To tell my mum she needs to tell me the full story or my cousin will be my MOH

[Asioella]

Hi all,
So I'm getting married next year, I've been back and forth on who will be my MOH between my cousin and a long time friend. My cousin and I grew up together, went to
School together you name it . We drifted around age 16 but message regularly, meet for lunch/brunch once a month or so etc.

My mum is one of 3 sisters, they were all very close, one aunt never had children the other is the mother of my cousin. My aunt who never had children passed away 2 and a bit years ago at just 60. She had married well and made alot of money in her life so her estate was large. Her husband had passed just 16 months earlier and had no relationship with his family. They paid for both my cousins and my education, including uni. They loved us dearly. When she passed her estate which after IHT, gifts to charities and money for friends was left to be equally divided between me and my two cousins. It was no small amount, we have all been able to buy property in London.
My parents were the worst off of the 3 sisters, a modest by nice house, mortgaged but certainly not the freedom the others had.
I believe my mum was expecting her sister's money to be split 50/50 to her and her sister rather than straight to my cousins and I. I think my mum believes that my aunt is the reason this happened and that some persuading may have happened as this split leaves her children much better off and my aunt is mortgage free with a holiday home so has no need for it.
Since my aunt passed my mum and other aunt haven't spoken at all. My mum is furious with her but won't tell me why she thinks persuasion happened and why it matters! My parents don't have much left on their mortgage and I've told them once I've bought somewhere I'll give them as much as I can from my inheritance.
I told my mum yesterday that I might ask my cousin to be my MOH and she told me if that happens she won't come to my wedding. I said I will need more info to make that decision but I love my cousin.

AIBU to think my mum is being a little crazy and unless she can give me more info to have my cousin as my MOH?

Your wedding day is a wonderful day to celebrate a milestone in your life with thise who love you.

It doesn't sound like your cousin has actually done anything wrong, she is an important person in your life.

Obviously you love your mum abd she loves you but she's the one behaving badly here bringing power-play manipulation into it to make you obey her commands or suffer her wrath. That's not a loving act and you need to have the self respect not to cave in to it.

Mum, cousin A hasn't done anything wrong and I love her and want her to be my MoH. If you are going to let your feelings about aunty B's will spoil your relationships with the wider fanily that's your choice but you can't make me be a part of that. I will love having you at my wedding but if you choose not to come I will respect that choice but I am not letting you control my decisions about my day.

She would’ve expected them all to be passing around the same time. It’s not malfeasance, she just passed earlier than expected. Your poor aunt.

sorry for your loss

in OPs shoes I would have given some money to my parents though, not make them wait to see what scraps are left at the end of my mega spending spree, but each to their own.

And the prize for the most passive aggressive post on the thread goes to…

The comments saying mg aunt would have been expecting to pass around the same time as her sisters aren't relevant, she had a terminal illness and re-wrote her will, from what I understand it had been originally wrote to go to my mum and my other aunt. My mum thinks the change to it going straight to my cousins and I are in response to my aunt pressuring, however my aunt claims to have no part in it and the change was because all of us were now adults and the likelyhood of either side having more children was very low.
This is according to my cousin anyway.

Strongly disagree with other posters. She's not being greedy or manipulative; perhaps your mother and her sister had conversations around her inheritance and perhaps your mother (who by your own admission, is not well off) was relying on this inheritance%her sister's promise, for her pension etc - which has now - unexpectedly - gone to you. Maybe she is now in a very different (disadvantaged) position, when looking at her future plans, to the one she had been lead to believe she was going to be in by her DS. I think you need to be a little less sanctimonious and far more understanding towards your DM, OP. I know two families where this has happened, one is mine, where the deceased's children were - at the last minute - cut out of wills to favour the grandchildren (I was one of the beneficuary grandchildren). I know it's different here, being siblings, but you need to be considerate of your mother's feelings.

Personally I find it quite gross for someone, a grown adult, to be so up in arms over the money of the deceased. posters mother is seems absolutely heartless and money driven, not a care for the deceased great aunt. I suspect she was tapping her foot waiting for the poor woman to die, good riddance that the will wasn't in her favour.

🤷‍♀️nah just don't like greedy people and that is an easy life on a platter. Lot of very selfish people around these days.

That is a quite a direct post - where are you getting passive aggressive from?

You should be able to have the MOH you want, what on earth has the cousin done to your mum?? Nothing!!

