Different Dads Different Prospects

[DelaneyDonkey]

I have no idea what I even want out of this thread.

When I first met my in-laws not only was I pregnant with their grandson even though I had only known their son for a few months I also had a three year old in tow whose dad was completely uninterested. I was quite a catch as you can imagine.

I thought everything worked out reasonably well. We got married and settled down. Broadly speaking they treated both boys well and my eldest had come into the family at an age where he knew they weren’t his grandparents so subtle differences in their treatment were accepted.

Now 17 years later things are beginning to change massively. Eldest dropped out of uni and in and out of work through no fault of his own, just the way it is with that kind of work. While youngest has had driving lessons given to him by in-laws, a second hand car, a course paid for, enabling him to get a part-time job. He has been told he will be supported at uni.

My in-laws are very ordinary people, who have worked all their lives but in the 1980s FiL had an industrial accident and built up a little property portfolio. Last week, completely casually younger son said that one of these houses la will be transferred to him when he is 18 of months. Apparently the two cousins have had houses given to them as well.

Elder son just became mute.

Husband and I are having to pare everything back at the minute but he won’t approach his dad to ask what is going on.

Youngest has his head screwed on but it is as if he has everything handed him on a plate.

Our mortgaged house is worth about £300,000 but husband will not hear of adjusting our wills.

If you had asked me 18 years ago if I expected in-laws to treat them the same I would have said no, it wasn’t their duty but I am just beside myself at the inequality, I didn’t expect it.

I mean the youngest also lives with his dad. So already unfair. The only way to not have these things unfair is to not create blended families.

The only person who created the situation for upset and hurt is the op ultimately.

I disagree that changing the will is unfair. If anything, you can leave a bigger portion to your eldest but if your youngest son is guaranteed to be given a house then it's not unreasonable to give your other son the same. If you sit them both down and explain the rationale then hopefully your youngest will get that it's about putting both children, whom you love equally, on the same footing.

On this forum, many are strong believers in children from previous relationships accepting their fate as being treated as second class citizens within their own families, settling for surface level kindness rather than actually being accepted as family.

But the eldest son does have his biological dad in his life.
Granted he doesnt have the level of wealth that his brothers biological father does, but he is still in his life

It feels a bit like on here the stance when a mother is asked by a husband to split assests equally between the womans biological and step children, the general answer is "no, step kids will inherit from their own mothers side of the family..." But when the situation is reversed and its a step father, him and his family are expected to treat biological and step kids equally

And there it is__

Take responsibility for your own kids - don't expect our parents to fund your choices.

Some of my friends will inherit millions from parents, some nothing, my sister had a huge payout from a workplace accident that has changed her material circumstances - anyway, my point is inequality is a prevailing feature of life and while I can see your elder child would feel some way about it, your job is to help him let go of this and see it as one of those things: different people have different family wealth and luck is unevenly distributed. Get on with it or face a life of misery and resentment.

You say your eldest's father didn't want contact, but what about his parents? Did you keep up a relationship with them, or did they not want to know either? Developing a relationship with his own grandparents might help him understand his roots rather than feeling like a second class grandchild.

I stand by my previous posts, but as you have direct contact with the father of eldest and he does see his father you need to be on his case as well.

It must be really hard to see your boys with different levels of advantage because of course you love them equally and want the same for them. But the fact is that they have different fathers and different grandparents, and that will affect them in all kinds of ways. As your youngest grows up, look out for ways that you can support him in whatever he wants to do.

It doesn’t sound like they’re giving him free rein tbh. They’ve clearly carefully managed their money, and OP has said that her youngest will be taught how to manage this property.

I suspect they have been and are working with financial management services, and have put measures in place to make sure that he won’t just blow through it, but benefit from it long term. As part of this I also think it’s highly likely that the youngest has been receiving an education in how to manage his finances wisely and to not just rely on what they are giving him (hence his job). OP may not have been aware of this, of course.

It’s the curse of blended families
This!
My current in laws have no interest in my children from my first marriage, I am unsurprised by this.
I thank my lucky stars that I declined to have children with their son.

You sound so incredibly entitled! Why should your DH’s parents fund a child who already has two parents of his own?

Is the issue also that by bypassing your DH, as well as expertly making sure you don’t pass on to elder DS, they’ve also cut you and DH out? Had you been expecting to inherit?

Then tough luck. You remarry, you take the way things fall.

I find it galling OP is put out about this. She should have made provisions for her own child. Nobody should expect others to include their child in a will.

Crazy thinking.

You and your eldest need to cultivate gratitude. Your eldest has a lot of things in his favour and if he allows the fact that his brother has more financially to embitter him, he could ruin a perfectly decent life

You are being massively unreasonable.

It's their money and they want to leave it to their blood relatives.

They obviously feel they have set up their kids in life and want to help their grandkids.

They allowed to this.

They are allowed to give cash to their grandkids.

You need to think about how you can support your eldest with coming to terms with this, and get his life back on track.

Because at the moment it seems you're just making excuses for why things haven't worked out for him.

