It's ok to disinherit a firstborn if remarried and have a new family, right?

[Eatcabbage]

Or am I being unreasonable for feeling a bit hurt?
I feel like it is saying you aren't my daughter anymore, though this is about the billionth way this has been said over the years.
According to my mother, my father "should have got nothing" when they divorced as he did "f-all" and stayed at home with me after I was born when my mother went back to work, "and I paid your school fees", so why should I inherit anything from her?
I'm not bothered about the financial side of things and don't expect anything from my mother or anyone else and I never have, I'm fiercely independent, but I do get hurt by rejection.
I have two step siblings, and my father not recognising them in his will is apparently another reason why I have been disinherited by my mother.
I'm genuinely interested to know what is normally done in situations like this. Am I just being oversensitive? I know I am very sensitive to rejection and easily hurt by it.

If I am honest, and I don't wish to upset you further but I think you are just collateral damage to your Mum. She cannot justify her stance as there is no feasible justification. She clearly carries a great deal of ill will to your Father that has festered and she is not in a nice place. If she can't hurt him directly, hurting you is the next best thing - its evil and mean.

Its a bit ironic because its normally the woman that raises the kid and its the husband who claims the sahm has contributed nothing financially and so deserves nothing.

You are her and your Dads biological child, that is why you should be in the Will. Her kids, are hers alone so why would he name them in his Will. She is not being rationale she is just lashing out. But that doesn't help you.

Do you have maternal grandparents that can intervene for you, perhaps talk to your mum about the signals it gives to you...abandonment, lack of acknowledgement that you are her child? Failing that, when you are calm, sit down and write her a letter and tell her how you love her but that it makes you feel, its as if you are being erased as her child by the lack of acknowledgement and if that is the signal she wants to give, then she is succeeding. That being the case she needs to understand that it will impact your relationship. Write it down so you get it all out and don't get side tracked. I hope it would make your Mum reconsider but if it doesn't now, at some point in the future, she may revisit the letter and realise the mistake.

No child deserves this, you are not the one this should be aimed at. It sounds like your Mum has some real anger issues that she is aiming at you, in the knowledge it will hurt your Dad.

Another vote for going no-contact with the toxic, malevolent piece of pure nastiness that is your mother.
There is no happiness to be found with having people like this in your life.
Just block her from your phone and don't contact her for 6 months. By then you'll have realised how much better your life will be without her.

Thank you. I did write to her apologising and explaining almost exactly that. I made it very clear that it is not about money and purely about emotional rejection. I then called also to apologise. She screamed at me and slammed down the phone.

Your mother sounds bitter & jealous

You've missed out on alot with her & I'm sorry to hear that no child deserves to be neglected let alone disinherited & I hope you have support outside of her

I’m sorry your mother is behaving this way.

I would make it clear, at every opportunity, that you don’t want to inherit anything from her. Just drop it into conversations.

Because I am passive aggressive with abusive people I would tell relatives - I’m worried about mum’s health, she’s saying strange things. Last week she said I’m not her daughter, I hope it’s not dementia. Or similar.

OP, I missed the update about you not actually feeling close to your siblings and about the way they were allowed to treat you when you were at her home.

Though it is possible that they were also insecure in her toxic parenting and felt jealous of you as her first. It is also possible and perhaps more likely that they picked up on the dynamic: that you were indeed not part of that family unit, your mother’s new family. And on her coldness and hostility.

It isn’t healthy for you to be ‘being nice’ to people who are emotionally toxic, unless you can do so from a safe distance and very strong foundations.

Were your mother and father together when these children were alive. If they are older then you, i.e from relationships your mum had before she met your dad, they may be his ex step children, but if your mother has had those kids after she and your dad split up, they are no relation to him but they are your half- siblings.

What I meant by my comment is that I think your mum may have just done the maths here- and thought that you will inherit say 200k from your dad, so if she were to split her will equally you’d be better off than your half-siblings. I don’t know whether your half siblings are due to inherit from somewhere else but you mentioned that if your dad remarried and had other kids which he provided for in his will, you’d be without a family/ inheritance. I am saying that maybe if that happened she’d change her will again- and as it hasn’t happened it’s all a bit academic.

Either way IMO think you’ve got to work out whether having a relationship with your mum is worth just letting this one go and essentially assuming you’ll not inherit from her, or whether you’d prefer to take a massive step back.

Not very sympathetic! Did you need to say anything at all?

Sorry, I misunderstood what you had said.

"Aren't my mother's children his step children?"

No, they aren't. A step parent is somebody who is married to (or in a civil partnership with) the biological parent of the child.

So, your mother's new husband is your step father because he is married to your mother.

Your own father has no connection with their children at all. They could become his step children only if your mother were to divorce her new husband and remarry your father.

In this situation, he would not be the biological father of the children but would be married to the biological mother. So he becomes the step-father.

"Or are they ex step children?!"

Their children are your half-siblings as you share one parent with them (your mother).

Step siblings are entirely unrelated to each other except through marriage.

For example, if your dad were to remarry and he married a woman who already had children from an earlier relationship then he would be the step-father to those children and they would be your step-siblings.

If your father and his new wife were then to have a child together then that child would be your half-sibling as you share one parent with them (your father).

@Eatcabbage I too am part of a similar situation- Mum died, Dad remarried and I too have two half siblings.
Growing up I felt very pushed out and not part of the family-

What REALLY hurt was at a family party someone asked who I was , and then said “ I didn’t know (Dad’s name) had a daughter - he only mentions the boys.

I think older children can really suffer in these “ New family “ situations.

