To asked to be removed from my mother's Will and be disinherited

[ElonsPsychic]

In 2014 my father passed away. Two days before his death, I had a phone call from my dad who was crying; he told me that my sister had been into his house, found his Will and opened it, gone to his care home and asked him if he wanted to change it. His property was split equally between us as well as a gift to a local charity and a friend.
My dad said he felt violated and was crying.

She phoned me two days later to say I should come because he was about to pass away. (I loved around 250 miles away.

I didn't get there in time but received the phonecall while I was at motorway services.

The following day I went to see his body and be with him. The hospice care nurse told me that she has called my sister at first thing..around 7am and told her to call me. My sister didn't call me until late morning.

If she had called me at 7am I would've got to say goodbye to him and be with him. I didn't get to say good bye to my father.

Lots of things have happened beyond this and we are now estranged.

I feel devastated, I loved my sister so much. I feel. After nearly three years of trying to move on I still find myself in a place of horrible sadness and grief.

I've spoken to various people and they've said this isn't uncommon in families when a parent dies, families get damaged.

When I expressed upset to my wider family, none of them seemed to see it as a problem or say very much.

I have chosen estrangement due to this and other things I can't come to terms with while still in contact with them

My mother is getting older and the thought of going through this again is just completely overwhelming, the thought of having to navigate any of her care or her will with my sister makes me feel dreadful.

I have thought about asking to be disinherited. Writing to them and saying please remove me as a benefactor from my mother's will (if I'm even on it anymore)

The thought of that and being able to feel free any future horrible feelings and ties gives me a sense of peace.

My sister is considerably more well off that I am, married and I am a single parent. I am however fairly okay and don't struggle financially at the moment and plan to ensure that I can manage to support myself and my child in the future.

It would feel like a release to have no ties in this way to them and it would protect my emotional and mental state which has been poor at times and is now better following estrangement.

Should I ask to be disinherited. I think it would involve a solicitors letter.

You need to get some help on processing your grief for your dad and your feelings towards your sister. That's the problem here.

I imagine it'd be very hurtful and worrying for your mum to hear you want to be removed from her will and I don't see how that would resolve anything.

My mum has played a role in my relationship with my sister. As has my dad. They were divorced. Both parents classically damaged and emotionally immature, unable to prioritise thier own children's needs.

I think my mum supporting my sister when she did that to my dad - as well as other things, has a significant impact on my decision to estrange myself.

Actually these comments are mostly really helpful and have given me a different perspective. Thank you. I'm going to think on. I think I need to be able to deal with my sadness around losing my sister and feeling ls around that. The way I feel about myself in that context. (Which is worthless). If I can work on that and feel better about myself I might be strong enough to manage some sort of relationship with my mother. Even just a coffee every few months.

I could still hand the lions share of care and responsibility to my sister. I don't actually want them in my life though unless the three of us can resolve the differences. My mother isn't elderly at this point. She leads an active and full social life and has a wide network of friends and church community (that all think she's wonderful and have no idea that she had sex in a toilet with a drug addict, pushed me down stairs as a child or as soon as the doors closed roasts people and shoves her pets around and uses degrading language about her grandchild)

My sister manages her by having cast iron boundaries and putting her in her place, while lavishing attention on her during brief windows of time.

I haven't unfortunately been blessed with the same capacity to do that and was the person my mum broke down on a lot, relied on for emotional support and to help her calm down when she was distressed etc.

My son picked up the extension phone at my mum's house and hear a conversation where my sister and mum were roasting various people including me; and a letter he wrote to an aunt. He was in bits. That was the beginning of my seeing the need to estrange.

I struggle how to navigate all this.

This is an aside, I just want to have a peaceful solution and find ways to move on from my sadness and grief. Disinheritance feels like a really good way to cut ties and move on.

If you want to be nc I’d just leave it. Don’t engage at all even by asking to be disinherited.

To avoid all the drama that will come with that action, you could just distance yourself and let the cards fall where they do as far as inheritance when the time comes. If your mother has left you something, I'd be inclined to think about accepting it to help my child's future, even if I wanted nothing to do with it. For the immediate time though, I think you should talk to a professional and work through some of this before you make a firm decision.

I think you're right. Thank you. God. I feel like I'm in therapy constantly!. There's always more to bloody process! Thank you 🙏

Look I’ve been there. My family is very dysfunctional and toxic too.

