To be heartbroken one DC completely blanks my other DC?

[Tinwoodswoman]

I have two adult DC one has so much, ie big house on the coast, 3 kids, loving husband, plays golf etc, the other younger one, alone and hard working. Older DC treats younger DC like a stranger and with undeserved contempt most of the time. No conversation, grudging and late birthday and Christmas presents, almost as if they aren’t there. I am so sad about this. I am a young(ish) widow and am seriously considering leaving the bulk of my money to younger DC due to the mean attitude of older DC. AIBU?

It's difficult. I'm lucky in that my sibling and I are close. However, our uncle had 5 children, who were close when they were kids but had differences as adults. To cut a long story short, when he died he left everything to one of the 5, who was a single parent struggling in rented accommodation with a child who had disabilities. I think his other 4 children (all in much better circumstances) could understand his thinking, but they were upset not to even have a mention in his will. It wasn't that they wanted money, a share of his house, etc. - they just thought it would have been nice to have been recognised by being left a watch, a clock, a piece of furniture or whatever. So please do think about this. And obviously it would be even better if there's some way you could get your DC together to talk things through before you even reach the will-writing stage!

Best wishes, OP

PomPomSugar · Yesterday 18:44

Hmm, I am the older sibling in this situation. I act the same towards my younger brother because in private he is absolutely vile towards me, my husband and my children. I always ensure his child has birthday and Christmas presents on time though. My mother blames me and constantly asks me to make more of an effort with my brother but she has no idea of how he is towards me and my family. When we are all together with my mother he is like an absolutely different person and the second my mothers back is turned he behaves abhorrently. If she knew it would break her heart so I haven’t told her. I would rather her blame me than be told how her child actually behaves. Things are not always as they seem.

Since your mother blames you for his bad behaviour, you might want to record him secretly, Ring cameras are good if meeting in your home, in case you ever need to prove to your mother that it's him not you. And be prepared for him to be her beneficiary when the time comes..

How were they when they were younger? Mine are opposites and argue constantly. One loud, energetic and sociable, the other quiet, introverted and calm. I honestly can’t see how they’ll have any relationship when older and it makes me so sad. Maybe this is just normal and ok when you have children with such different personalities.

The younger one always wanted to play with the older but he just wasn't interested. It's been like having 2 only children. I always kind of assumed that siblings with a small age gap would be friends, but the only thing they have in common is where they live.

You can't force siblings to like each other.

I'm an only child but DH has four siblings - we all live in the same small town but there's no relationship there. In fact, I've never even met his oldest sister and she lives less than two minutes away 🤷‍♀️

I never understand all the posts about having a second/third child so the first has a sibling - it's no guarantee of anything and they can grow up hating each other.

Siblings are no more likely to get on than any other two people.

why is the younger one "very alone"? do they find it difficult to make friends/form relationships- why?
you are basically wanting your elder child to be friend your younger one -or pretend to - but i think you also need to try and understand the reason the younger one is like they are as that might explain stuff

Not sure how money would help

My brother has always been exactly the same towards me - and I was forever being told I was misunderstanding what he said, or being “precious” or looking for attention!
It got worse and worse, until I refused to have any contact with him. My DM (and DF) only realised the reality of what he was like when he slipped up and behaved like it towards them.

DH and his brother don’t speak. For a long time they muddled along but essentially they were totally different people. Different interests, education, work etc. nothing in common.
We managed until at some point he decided he needed to tell us incessantly what to do all the time on the basis he was older. His lack of control drives him crazy.
He’s also done some horrible things but reframes himself as the victim.
Now their parents are both dead he has zero control over us so now he doesn’t speak to us, just the odd aggressive message.

His mum saw it coming and worried they wouldn’t speak after she died. However she stirred the pot between them by snitching on things that each of them said about the other.

I'm the older sibling in a similar scenario. Me and my sister just don't get along, we've never gelled at all. I'm an extrovert with a big social life and friends while she's a loner who hates leaving the house. She doesn't work which I don't approve of, (although she is a carer for my dad, she still sits in her bedroom the rest of the time without any interaction from anyone) and she has no hobbies or friends - I would class her as odd. She thinks I'm weird. It doesn't matter. We see each other at my dad's house on birthdays etc but otherwise we have absolutely zero in common and I'm ok with that, and so is she. Maybe if you ask them you'll find out that they're ok with this too! They don't need to be friends, just coexisting is enough for some siblings.