It seems like you giving him an excuse to fail. If you don't address this it will become a huge chip on his shoulder. And he may even blame this for how his life turns out.

I mentioned earlier my dds being slighted at times by step mum/dad’s family. But along side that they also recognise that my dh raised them, provided for them and they wouldn’t have had the life they have had without him.

Your oldest floundering and the grandparent support are completely separate issues.

Your oldest needs to make a real plan if he is not going to university. He can’t just depend on random jobs. He will never earn a living wage and he is experiencing the instability that comes with that life path.

Depends how you see things.

My cousins had everything handed to them. None of them had careers.

My siblings had nothing. We all have careers, brought our own houses and cars - 2 have paid off mortgages.

Life is why you put into it - If be worried about a child given too much too soon,

We help our children, we could afford more - but I want them to work hard and appreciate what they can afford themselves.

This.

I come from a family where I play the part of your oldest son. I realised that when my stepdad passed, that actually I wasn’t in line to inherit anything but my 3 half brothers were. I grew up with my stepdad believing he and his family were my biological family, so slightly different in treatment but I didn’t inherit anything. I don’t envy my brothers, I just realise that life isn’t fair.

But OP doesn't want PIL to give her elder son a house/money, she wants her DH to. And she's also said that she and DH currently have mirror wills giving the two boys 50% each. Her DH will presumably inherit some wealth from PIL and her elder son will get 50% of whatever is left of this. So I can only assume OP means she wants her DH to change his will to leave more than 50% of his estate to her elder son, who isn't his biological son and as far as we know hasn't been adopted by him or had parental responsibility for him given to DH. And who also has a father and GP.

She can choose to give her elder son more of her estate if she wants to, in her own will. But surely it's unreasonable to expect her DH to?

PS - depending on region could be only £100k value/£500pcm. But yes inequality

OP, it's probable that you and DS1 have had a better life than if you hadn't met DH and his family, there have been advantages to your son, it just depends what you compare. The fact DH is going 50:50 for inheritance to the boys is already generous.

So I think you should not change your wills, however, I think it would make sense for you to have life insurance that pays out to DS1. This can be different than inheritance as it's to recognise that if anything happened to you, he'd be much more "on his own," than DS2 with his generous extended family.

Hopefully DS1 will find a path soon, do everything you can to get him going, the resentment won't grow if he's secure and happy.

I haven’t read the whole thread @DelaneyDonkey so sorry if I am just repeating what everyone has said before.

Your PILs are not blood relations to your eldest DS and the reality is if they have given property to their other grandkids then their choices are to give property to your youngest son (their grandson), creating disparity between your children, or not to give him property and create disparity between their grandchildren. They see the first as unfair in your eyes, the second as unfair in their eyes. If this had been a matter of a few hundred pounds they may have included your eldest son in their generosity, but it is not reasonable to expect them to give him an entire property possibly worth six figures. It creates a problem for you, but it is really not your PILs at fault.

Turning to your DH, the property creates disparity between his son and his step-son and, as it is a gift from his parents, my personal view is that it is his family (in a sense part of his potential inheritance) that is causing the issue. I would see it as completely reasonable to want to redress this imbalance himself (with you) by gifting your eldest son with what you can afford, ideally now but if this is not possible then through your wills. Maybe not a property, but the deposit for a property. If he doesn’t want to do this this says a lot about how he views your eldest son, which you may already know and may or may not understand. He is not his biological father.

Irrespective of your husband’s views OP, you may want to do what you can out of your own money without touching your joint assets. Your ability to do this may be limited, but in years to come your eldest son may appreciate any effort that you did make.

It is up to your PILs how they gift their assets and it is up to you how you gift yours. Your children are no longer equal because one has had a property gifted to him and one hasn’t. There is no problem with you treating them differently in order to address this imbalance. If one of your sons had a disability nobody would disagree with you giving that one more money to make their lives more equal. This is not so different.

But whatever you do plan to do it is important that you are open with both of your sons so they understand, to limit resentment later, or if there is resentment to ensure it is against you and you can talk about it, and not against each other.

And of course in the event your ex’s family come through for your eldest son, the same applies for the youngest.

Good luck OP. Blended families are beautiful and challenging in turns.

Some families are just like this.

I met my dh when my son was 8. His parents treated ds the same as his sisters children (then aged 2 and 6), from the day they met ds.

When dh and I married two years later, they changed thier wills to include my ds along with thier other two grandchildren. They set up a savings account for him and put in the same amount each month as the others.

My ds is 23 now and they paid for his driving lessons, just as they had planned to for the other grandchildren.

Ds has never been treated any differently. Me and dh have two children together now, and there is zero difference to how PIL treat them to Ds. They call him their grandson to people they meet, he calls them nan and grandad.

I am extremely lucky and very grateful to them, especially as ds has had awful experiences with his paternal grandparents (they hated me so take it out on ds).

It’s not true that there is always a disparity. Some people are genuinely lovely, like my PIL. I have learned so much from them.

(And of course, in dh will, my ds is equal to the two children we have together. He wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving ds out).