You want to take control things to reduce any further impact they can have on you. My advice is don’t. You have already been able to deal with the big blow from the last time. You are clearly a strong person. Just learn to focus your thoughts and energy elsewhere. You are an adult now, with all of the resources you have developed to handle them. Just let it be and as much as humanly possible put them to one side.

Yep. I think I'm recognising this reaction is just one that comes from a place of wanting to run, feeling completely worthless and all the shame that goes with that. As well as having to face my sister who thought she deserved a greater inheritance with my father and no doubt will feel the same way about her entitlement to my mother's estate when the time comes. I feel equivocally worthless in the face of her and she has navigated my dad's end of life situation in a way that left me feeling like a second class human. That feeling is really old, much older than that situation.

Asking to be disinherited seems like a good way to avoid those feelings and would be preemptive of having to deal with that.

It does seem easier but you're right, my son matters.

She may disinherit me anyway. Who knows.

I'm hurting and it's probably not the solution. More counselling probably is

I haven’t read it all but if you ask to be removed from your mum’s will, she may well find it really upsetting and think it’s because you want nothing to do with her any more?

Please go back into therapy and rather than focusing on the will, instead focus on resilience, building strength, letting go of the past. Practicing acceptance and what it might look like. This is not about going back to your damaging family, but letting go.

It’s like the will is a symbolic tie, imagine it’s already broken and let the will go.

Are you planning to say goodbye to your mother or attend her funeral? I would make a decision and a plan for the actual end. If the inheritance materialises almost certainly it won’t, then you can pass it to charity or appreciate it is money from many generations of your family and not just your parents.

I feel the will is a red herring disguising your understandable anxiety around the end of your mother’s life, and the inevitable potential interaction with your sister. It doesn’t need to be inevitable, and you can take your power and choose the ending that is right for you.

💐

Families are complicated. After my Dad had a heart attack I travelled to visit him 200 miles away, leaving my young DC with DH. I visited Dad and Mum much more frequently. I could see Dad was deteriorating quickly but my Mum who was with him all the time didn't seem to notice. She would comment 'oh he's just having a bad day'. I don't know if she noticed every day was eventually a bad day, or because she was with him all the time it just blurred. I travelled down on one weekend and thought Dad seemed worse, more tired. Instead of travelling back home I decided to stay. Chatting to Dad he said he'd like to see my sister one last time. She lives in the Channel Islands. On the Monday evening I rang my sister who lives and told her if you want to see Dad alive, you must come now. He wants to see you. I thought she'd come the next day because they'd always had a good relationship. Dad died on the Wednesday evening and she didn't arrive until the Friday after she finished work. I was so angry with her I couldn't even look at her or speak to her, so I went home before she got back. I've never really forgiven her for not travelling back to see Dad before he died. There were seats on the plane on Tuesday, because I checked and offered to book for her. She just said she couldn't leave work until the Friday afternoon and that Mum had not said he was a lot worse. After the funeral my sister was crying and told my Aunty that she didn't think he was that ill. I was fuming because I was so very clear to her. She told my Aunty, she thought I was just being dramatic when I told her if you want to see Dad alive come right now.

No don't ask to be disinherited. Why would you. But have as much or as little contact with your family as you wish.

Your poor Mum, she doesn't deserve this.

@Newchapterbeckons thank you.

This made me cry. I don't know what to do.
I know I don't want to go to her funeral. - I've spent my life hearing wonderful stories about her and grieving her. Attending some grand finale of that would feel disingenuous.

I think part of me wants repair and feels that if my sister and mother could come to me through all the wreckage of this and say some sorrys and show some accountability; I would be able to salvage something. I did ask them. About three years ago. I wanted to have a coffee and cake and find a way forward. My sister won't and they won't acknowledge lots of things (there's lots I've not shared)

I'm doing okay but my son is really grieving at the moment, so I'm holding space for that and trying to navigate how best to help him. His aunt sent him lovely Christmas presents. He wrote to her and asked to see her. She wrote to him yesterday and said she won't see him . It wasn't a horrible letter, it was reasonable but felt quite blunt and also confusing.

This landed on the mat the day after him crying and crying about having no family.

I do need some more bloody counselling I think. It's so expensive!

I do think I'm a way the grief I feel is natural. I just have to feel it and build myself up. The pervasive feelings of utter worthlessness and rejection just slam me as soon as I have to face my sister and that is ultimately my issue to deal with.

