Inheritance dilemma

[midlifesharp]

Some context- my SIL (early 40s) is the most useless woman. She doesn’t work, doesn’t drive, is a SAHM who doesn’t do housework or look after children. She doesn’t read books or watch films or have any kind of hobby or inner life. Fortunately for her she was born extremely beautiful and has had people looking after and supporting her her whole life. I actually don’t dislike her (I realise I sound like I do!) because she’s not usually unkind or cruel- she’s just boring, a bit self centred, helpless and unable to do anything for herself.

The problem- MIL is dying. She has 3 children- my DH, SIL and my lovely BIL. MIL lives abroad with her sister as the temperature helped her degenerative condition, but recently things have got worse and she’s going into hospice care. She’s moving out of her house and sorting out all her possessions before she goes. She has a lot of lovely jewellery and paintings and arty things that she’s collected over the years and wanted to arrange everything before she goes into hospice so we’re not having to deal with the house and possessions as well as her dying when we fly out.

She asked me to set up a family call so they could discuss and agree in advance who gets what so she can have things boxed and parcelled up as appropriate. I set up a zoom call and sent the details to everyone. I even messaged SIL separately to check that she had the details and crucially knew how to join the call (either download the app or join in her browser.) Then, after worrying about it some more I sent her the link to the app in the App Store, some clear instructions and suggested she practice beforehand.

Obviously at the time of the call she wasn’t able to get it to work having not done anything before hand. My 80+ MIL and her sister managed just fine but apparently it was beyond SIL. MIL was extremely disappointed and just texted her that we’d go ahead without her and hope that she was able to join. She eventually got her 10 year old son to sort it and joined 35 mins late. She was utterly furious to find out that we’d started without her and that the jewellery had already been discussed. Just to be clear- she got most of the jewellery. MIL still gave her many items that she knew she liked but there were a couple of pieces that MIL gave to me and to BIL’s wife. SIL’s not totally crass so didn’t say anything to her mum, but she did call me up afterwards to say she was shocked that she wasn’t getting all the jewellery as the only daughter, that it wasn’t fair because she wasn’t on the call, and that she expected me and BILs wife to give her the pieces MIL had said were for us.

DH told her to do one (in a more polite way). It turned into a big row and he suggested that she call up mum if she didn’t like it. He also pointed out that she was the only child not to have visited MIL in FOUR years, despite having the most financial resources, support at home and free time. Both myself and BILs wife have visited 1-2 times a year as MIL is lovely and the grandchildren love her and I’m happy to have something to remember her by.

Was I unreasonable to set up the call the way I did? If I’m honest, deep down I knew she’d somehow not be able to manage it. I could have looked into other options. Also AIBU not to give her the items MIL gave me, bearing in mind if she’d managed to join the zoom call I’d be unlikely to have them?

(We’re talking about total value of jewellery gifts to me and BILs wife of around £5k, remaining £50k plus to SIL. Total remaining estate about £500k split evenly 3 ways.)

Finally, before people come on and say how awful everyone sounds, I’ve not touched upon how devastated everyone is and how sad and how miserable this all is. This is simply a post asking for feedback on one aspect.

your granddaughters if you have them? Or your brothers’ daughters

There are no guarantees.

I know of cases where the daughter has sold the jewellery.

I suppose you could have set up a test zoom or teams call between the two of you in advance of the family meeting - but why pander to the 'helpless little me' act?
she sounds a pain in the ass

Despite my rather grabby SIL moaning about not inheriting any of my mum's jewellery, I don't think you should allow your SIL to bully you into defying your MIL's wishes. It sounds like you deserve those few bits of jewellery far more than your SIL.

The old laws about sons being the inheritors of money/real estate are wrong and so is the idea of daughters being the inheritors of jewely. It's 2025. If your kids/grandkids are in the fortunate enough position to inherit something, sex should not be a factor.

no. The rest of the estate should be split up equally between siblings

But it very rarely works that way.

