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.

Maybe it would be more appropriate if SIL waited a year or two after MIL passed, to contact you in a non-aggressive way and explain her reasons why it means so much to her to have that item in her possession.

You remind me of my manipulative sister-in-law who acts like the suns shines out of my mother's arse. All sugary sweet and fake.

You have no idea as to what kind of relationship blood mother & daughter had growing up so you have no right to judge.

Painting yourself as a martyr whilst sneaking away with the goods. Karma will catch up.

To those saying all the jewellery should go to the daughter, why? I have 2 brothers, they are no less a child of my mothers than I am. My mother died without leaving a will. My brothers expected that I would have her jewellery, but I offered it to them to either give to their wives or daughter. Both decided that our mother wasn’t close to either wife and so refused. However one of my brothers wanted 2 items that our mother wore daily, to remember her by, which I gave him as I was no more entitled to it than he was.

@midlifesharpplease graciously accept what your DMIL has gifted you, she has expressed her wish for you to have the item/s as a token of her love for you.
For those posters arguing that jewellery should pass through the female line only are you aware of the history behind the tradition?! All property passed through the male line (the patriarchy, yup 😉) except the jewellery which was the ONLY thing owned by the women... If you really want to go backwards then keep arguing that a lady who is totally aware of her own mortality is not allowed to dispose of her own property as she sees fit !
💐for you @midlifesharp, I hope you are able to find peace in the fact that your DMIL loves you x

Your posts about all about yourself. Get a grip. The woman chose to give her daughter 90% of her jewelry and 5% each to her DILs. And learn how to use zoom if you are indeed "a professional" in 2025.

Lucky for sil she doesn't have sisters. Then she would have had to share it with them. As it she gets to keep almost all of it.
Why are her brothers deemed less worthy to inherit jewellery anyway. They might not want to wear it but they might like to see it on those they love.

And yet she hasn't visited her now, and MIL has chosen to give some things to OP. Either stop projecting, or, if everything here is genuinely close to the bone, and you see yourself in OP's SIL, then maybe be nicer to your mum

You missed the bits where I said, 1. The MIL can leave what she wants to whom she wants, and 2. The SIL’s upset over these jewellery pieces jewellery may well be misplaced emotions about her relationship with her mother and her mother’s relationship with the OP.

Inheritances are more often than not extremely fraught because they are seen as proof of love/value by both the donor and the recipient. In this case, the OP has clearly been left something out of love and not just out of obligation on the part of MIL to hand over her assets to her next of blood kin. And the SIL was not a part of that conversation and we don’t know if the piece OP has been left was also important to the SIL, or whether she is kicking off because she feels devalued in some way, or if she is simply a selfish person who wants it all. We don’t know the history of the SIL and MIL relationship or their current relationship. A 4 year absence of meeting isn’t indicative of their history, nor is it necessarily indicative of a rift. It could point to laziness or incompetence on the SIL’s part or it could be something like fear or enforcing a boundary or plain denial that she’s dying. We don’t know as we only have the OP’s unflattering portrait of the SIL and idolisation of the MIL to go on. My point is, what is done is done, the OP has her gift, and as it’s the SIL losing her mother, not the OP, the OP should cut her some slack if emotions are running high.

If inheritances are fraught as seen as proof of love, then so is managing to visit an ailing parent once in 4 years.

Because I don't think it is relevant to MIL's decision to give jewellery to the OP, her choice to accept it, or the SILs indignation at this outcome. All human relationships can be complex. If you don't want to be "replaced", go and visit your mum. Especially if you do sweet Fanny Adams with your time at home anyway.

Well done for being deliberately obtuse.

Too true
my dh loves to see me waring his mum gold necklace - only worn on special occasions- must give it an airing soon.

Again, I made it very clear in my post the MIL and OP have done nothing wrong. What I am saying to the OP (not to you or anyone else taking umbrage) is to cut the SIL some slack for being upset over a piece of jewellery because it may well be misplaced emotion over a relationship she has had with her mother her whole life; which most likely will not be the same as the relationship the OP has, which is based on admiration of a successful “finished article” who was never her mother and all that entails.

@MrsDoombsPatterson excellent post.
It makes me feel very uncomfortable; the selfish and childish behaviour of the daughter, while the OP is so selfless in her behaviour and a knight in shining armour. I would love to hear her side. She's losing her mum, i feel for the daughter.

It sounds like the SiL knows she would be crass and unreasonable to argue against the MIL decision, which is why she never mentioned anything on the zoom call when she found out about the decision.

Instead of discussing it with her mum, who is the person making the decisions about her own things, she has called OP behind her mums back to ask that she pass those pieces on to her. It's very underhand and puts OP in a very awkward position of feeling guilty.

I love my MIL like a mum, if she wanted to leave a small piece of jewellery to me while giving her own daughter the bulk of her jewellery I'd be honoured, and I wouldn't look kindly on my SIL thinking I'm not worthy of it and trying to get it off me.

After reading one insane post after another I had to reply to this. 😂 The jewellery belongs to the MIL!! She has every right to give it to whoever she wants to!! Morals don’t really come into this - OP has not done anything wrong!