I feel she took my dad from me.

This goes back far too.

An example of this is he bought me some birthday gifts and she went to his house a few days before and said 'i want those' he gave them to her and then said to me 'im so sorry, I gave some of your birthday gift to sister as she wanted them'.

He bought me a CD once, limited addition and she asked him for that too.

I visited her and saw this stuff that was meant for me in her house.

It was never about money though, it's about love.

It hurts. It's about having loving gestures from my dad taken from me.

These seem relatively small things but it feels like an epic and open wound sometimes.

Like today.

My feeling having read everything, and I’m very sorry by the way, is that you shouldn’t engage with them. If you ask to be disinherited you will inevitably create drama and talking points. After your mum dies, which could be some time in the future you can decline everything, including being executor. I would wait for that point and see how you feel. In the meantime it sounds like you have a lot of difficult feelings to work through, which might not be helped by continuing contact with either of them.

It's completely up to your mother what she puts in her will but I don't understand how being in the will relates to being involved in her care and nit being in the will means you are free. They are two completely different things

Maybe try to look at it in another way , when your mother dies and once the will has been carried out / processed , you will find out if you are named on it .
If you are named ( and have an inheritance ) then it in a way tells you that you are acknowledged , and in her own way , loved as a daughter of hers .

What you do with it is your prerogative , save for your dc , spend on yourself , or give away to charity . It has nothing to do with your sister , you can remain estranged from her .

In the kindest possible way you sound very unstable over all this and that will be the main cause of your son’s emotional distress (as he will obviously know Mummy is not alright).

You need trauma counselling and possibly medication. Some charities will provide free or discounted sessions dependent on circumstances.

Honestly this disinherit and I’m free ideology is utter mumbo jumbo.

You won’t be free, you’ll be feeling as crap and emotionally unhinged, just you’ll have done your child out of money too.

At least leave it to him, you can do a deed of variation once the money passes to you which passes it to him tax free and could set him up.

Do not engage with toxic people. Live your own life.
Send them a Christmas card and a small birthday gift.
Don't share your life or your thoughts and worries with them.

Your mother will possibly use all her resources to keep herself in care and health. It is very presumptuous to assume you are left anything in a person's Will. Even if you know that your are, why would you create a fuss or more unheaval??

Interested to know. Did your father leave you anything?
Or did he change his Will days before he died at his other daughter's insistance?

Ah OP what a sad situation. Your mum and sister sound toxic. Agree with others that asking to be disinherited will just cause drama and might backfire on you. I can see that it would be a way of closure for you though.

The best thing to do I think is to go no contact and try to put them all out of your mind, difficult though that would be. And as others have said - more therapy - look for a specialist in bereavement counselling.

Also I think you should get counselling for your son. It’s not good that he’s getting so upset about his lack of family.

You have no obligation to care for your mum. Just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you have to take on their care. Your mum sounds like she’s year off from needing that anyway, and she may never need it. You’re fixating on something that might not even be an issue. You definitely need help to deal with all this OP.

Did you actually read OP’s posts? Her mum doesn’t not deserve it.

You asking to be disinherited will not heal the hurts. It will only hurt your mother.

@Justkeeepswimming my son is better than he's ever been! He's grieving and sad in a way that is natural and healthy for the context of the situation. He's doing great. I've had trauma therapy and am having a wobble or moment of grief. He has also had significant counselling and I'm deemed his greatest resource and my management of this situation in regards to his wellbeing as excellent.

In healthy families difficult emotional can be managed. Having a wobble in the face of loss, grief and distress is not unreasonable.

How is anyone ever supposed to heal from traumas if they're not allowed space to feel a bit destabilised from time to time or treated with compassion.

Thanks for your feedback. Your use of language like 'mumbo jumbo' and 'unhinged' marks you out as the kind of person I wouldn't seek advice from. Thank you though for your time.

"This is an aside, I just want to have a peaceful solution and find ways to move on from my sadness and grief."

Asking to be disinherited isn't peaceful. The current situation sounds fairly peaceful. A solicitors letter will create a lot of drama where currently there is none. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Perhaps read the OP again 🙄

@Justkeeepswimming telling people they need medication when they're sad and distressed is really not okay? In the nicest possible way, the current thinking around wellbeing and mental health doesn't support that approach.