I also know that my dad has split his Will so that she gets more, and that's ok too because he spoke to me and explained the reasons why. I'm well able to support myself, despite being a single mum, I have a well paid job and home that I provided for my daughter, he's helped me financially over the years which is ok with me, he gave me a lump sum towards my wedding which my sister never got (she's unmarried). My sister lives with him and when he passes away will need more support in getting back on her feet....however I work in estate planning and I wouldn't leave more to one without discussing it first - otherwise that will 100% be the final nail in the coffin for their relationship. I see daily families being torn apart by inheritances where one child has been favoured and it was a complete shock to them all. Also don't hold that kind of control over them, that's financial abuse, do you really want a forced relationship just so they get an equal amount when you die? Just enjoy time with your daughters whether that be individually or together.

Lots of missing info in the OP's posts but whatever the problem is, it's very strange of her to jump to leaving one child all the money as the solution.

They're both comfortably off so the child who is more "alone", whatever that means, doesn't actually have a greater financial need.

It's unclear whether the older child is actively being an unpleasant bully or if they're just two different people who don't have a close relationship. If the latter - this is fine, this is normal for many siblings, you can't force it. If the former, you can actually try to sort it out here and now while you're actually alive rather than leaving it to a beyond-the-grave message that'll go down like a sack of shit. You can insist on a reasonable standard of politeness to her sibling while in your presence, at the very least.

It's hard to give more advice as the OP has been very vague about the actual problem but the answer is definitely not to divide the will unequally.

I think it's interesting that you don't actually say how either of your DCs feel about this. You talk about how much it bothers you, but you don't actually say whether it bothers your younger DC. Have they talked you about it? Have they expressed that they're hurt? Have you talked to the older one about it and actually asked them how they feel? You're talking about them as if they're a pair of chess pieces that you're moving around on a board, rather than people with their own relationship.

How does your younger DC behave towards the older one? Does the younger one actually want a close relationship with the older one? Is this not just a case of two people with nothing in common? Perhaps they just have different personalities and values. Or perhaps the older one sees behaviour/attitudes in the younger one that you're completely blind to. There's no reason they have to be friends, so don't try to force it. If they don't want to bother with Christmas presents, they don't have to. These are two adults who are capable of navigating their own relationship, outside of their relationship with you. Stop playing puppet-master with talk of disinheritance and just let them get on with it.

I wouldn't use my very last wish to separate them even more
Sorry op I think yabu

I think it depends where they both live too - if hundreds of miles apart it's not that likely they'll see each other all the time really. My DH stopped buying Birthday & Christmas gifts for his siblings years & years ago too. I still buy for my sisters but mainly because we don't have any parents or grandparents now & one of my Dsis is a single Mum so if I don't buy for her she barely gets any gifts. I'm much closer to my younger Dsis & we've been on holidays together etc (no kids, just us). I don't have v much in common with my older Dsis (who is single, no kids - I have 2 DC & DH). But I did move 140 miles from my family so I regularly make the trek up the M1 to visit them. For context we're all late 40s now. I haven't ever fallen out with my older Dsis but she never asks about my DC at all or messages them or seems interested in ever seeing them (I tend to visit alone without my DH or DC). Not all siblings are close OP. I would still leave inheritance as 50/50 personally or you'll create a situation where your DC will never get on due to bitterness & resentment. You can't predict the future & see which DC will need the money the most so the only fair way is to leave it as 50% each.

Well your plan would be the final nail in the coffin - they'd never speak again.

Plus have you not had a thought for your grandchildren? Who will need all sorts of things in the future that are very expensive? Don't you want to help them?

