Inheritance. 'Friend' crying poor.

[mercylews]

My husband passed away in August last year. We both lived very nice lives and both had great careers. I still do and will never give up working. Ever. He died very unexpectedly but was healthy. (The reason I mention this is to hone in on the level of grief and shock I had experienced). We were fortunate enough to live in a very nice part of London as well as have property elsewhere in the world. Since he passed... the questions that have come my way regarding money have been mind-blowing to say the least. Crass crass crass. People have had no qualms about asking me what I am going to do with 'the properties' and 'the money'. Even the phrase 'the money' makes my skin crawl.

But more than that, what's shocked me is the amount of people who come to me asking me to invest in their businesses, 'pick my brain' for financial advice. One even 'jokingly' asked me to buy a home as an investment that her and her 3 year old could live in and she oh-so-sweetly offered to pay me rent... but 'mates rate rent'. Then started laughing awkwardly. I understand that this is to be expected a little given his profile shall we way... but it is still shocking - and yet I know I shouldn't be surprised. I hate the word 'inheritance'. It cheapens the relationship you shared with someone and is so clinical.

This same person who asked me to buy another home (because that's normal, right?) has since cried poor at every opportunity and ALLLLLLL she talks about how hard up she is. If I mention I am out of the house for the day, she will immediately reply with 'Ohhhhhhh, I misssss going out! But then I had a kid and now I have not nothing!!!! HAHAHAHA' Bear in mind if I am out for the day; it's to get some air, cry, grieve. I have not been partying since my husband died....!?!? If anything... I have become a bit of a loner.

(She is in a bind because of her own bad choices and she had a child with a waster of a man who screwed her over). She keeps talking about how great my life must be... I can promise you; it is not. Her idea of 'fun' is drinks and shopping and travelling the world yet she doesn't have to funds to do it and now that she has a child, I feel like she uses him as a way to 'cry poor' to me. Yesterday was the final straw as she moaned about not having money to fund his nursery fees and said 'But if only I had help...' and trailed off from here. Horrible to say the least.

I have valued my financial independence and can still manage to live the same life I had lived even before meeting my husband due to my own background/career except now my life is surrounded by people constantly wanting to talk about money. I feel dirty even writing this post. I just want to cry.

Please note I'm being careful to not say too much in this post as it may be outing to my H and others.

I would absolutely ghost those acquaintances. Any of us with any life experience knows that inheritance often comes at a huge emotional cost that you would return in a heart beat. Also there will be people who worked harder/invested wisely and so on. That does mean their fortune is yours!

I wouldn't look at this as inheritance....you both were married and both put into the pot and make combined decisions.....the money was always yours like it was when he was alive.
Tell people that you donated it all to a cat charity. They won't ever ask you again.

Your friends sound really odd! I don't know anyone who would approach a friend or friend of friend about money in this way.

If you want to keep them in your circle - you need to grow a thick skin and selective deafness about this particular subject.

Never pick up the money subject or any hint on what you might do with your money. Ignore the reference - change the subject .

Or if you have to take part: just treat it as a general comment and vigorously assume that they did not intend to include you in whatever they are saying :).
'Yes it is a real pity you don't have help.' 'Yes you are in a difficult situation'...

They will give up eventually.
I hope that they are worth the wait.

I'm glad you're not suckered in by her and the others OP.

I also wonder how many people do end up being taken advantage of in a fog of grief.

Sorry for your los

I would understand if people were concerned about the financial stability of a recently berieved person but not trying to get their hands on their money or other comments like that. Shocking. Sounds like you need rid of this woman with the 3 year old.

she hasn't won the lottery for fuck's sake! She's lost her husband!

@mercylews Im so sorry for your loss.
I cant believe one or two posters are condoning this 'friends' behaviour. Im also not in the cut her off, block her camp. You probably don't even have the bandwidth for that as it will no doubt be stressful. I wonder if you might feel able to have a chat with her? You can sympathise with how she is feeling, but tell her that she needs to stop mentioning money to you as you have enough on your plate, without getting into lending when you are in the midst of your grief x

For most people asking you questions when they say "what are you going to do with the properties?" play dumb, say "what do you mean?" ask them to explain then pick your response.

This enables you to weed out the ones asking out of greed from the ones who are asking because they think they may be able to help/advise or who are concerned for you or whatever.

Be gentle with those who may be approaching it from a caring place even if it feels patronising.

As for the cheeky fucker, you need to be much firmer. She doesn't sound like a real friend so you could just tell her you can't deal with the begging and then block her. If you want to be kind and save the friendship tell her that you can't get into financial arrangements with friends as it sours the friendship and give her practical advice.

Consider that some of your other friends might be quizzing you because they are concerned about the cheeky fucker taking advantage. So they are asking you open questions to give you chance to say "oh cheeky fucker has offered to live in our holiday home and look after it".

I’m so sorry for your loss. The grief and shock must be overwhelming. Given that this person wasn’t a close friend before, it sounds like you could disengage a bit (or a lot) and that would be just a normal, even healthy, way of protecting your own emotional energy. It wouldn’t be selfish or cold.