My own son ALSO had this happen- ( Ex husband has a daughter)
where someone said ( Dad) only ever speaks of his daughter..

It is hurtful.
People may not understand if they haven’t been the first child in a broken marriage.

Really sorry OP.

I hope reading this thread will give you the perspective that it is her not you.

I would now go extremely low contact. Take control. Make your own decision to cancel the after Christmas arrangements, do something else fun with your own Dc.

Don’t ever apologise again. Keep communication low. Have deflecting and grey rock responses at the ready:
”Yes, I understand that that is your opinion”
”Thank you for telling me your opinion”
”we have had this conversation, we can leave it there”

I hope you have other healthy, joyful supportive relations and friends in your life. Spend time with them. Don’t chase your Mum.

She’s a bitter woman with serious resentment and anger issues.

I’d bet it’s not all sweet harmony in her “new” marriage, either.

I can’t ever imagine a mother treating her own daughter like that.

Awful behaviour on her part.

😩

Doesn't sound like the mum treats all her dc equally so perhaps OP feels like a step-child.

It’s interesting because my ex-husband basically used all my child support to invest into a business that some of my children will benefit from, but one of them won’t
However, the one that won’t
Has an extremely and I mean extremely rich father in a country where you cannot disinherit your child.
So my kids are very wisely agreeing amongst themselves to just split whatever inheritance they get between them all no matter what that looks like.
And thank goodness for that

If I was your Mum, and I decided purely from a financial perspective that you were already protected by your Dads Will (not a valid argument in my mind), then I would make sure to acknowledge your relationship in the Will and leave something of sentimental value for you so you knew you have a large place in my heart.

You are not being over-sensitive - its your Mum who is being totally insensitive. Do not apologise, you have done nothing wrong. Parents can make big mistakes too.

@Eatcabbage

If your mum has children with another man after divorce they aren't your bio-father's step children. They are divorced so there is no legal relationship with them.

Step children - when a woman marries again and she has children from a former marriage, her new husband becomes a step father to her children.
This can also involve formal adoption of the child, to be pedantic, which is another legal step rather than just using the term 'step father'.

Your Mum's new husband is your step father.

I wonder how old your Mum is now?
If she's still quite young there is time for her to mellow and see things differently.
These issues around inheritance don't usually arise until parents are in their 60s (unless there is a family fortune and trusts etc are involved.)

Back to you- YANBU. It is a slap in the face and she's behaving badly.
How you manage it is tricky. You can distance yourself from her and maybe that's the best way forward. The collateral damage - losing touch with some of your half-siblings- is a price to pay and you have to decide which is preferable.

Not at all unreasonable. I couldn't imagine saying to my child, I paid for your schooling, other essentials, various extras etc. so you get nothing. My father said similar but it was a poor joke, perhaps this is your mother's way of joking badly?

Thank you. I did write to her apologising and explaining almost exactly that. I made it very clear that it is not about money and purely about emotional rejection. I then called also to apologise. She screamed at me and slammed down the phone.

You should not have apologised.

Distance yourself.
She sounds unhinged.

Maybe if you reduce your contact she will reflect on what she's done.

I really don't think this is the point of the thread. Perhaps a little compassion and understanding would go a long way?

She’s a nasty cow OP. Would suggest ordering Toxic Parents by Susan Forward and putting it at the top of the Christmas reading list. It’s not you, it’s HER - she’s nasty, punitive, unkind.

Your mother thinks your father has already had money from her that in her opinion he shouldn't have had, and that he will leave it to you. She thinks her children from the new relationship are losing out because of the money your father 'took' from her, so in her mind she is equalising it by leaving them everything she has left, leaving you to inherit her other money that your father 'took'. Seems to me that you are collateral to her dispute with your father and in her head she is righting a wrong.

This is about the fifth time this week I've seen someone on here claim to be "fiercely independent", it's so hackneyed. You're independent, we get it.

In all other ways YANBU.

No, only pre-existing children become step-children of the new spouse
Your mother's children born after your mother and father divorced are not your father's step-children.
They are your half-siblings, and your mother's new husband is your step-father, but your half-siblings are nothing (relationship-wise) to your father.
If your mother divorced her new husband and remarried your father, they would then become his step-children.

I can think of a comparable situation. My brother was the father who earned the money. His partner (they never married) stayed at home, lived a lifestyle available to only the top 1%. They had a child.

They split, he generously gave his ex partner half of the assets. He had 2 more children.

There is nothing on God's earth that would persuade him (and rightly so) to leave to his children anything other than a 3 way split in his will, even though his first child will inherit significantly more than his younger two, because that child will also inherit from their mother, who did not earn the money. He realises that his first child would see it as an emotional statement even if he were to explain to her "I'm leaving you a bit less because you will inherit from your mother too, whereas your younger siblings will only inherit from me".

Arguably it could be galling for him because he has a special skill set and was able to earn significant sums of money, whereas his partner did not work at all: did not do any paid work in her life after the age of 28.

But he is not a bitter person and, as I said, he realises the emotional impact his trying to split the money evenly would have on his first child.

Your mother is bitter, emotionally unintelligent. Even if she perceives that her splitting her legacy 3 ways is unfair financially, she should have still done it, because of the emotional impact it would have on you.

It is not your fault @Eatcabbage. You've been dealt a rough hand by having her as your mother. Try to distance yourself and keep reaffirming to yourself that you have been unlucky. It is not you, it's her.

Yup. OP you have nothing to apologise for, really, you don't. I'd kind of limit interaction with your mother who is being very unkind.