And I say this as a daughter who has been told she will inherit most of my mum’s jewellery while my brother will get the diamond rings to give to any future SIL - I respect this is what my mother wants!!

Besides at some point we will all die and what good are pretty jewels then. I would like my now baby daughter to have mine but beyond that I don’t care.

It’s perfectly reasonable for daughters in law to receive sone items. If you later divorce you should morally leave those with your husbands family but that’s the only moral constraint i would feel here.

The jewellery is yours by right, your mil gets to decide where it goes and only your mil. Think nothing more of it and do not respond to the greedy, lazy sil about this at all, I'd also suggest grey rocking and simply avoiding her as much as possible on pretty much everything going forward as you owe her nothing

but the OP details exactly why the SIl wants the jewellery:

but she did call me up afterwards to say she was shocked that she wasn’t getting all the jewellery as the only daughter,

She is under the impression (like many on here are for some reason!), that the daughter should be the sole recipient of any jewellery. It doesn't sound like SIL is suffering from misplaced emotion, it just sounds like she resents it 'going outside of the family (her)'.

I understand you playing devils advocate and you are very right that this does not represent the complexity of the SILs relationship with her mum, but it honestly sounds like SIL thinks she is entitled to it all and just doesn't agree that any other female should be gifted any.

I do find it interesting that every other person involved in that call decided to carry on the phone call in the sister's absence though, you would have thought that someone would have insisted on waiting, or talked about something else until she managed to join, it was only half an hour.

As much as SIL was at fault for not preparing, I would have felt a bit hurt that this important 'everyone needs to be together to decide' meeting was swiftly carried out without me as if it didn't matter that I was there or not, maybe SIL would not have had as much of a problem if she felt she was included in the decision making?

I do find it interesting that every other person involved in that call decided to carry on the phone call in the sister's absence though, you would have thought that someone would have insisted on waiting, or talked about something else until she managed to join, it was only half an hour.

Maybe they're just used to her never making any effort at all and expecting the world to revolve around her and what she can or can't be bothered to do - and they're just sick of it?

You can only carry other adults so far before they have to make a tiny bit of effort themselves.

@sandyhappypeople . Yes, keeping it in the family is one possibility, which is a bit silly as the OP’s daughter will inherit it as a granddaughter and is therefore “family”. However another possibility is that the SIL has placed her value to her mother as being the only daughter. In other words, a role (daughter) rather than a person in her own right who has earned her mother’s love and respect as the OP appears to have. She’s wanting to mark her territory as the “real” daughter, not the “replacement “. Not rational or fair, but human enough.

I did think that, it could well be that they knew she wouldn't put the effort in so saw it as her fault that she wasn't there and all cracked on regardless, or that maybe they knew how she would be about the jewellery and MIL took the opportunity to make her wishes known without argument, either way the wishes are the MILs so not up to SIL to try and change things later unless she has a very good reason (a certain item being sentimental etc).

IMO, being the only 'daughter' is not a good enough reason to insist all jewellery comes to her, against her mums wishes.

I can relate to this. When I read the opening post, I recognised that I might present and behave in a similar way to your SiL with something like this. I don't have depression, but I have trauma-related anxiety, ADHD and autism, but no one in my family knows apart from DH, DC and Dsis. An 'outsider' would write me off in the same way as your SiL.

Same as a couple of pp, I also don't like the little jabs about not driving and SAHP stuff. You may not BU,OP, but I think you should consider that your SiL may well have her faults, but she possibly isn't just the useless waste of space you have her pegged as.

I know there's a lot of "Team OP!" going on here, but generally, I've found in life that people and situations are rarely black and white when it comes to any of this stuff.

Whatever else may be true, it's black and white that the mil has the absolute right to throw her jewellery in the bin if she wants to and give it to anybody at all, that the sil is already getting an extremely generous share of the expensive jewellery and that op has the complete right to accept the mil's wishes. It's black and white that the sil will have to accept that as she has no other choice and it's also black and white that the op is not responsible for being the sil's support person no matter what her problems might be.

Sil was given lots of assistance to make the call and actually was part of the call and should have talked to her mother about her mother's decisions one to one instead of trying to force the sil to give up her perfectly fair share. All of that is pretty much black and white, no matter the sil's wants or reasons.

Everyone seems to have missed this from the OP:

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?

It seems to me that the OP is sort of admitting she was setting her SIL up for a fail here (as lame as she may be for not understanding how to join a call), and judging by her husband's attitude to his sister, nobody cared whether she was present for this apparently seminal, near end of life distribution of anecdotes, reminiscences and beloved assets. MIL's wishes were not set in stone either, with a pre-intention to give anything to the OP, since OP indicates that if SIL had been on the call from the start and had asked for all the jewellery, she would have been given it all by her mother. So it was a matter of luck on the OP's part that SIL didn't manage to get on the call. If the OP had had an IT/internet failure, and hadn't been able to get on the call herself (along with her husband), I wonder whether she/he would think they had been treated unfairly by the others carrying on regardless, picking what assets they wanted in her absence.