My mum would say this about me: that I'm harsh to my younger sibling who has nothing close to the life that I have, and that's the cause of our shit relationship. Both me and sibling get on with mum, so mum thinks it's my fault. It's just not the case at all. In reality, my sibling has always been a massive taker, and has said some horrible things to me which I have never shared with mum. We had a bust up where sibling rang me and called me all sorts of names, then said that she expected me to just forgive because "we're family". Sibling has never reciprocated the support that I used to pour into our relationship, even when I asked them for help and support they refused, every conversation is always about them, they always undermine me and put me down. As a result I slowly withdrew support and now have nothing to do with them outside of being civil at family gatherings. My mum didn't see any of the fall out, she just sees me no longer putting in effort. She doesn't seem to see the fact that my sibling never put in effort, and blames me. Also none of them see the difficulties in my life because I know not to overburden my family with them, and feel that I can't trust them to really let them know what's going on.

If my mum felt that was a reason to leave everything to sibling (and I suspect she might, actually) then I would only hope that she at least tell me before dying so that the shock of once again being misunderstood and sidelines by my family in favour of an egotistical and self absorbed sibling won't cloud and complicate the grief. I think finding out in a will would break me. So if you must do this tell your daughter in advance and have the balls to face the music.

Same situation with my DH & his younger brother. They can’t stand each other.

We do know however that MIL is planning on leaving everything to BIL & his wife because they have children and we don’t. They are much much more well off than we are so it’s not because they are struggling it’s because they made her a grandmother and we didn’t. Not sure what FIL thinks about this as he hardly ever speaks.

We never expected or want an inheritance but that and other things that have gone on is distasteful and shows us that DH isn’t important. He’s low contact with them. I’ve not seen them in years.

OP you can't force your kids to like each other. My sister and I have a very distant relationship and if there's one thing that would make it worse, it would be my mother favouring my sibling by leaving everything to her for the sole reason of us having a strained relationship. They are adults, leave them be.

I have no relationship with my sibling, and haven't had for 30 years. Life is better that way. We are so different and don't like each other. We'd never be friends in any other life. Helps that we live hundreds of miles away from each other.

YABU

You have absolutely no idea what has gone on between these two, for all you know, your favoured child may have been absolutely vile towards the other and that's why they don't like them.

You can't force a relationship between two other people, and if you start treating then differently and cutting one off in favour of another due to your perception of a situation that may be way off then you are way out of order.

Something has happened between them or you favour the youngest.
Contempt is not just not getting on. Something has created this.
The fact you have said you are thinking cutting the eldest from the will sounds like it may have been you.

I have cut contact with my brother. He’s not quite 2 years older than me, my only sibling. But he abused me - physically, psychologically, sexually - as a child. I dislike him quite a lot (understatement of the year) but I was prepared to overlook all of that when he expressed an interest in my best friend the year we left school.

Within 2 years (Easter 1995), she was pregnant, and DC2 was born 11 months after DC1, and then 4 years later, she filed for divorce (Jan 2001). He behaved similarly towards her immediately after DC2 as he had done toward me when we were kids - lots of gaslighting, financial, physical, psychological abuse, didn’t want her to study or have friends, even before the children were born.

I am friends with her again and have contact with his kids; he does not. They call their step dad “Dad”, and family life seems very happy now.

If my dad knows (my mum died 2 years before they divorced), it’s not because I’ve told him. AFAIK, he thinks my ex-SIL/close friend was “just” unfaithful, which is the highest crime in a marriage as far as he’s concerned. But he didn’t believe she reasons stated on the divorce petition. I absolutely did. I know what he’s capable of in a way that only a sibling can.

I think you would bvu to do leave money to one but not the other because their adult relationship is nothing to do with you unfortunately. I understand it impacts you but if they're adults & aren't close then you're never going to be able to force them together.

However leaving money to one & not that other will also ensure they'll always remain separate, & IMO that's bad karma & a poor choice

Does the younger sibling make much of an effort with the older one or is the onus purely on the elder of your children? If you leave more to the younger than the older, you will kill any relationship, current or potential future, stone dead. Anything other than 50-50 would be ridiculously unreasonable.

Do not give younger DC more money in the will, I know that thought comes from a good place but when you’re gone if that happens, it’ll cause resentment from older DC! It might make it even worse between them which could make younger dc feel even more alone! Give younger dc some financial help while you’re still alive and split evenly in your will

Does the younger grown child work, can you help them now perhaps deposit on a flat or something, then as an earlier post said id still split 50:50 in your will, that way older child either is not aware you helped, i (dont see helping them now as favouring them )as you probably help eldest by babysitting ect it also gives the younger some stability for their future.