I would maybe not bother with a MOH at all given the circumstances. That's a way to grey rock the situation.

to be honest op, this puts a different spin on it.

The will could have been written back then to go to any children of her siblings and held in trust until you were old enough so the 'now we're adults' doesn't necessarily make sense.

The will was specifically redone without your mums knowledge, and the beneficiaries changed so it's no surprise that she thinks some interference has gone on.

I don't think she's entitled to the money, no one is automatically entitled to it, but to be told she would be a beneficiary then find out she's actually been cut out of the will altogether and no explanation given, and no way of finding out what the reason was now, would do a bit of a number on anyone when it came to family relationships.

No the DM thinks the deceased sister was going to split it 50/50 between dm and other ds but as other ds didn't need it she intentionally manipulated deceased sister and persuaded her to leave it to the next gen down knowing that this would mean her own two dd would benefit

If this manipulative persuasion was intentionally done to benefit her two dc then that would be very sly.

I can imagine a sly sibling thinking 'I don't need the money so if i can get everything left to the gen down, it won't hurt me as I can forgo it and that way we get more'. If the deceased sis was planning to just leave it to her direct siblings and only changed it at the persuasion of the other wealthy sis then yeah I'd be pissed.

Hmm. How does your cousin know all this? This sounds very much like a line spun by her mother. Why would cousin possibly know this little nugget?

I don't think the aunt was some foolish old woman who changed her will without knowing what she was doing because one sister may or may not have made a suggestion. She sounds quite astute. She certainly knew all the people involved quite well. I think the will reflected what she wanted and that was to benefit the cousins.

My aunt’s money was left to all the cousins not my father or his brother. They were completely fine with it, she didn’t have kids and they had their own money.

One of my siblings has no children. I would not for a minute expect to be named in their will. I find your mums behaviour very odd.

I would believe what your cousin had said about changing her will to be correct.

I would not give any to your parents. I would keep it to ensure I had a comfortable nest egg for the future I.e maternity leave etc.

If your aunt wanted your mum to have the money, she would have drafted her will to say that.

I really don’t see which bit you think sounds implausible. OP’s mother clearly believed the money was coming to her, so the part about that being the original plan makes sense. The will clearly was changed, because OP and her cousins got the money. As for why OP’s aunt changed her will, it’s not that unlikely that she would have explained why to her sisters - it just seems OP’s mother doesn’t believe this explanation. Maybe you think OP’s mother is right; others might think the cousin’s mother is right. But either way, there isn’t anything odd about the cousin having her mother’s side of the story, and whichever side you’re on, the basic facts seem to tally.

As an aside, I'm one of 3 siblings. My sister has made clear she will be splitting her estate between her nieces and nephew (one child is mine) and I think it is lovely my child will get an extra boost.

Exactly. Her estate bought three properties in London, with money left over. You don’t get that kind of money by being daft.

From the rather sneery, hand-waving “But each to their own” after you dropped your little verbal hand grenades about spending sprees and throwing scraps. The OP isn’t Viv Nicholson, for God’s sake - she bought a place to live, which is a pretty sensible investment (as well as being generally quite useful) by anyone’s standards.

My mother threatened suicide if I didn't invite her to my wedding. Then threatened to stab her partner as well.

The same mother I hadn't seen for years, who I hadn't lived with since I was under 18 months.

I asked my fiancé if I had to invite her. He said no. So I didn't.

She is still alive.

Do not give into bullies ever. Your mum is trying to bully you.

You're replying to the wrong poster, it was me that said the above, and I stand by it to be fair, it does seem to me that OP is completely disregarding her mums feelings/acting like it shouldn't matter in relation to the inheritance that she's received.

My mum is furious with her but won't tell me why she thinks persuasion happened and why it matters!

It's alright saying 'but why does it matter that you've been cut out of the will?' when you'd been handed what, half a million quid??

OP hasn't actually bought a place to live, that's what the money is intended for, she's getting married, she plans on buying a property and then she says she'll see what's left and give them some of it. She's had her uni paid for, so no student debt, she has inherited a massive amount of money that she will be able to get on the property ladder with ease, she is in a very fortunate position, it's fantastic for her, no doubt.

Personally, if this happened to me and my mum who had been told she was to be a beneficiary of this will has now been cut out for reasons unknown to her, I'd actually feel terrible for her and wouldn't be able to talk about my upcoming wedding and house I'm going to buy with all my money, before deciding how I could use it to help them out first, it's utterly tone deaf.