Possessions usually get handed down directly, so if you have, say, three children and something goes to one of them, it will almost invariably go to their children and not to their nieces or nephews. Also, what about if you only have sons and no granddaughters when you die, but they go on to have daughters at a later stage?

In OP's case, you're potentially relying on the goodwill of a son giving £50,000 of his inheritance to a niece, rather than to his own son, purely because of her sex.

You're making assumptions. I'm an only child. There's no point in passing my mother's jewellery or mine to my female cousins - they actually sold their own mother's jewellery. Mine will be going to the family of my nephew through marriage.

The only important thing in this whole situation is that she hasn’t been out to visit once. She sounds completely self-absorbed and entitied. Her behaviour is what you’d expect from someone like that. No more needs to be said. Ignore her.

That's basically what the suggested 'practice' would have been.

If the daughter had been bothered, she could have very easily asked to have a test teams call with OP or one of the others, so she knew how to do it for the 'big one'.

Or if she's so hopeless that it's beyond her, she could have asked her son from the start. I know very little about fixing cars, but if I have a car that needs fixing, I ask a mechanic; I don't just assume that, because I can't do it, nobody can.

Once somebody is an adult, it is up to them to start learning how to do important things in life themselves or otherwise seek help from somebody else who can do them. You can't expect other adults to keep on treating you like a baby forever.

I do agree with you overall on this.

I was given jewellery from Great-Grandmothers and Aunties, not my brother.

My Mum doesn’t have much jewellery, but would give it to myself and my sister, or a daughter of my brother’s, but not my brother directly or his wife.

It is already in my will that my daughter will receive my jewellery. My DH will leave our son all of his valuable watches, cuff links, etc. My daughter already knows the huge importance of my eternity ring in particular marking her birth and being linked explicitly to her name, we discuss it a lot and she’s understood it will be hers from age 3. My daughter and I spend time together daily doing our hair, choosing clothes and jewellery together. I will update my will if my son has a daughter with a special piece of jewellery for her too.

It’s not the fault of this OP that she has been left some jewellery though- her SIL should take it up with her mother. It doesn’t sound at all like the OP pressured her MIL for some.

Mother’s help? Slacker’s help more like @midlifesharp 🫣😱🤣 she sounds awful. She could have joined the call if she had practised. She is jealous of you. Do NOT give her the pieces - it is up to your MIL who has what. You have done what you were asked to do and MIL chose to go ahead. So tough luck SIL, get over yourself.

Annoyed on your behalf OP!

you asked me who to give your jewellery to without giving me any further info! That’s why I had to make an assumption. But you’re right, I could have asked your exact circs. Mostly, I’m glad you have someone nice to give your jewellery to x

You can be gutted. But if your mum decides to give it to sil, a friend, the deliveroo person....tough.

What an incredibly rude, unfeeling thing to say to someone who loves you enough to bequeath you jewellery while they are still alive but unwell. "No"..."screw your beautiful sentiment, but I reject it, and you"... Or the ever-patronising "you don't know what you want.... I know what you want... this is what you want..."

This thread reminds me of one from some time ago, where OP's DH had tragically predeceased his own mother, and the mother responded by redrawing her will to leave everything solely to her surviving children, with nothing whatsoever to her late son's widow OR to his children.

To her, a direct next-generation blood tie was all that mattered. Once her son had died, his beloved family were nothing to her.

I think @midlifesharp your MIL is at liberty to leave what she wants to whom she wants. Whilst having a video conference to discuss inheritance sounds needlessly dramatic and over the top, you did nothing wrong organising it or giving your SIL the tools to join it.

