would hate any of them to feel favoured or indeed, unfavoured.

Don't other people do this? We didn't want to thank aunt sally for the clock when she gave us a voucher. Also we sent flowers to anyone who gave us a large sum of money or who helped so I thought it best to keep track.

I was not referring to the fact that you kept a list of wedding gifts - yes, that IS typical. My comment related to the fact your DH raised the ‘lucky John, we didn’t get that’ with the grandmother (weird aspect number 1), THEN you racing off to cross-reference the amount in the gift list (weird aspect number 2), for what purpose- to catch her out, tell her she is a liar, mount a challenge?

What does it matter? Why does your DH feel automatically entitled to receive the same as John? Maybe the plain fact is she prefers John and his family over you guys, maybe not. We are all human and related or not yet on with some better than others just due to personality, interests etc.

Assuming its your husbands Grandmother rather than his mother

Just wondered if he had ever discussed this with his parents if its being going on a long time - did it go on when he and his brother were children? if so did his mum not intervene? or if it started when they were adults was there a trigger?
Are there other grandchildren- ie DH's cousins at all?

I don't think you should say anything but it would be interesting to understand

Is your BIL a money grabber? My sister is and as a result has always ended up being given money , either from my parents or her ILs. I think if someone is quite brazen about wanting someone else's money it can create this strange dynamic where the other person ends up giving even if they dont know why.

It doesn't sound like huge amounts so I think I'd park it and be grateful I was standing on my own 2 feet.

Dependent on my relationship with the grandma I think I'd be seeing less of her as well.

This thread has reminded me how much I hate the word 'grabby'.
I feel for you a bit, OP. The BIL is clearly favoured, but there's really nothing you can do about it. My paternal grandmother had a clear fondness for her daughter over her sons - although I do think women tend to favour their daughters financially, especially when a wedding and the purchasing of a wedding dress in particular, is involved - which didn't bother my mum until my cousins and I were born, and it became ludicrous. They got trikes from Harrod's - I got a hideous ceramic cockerel. They got a pool table - I got scented drawer liners. She still didn't say anything, and I had to write effusive 'thank you' letters under the piercing gaze of the fugly china bird.

I get you op, my dad's grandmother was Greek and when she died she left his 2 sisters a property and land which she owned in Greece, all the boys got absolutely nothing!

She's nasty trying to divide and conquer using money. Don't let her sour your relationships. I've seen and heard it a lot in a certain generation. They attempt to use money to control and manipulate relatives. Both me and dp have had experience of this but we don't play their games. We have enough of our own money anyway and have seen how others are run ragged in a sort of competition.

I know that my parents had mirror wills and that one sibling is hugely advantaged in the wills, in comparison to the rest of us

I can't ever imagine doing this to my dc unless of course the youngest is still a minor. Mine are all adult home owners with similar incomes. They will be getting an equal share of my estate. Yes they are grown up but I still spend exactly the same amount on them at Christmas.

I can't ever imagine doing this to my dc unless of course the youngest is still a minor. Mine are all adult home owners with similar incomes. They will be getting an equal share of my estate. Yes they are grown up but I still spend exactly the same amount on them at Christmas.

I genuinely don’t get why people get concerned over this and it seems a rather sad way to do things, to me. I mean, the way I approach Christmas gifts is that I have an upper limit, and I buy within that - some will get a gift costing the upper limit, others will get something costing upper limit minus 20, others upper limit minus 50 maybe. But they’ll all get gifts of things that are great gifts for them individually. I really couldn’t be bothered getting ‘top up’ presents of varying costs, of things they may neither want nor need, just to even up the overall spend. Talk about mindless consumerism! And I really cannot fathom adults who would feel aggrieved at their parents having spent more on a gift for their sibling than them. It’s so childish and spoiled.

Where does this attitude stop? I spent 5 years in uni, my sister spent 3. Should my parents have given her the same amount of money they spent financing my extra two years? My siblings married, I didn’t. Should I get the same monetary gift from my parents as they gave each of them on their marriage? My brother played a sport that involved expenditure on kit and equipment, as well as travel to training and competitions. Should the rest of us have demanded the same amount of money be spent on us, even though we weren’t doing any such activity? I was (and still am) a bookworm- should I have been bought 100s of books, with an equivalent expenditure to my brother’s hobby?

I guess the parents who do that are also the ones who give each child presents on their siblings’ birthdays, in case they feel hurt and left out, instead of teaching them that this is their sibling’s special day and they’ll have theirs in turn.

I really do think that if children are brought up with this insistence on fairness and equal expenditure, they turn into adults who get a sharp shock when they realise the real world isn’t fair, and also ones who feel entitled to other people’s money, as we have seen in the op. The op is about a man who actually asked his grandmother why she didn’t give him the same as she gave his sibling. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself, IMO.

She sounds like a nasty person to be honest. I think it gives her a little power trip to stir the hornets' nest up like this.

sammylady37

So if you have two adult children and left one your house in your will and the other got nothing, presumably you wouldn't understand why they might be upset about this as you'd think it absolutely fine? The point isn't even the money, it's the clear favouritism, can you not see how much that would hurt a child?