Making them wait for the whatever's left at the end just doesn't sit right with me at all, it says that they are the lowest of the low on OPs priority list, an afterthought. Personally I'd have paid at least off their 'small' mortgage before I could even think about spending any of it on myself, but like I said in my post each to their own.

You're replying to the wrong poster, it was me that said the above, and I stand by it to be fair

Okay then - I’ll address my post to you. I’d assumed the response was you defending yourself, because I didn’t think two people could be so ridiculous, but now I’ve seen who the other poster is, it all makes sense. I also stand by my post.

It's alright saying 'but why does it matter that you've been cut out of the will?' when you'd been handed what, half a million quid??

But why is she blaming the OP’s cousin? She’s a beneficiary of the will; she didn’t write it. It was her late sister who wrote the will. She claims her other sister manipulated things. Surely if she’s going to be mad at anyone, it’s the two of them?

OP hasn't actually bought a place to live, that's what the money is intended for

OP said in her opening post that she and her cousins have all been able to buy property in London, not that they’re planning to do that. But even if is just a plan at the moment, that makes zero difference to my point. She’s still spending HER inheritance on a useful and worthwhile investment.

Personally, if this happened to me and my mum who had been told she was to be a beneficiary of this will has now been cut out for reasons unknown to her, I'd actually feel terrible for her

Does OP’s mother “feel terrible” that her sister was robbed of the last 20 - 30 years of her life? Because all she seems to give a shit about is the money. She blames her dead sister for leaving it to the younger generation of the family. She blames her other sister for the decision, claiming it was her manipulation behind it, even though it disadvantages her financially. She blames her niece for accepting it, to the point that she’s saying she won’t go to her own daughter’s wedding if said niece is involved. Even though her niece isn’t the one she’s accusing of manipulating the deceased.

She wants to blame everyone else for the fact that she didn’t get any money, and to punish her daughter because she dared to include her cousin in her own wedding - all because of something she claims her sister did. All without so much as a passing thought for her dead sister. How dare the selfish cow die without making her a rich woman!

You're actually seem to be reading a lot into this that isn't actually there in OPs posts.. and you are actively filling in gaps with your own projection.

Where does it say she blames the cousin?
Where does it say she blames her deceased sister for changing the will?
Where does it say she blaming anyone for anything.
Where does it say she hasn't been grieving for her sister.
We don't even know her reaction to OP getting the money at all because it hasn't been mentioned, she's only upset about the choice of MOH because of the family feud.

If you take the inheritance out of the equation for a moment it becomes a simple family feud, she has fell out with her sister and if OP picks her cousin as MOH, she has gone from being a simple guest to a main part of organising/being heavily involved the wedding, which means OPs mum is going to have to spend time with her and possibly her sister who she is estranged from in the run up to the wedding and definitely during. Incidentally I think OPs mum is being unreasonable in relation to the wedding and should suck it up for the sake of her daughter.

It's the inheritance part that I disagree with, and the secret change of will. Everyone, including OP seem to think her mum is just some money grabbing greedy cow for being upset at being cut out of her sisters will, but regardless of the money, I'd be terribly upset if I found out after the fact that my two sisters had done this behind my back, and not bothered to tell me, choosing to wait till the sister actually dies for me to find out, it's hurtful and I can understand why the mum has not spoken to her remaining sister since, she feels betrayed. The money may be a bit of a red herring and there could be so much more about this family fallout, going back years even, that OP isn't even aware of.

I'd give my mum the benefit of the doubt that she's genuinely upset by how it all happened, not assume that she's so furious about losing the money that she's trying to ruin my wedding.

Where does it say she blames the cousin?
If she doesn’t, why is she claiming she’ll refuse to come to her own daughter’s wedding if the cousin is the maid of honour?

Where does it say she blames her deceased sister for changing the will?
Well* *she seems a lot more worried about what she gets (or rather doesn’t get) in the will than she does about the fact that her sister is dead.

Where does it say she blaming anyone for anything.
She has openly accused one of her sisters of manipulating the other into changing her will. She is refusing to go to her own daughter’s wedding if her niece is involved. What is that if not blame?

Where does it say she hasn't been grieving for her sister.
It doesn’t. But she seems to be grieving a lot more for the loss of a chance at a big cheque.