However, your posts make me uncomfortable. You sound like you don’t think your SIL “deserves” or is “worthy” to be the daughter of your high achieving MIL and think that role belongs to you; or you wish she was your actual mother and that your own mother hadn’t been. Whatever the rights and wrongs of SIL’s behaviour (including not visiting her mother for 4 years), and no matter what rapport/love/respect you have with your MIL, your MIL is SIL’s mother, not yours. Familial relationships are complicated, if not minefields of years of built up expectations/hurts/let downs etc, and it is much easier to come in as an outsider and see the confident matriarch only through the lens of her present, shiny, polished self, and not the person she was leading up to that point - not seeing the potentially messy person her own children will have seen and had to put up with, resulting in a less close relationship in their adulthood. You are losing someone you admire and love but your SIL is losing her mother, so you should cut her some slack on this. Her upset over these jewellery pieces may well be displaced emotions about her relationship with her mum and feeling “replaced” by you.

And for heaven’s sake, keep your nose out of the inheritance distribution and “accounting” for the value of the jewellery. That really is none of your business, your husband’s inheritance is not a marital asset.

Well then she could always jump on a plane and visit her. She isn't dead yet.

It's not unnecessarily dramatic, the poor MIL os dying. That is a fairly dramatic thing for her to have to face. They don't all live in the same country. Also, a letter to read or unexpected will findings would be far more dramatic and unpleasant

@Robin67 completely missing the point I am making about complicated relationships.

I’m sorry you’re going through this.
When mil died SIL more or less grabbed the lot (Jewellery).
it upset dh a lot.
Your mil sounds lovely
Ignore SIL and her tantrums.
I and other sil have a few peaces that we treasure ….sadly the ripples of SIL’s ‘attention seeking ‘ are still being felt , some years after …. Even today , after sil falling out with everyone , several months ago….sil is causing drama.
It’s just grabby and leaves a bad taste.

Why shouldn't the MIL in this case leave her stuff to whomever she wants? In this particular instance it sounds as though the piece in question has a sentimental value too. It's not weird to leave something to a treasured daughter in law because our possessions are not portfolios that need to be kept together at all costs, so even if there were a divorce and the jewellery (gasp!) left the family - so what? The relationship that the MIL wanted to honour has still happened.

Inheritances bring out weird stuff in people and can turn them, or at least make them seem, incredibly grabby when they're not normally. I would simply say that it's not your decision to make and let your SIL process her disappointment in time.

Yes, it's absolutely shocking for an adult child to not even want to ensure they visit their parent, when they know they will very soon be dead.

Of course, it's completely different if they've been terrible and/or abusive 'parents' (not worthy of the name) to you and you've long been no contact with them; but when you have a 'normally' affectionate relationship with them, but just think it's a bit too much effort to even bother doing that one final thing for them whilst you still can.

Even more so if you're merrily (and 'furiously' defended) feeling entitled to inherit £50K or more of just jewellery from them, let alone all the rest of the money or property that you stand to gain.

I think it was awful and horribly cruel to allow the zoom call to go on for 35 mins without her daughter linked in. Id find that extremely cheeky and I'm not surprised SIL was upset.

Im a professional woman, and even I have technical issues with zoom. It was as though you set her up to fail.

But if you have such a complicated relationship with a parent you won't visit them in years, you can't reasonably demand that all the additional jewelry inheritance (over and beyond the equal split between you and your siblings) goes to you alone. Complicated relationship means just that - it's complicated. You can't have your cake and eat it and adults have to get grips with that when it comes to their responsibilities and rights.

This. And it was weird that you allowed the zoom call to go on for so long without her actual daughter present. Very rude.

Ppl might not agree but morally that jewellery is not yours. You've trespassed.

I agree that she seems both lovely and also very wise.

Yet she's been blamed on here for wanting to very sensibly use a simple and common-sense technology for people who live a long way apart to discuss and explain her decisions for whom she wants to have her treasured belongings whilst she's still alive.

Apparently, she should just hurry up and die and quietly leave a written list of items and names with her solicitor, without actually wanting to trouble her family with a final significant (online) meeting - so that her entitled, argumentative daughter can make demands and sully her memory.