I'm so sorry for your loss. This whole situation must be really hard on you, these "friends" don't even let you grieve appropiately.

Get away from all those toxic friends, maybe get in a support group where you can meet new people and help you heal at the same time.

She sounds like a shameless gold digging parasite. Block her and dont give it another minutes thought. Im so sorry for your loss, which I can feel is still heartfelt and very real to you xx

From the outside looking in, I also appear to have everything. I've had a couple of friends tell me that I'm lucky my husband was so financially astute, and left us well looked after. My stock answer is always "Yes, but he had to die for me to benefit."

That generally tends to shut them up.

I'm so sorry for your loss ❤

You need new friends.
I didn't have any of that

Oh OP, I'm truly sorry for your loss. I expect you'd give up every penny to have your DH back again.

However, that doesn't mean a thing to the vultures circling you. Time to move on from them, I'm afraid. The one with the child is simply seeing you as a meal ticket, and has no interest in comforting you, being your friend or even checking that YOU are okay. She's not a friend, and I know you've said that, so there's no reason for you to encourage contact with her. Be distant. Civil but distant and share no information whatsoever with her, to what you're doing, where you're going or who you're with. Not a thing. She's no right to apply emotional blackmail to you when you're in a good place, and as for doing it whilst you're grieving and coming to terms with a devastating loss....that's callous.

I am so sorry OP. That sounds miserable for you.

I would say to her face “you do know I’m not going to give you any money don’t you” and leave it there. I’m sure she’ll be far less interested in talking to you pretty immediately

She's not a friend. She really, really isn't.

You need to distance yourself from her and put a stop to any conversation from anything else that rudely tries to pry into your finances. Something like "I'm not going to discuss my financial situation with you as I regard that as private information.There's no reason you need to know any of the details of my personal finances, just like I don't need to know the details of yours. I find it's much better to keep friendships and finances very separate."

I'm sorry for your loss and everything you've had to deal with.

Holy shit - are you really comparing the loss of a spouse to a lottery win?

Fuck me.

We had the same thing (almost) happen to us

my dp met,married and had two kids with a woman

they broke up 14 years later,and a year later he met me

she turned into an utter psycho-normally I’d never say that about another woman but she really did

endless spiteful phone calls,spreading rumours,death threat,revenge porn,stopping him and his parents from seeing the kids (we went to court and she ripped up the court order-it’s ongoing) dripping poison into the kids ears,tried to stab him when he went to drop his dds birthday present off,and had him arrested for hitting her-you name it,she did it-I’d be here all day if I went into the full details

anyway,we lost my darling fil just after the 3rd lockdown (he was minted—he rightly left the whole lot to his wife)

My dp rang the kids to tell them that their granddad had died-he’d just put the phone down,when the phone went again

it was the ex wife-demanding to know what her share was going to be

dp looked confused and told her nothing-the whole lot was going to his mum and we where not seeing a penny (rightly so-it wasn’t our money)

the ex wife then rang darling mil and ranted and raved that she was owed at ‘least 50k,minimum’ and that she was ‘going to sue for it’

my darling mil (who is the most gentle soul you’d ever meet) had lost her husband of 50 years less than 4 hours earlier (and she lost her dd 20 years before that)

on the day of the funeral,ex wife got their youngest dd to ring and ask (demand-her mother was stood behind her forcing her to say some foul things) for ‘mums money’

this kid at the time was 12

it’s taken a stiff legal letter and a divorce (she refused to sign the papers-so we waited the 5 years,covid hit and it was pushed back) to finally get her off our backs

shes still running round telling people that we’ve ‘kept her money from her’

some people really are that greedy

I'm so sorry for your loss.
You should phase out that friend. Any friend who thinks supporting another through a difficult time should require payment is no friend to you.

Sorry for your loss

She keeps talking about how great my life must be

This is an awful, awful thing to say to someone who has just lost their spouse.

Given how little regard she has for your feelings, you should feel no guilt about simply blocking her. You don't need to justify or explain - just block and never speak to her again.

this isn’t a friend of OP’s though, this is at best an acquaintance that swooped in with all the diplomacy of a vulture when OP was newly widowed and vulnerable. Instead of respecting the fact that OP is grieving a horrible loss, and understanding that this is indeed a loss and not a stroke of luck, she’s seeing this as an opportunity to gain something from OP.

How is that a reasonable thing to do? If she’s struggling with OP having wealth that she doesn’t, perhaps she should step back from OP, as opposed to dropping hints about how OP can provide for her.

Your friend sounds so brazen. Mentioning it all the time sounds like she is trying to keep her place in the line of handouts that she believes you should be giving to people as you've had such amazing luck to lose your husband 😤 $$

I had a friend who whilst chatting to be me about my Mother's newly diagnosed terminal illness, decided to tell me how much she loved a vase of hers and she would be taking it when DM died.🤦🏻‍♀️

Mirabai · Today 13:56

I think you need to step back and assess how you failed to notice how low quality so many of your friends are.

What? Are you blaming OP for her shitty 'friends'? I hope I'm misreading this.