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.

The way this person is so strongly against the idea of older son getting any help from his step father or his family, it seems to be this person has a step child they dislike. They are not able to think beyond rigid blood ties, when both kids grew up in same house with same set of elders. People even feel love for their cats and dogs, I don’t think every relationship should be strictly measured by blood ties but for some here there is nothing beyond that. I feel sad for OP’s older son, that for no fault of his, he has a useless and unstable father. Where the other child through pure luck has a caring and very helpful family.

And said opinions can be debated by other posters on such a forum.

No, it is certainly generous because it isn’t expected for stepchildren to inherit from stepparents at all. It is standard practice for each parent in a blended family to leave their half of an estate to their own biological children. Op unilaterally wanting to change their 50/50 agreement to favor her oldest child is very likely to result in her husband responding in kind by favoring his own son. She can of course risk marital breakdown if she so chooses, but it’s unlikely that her oldest son will end up any better off if she does.

Imagine the outrage if a man had come up with such a manipulative, passive aggressive, coercive plan.

I know! I even said that no one had really done anything wrong, just that the Dad ought to be concerned at the disparity and open to ways to improve the situation. Bloodlines, shmoodlines 😂 I didn’t even realise some people talked about wills anyway, all this stress when you might lose all your money paying for your care 🤷🏻‍♀️

Every blended family functions differently.

In my situation, SD sees my parents 2 or 3 times a year. They have never got on, SD goes out of her way to antagonise my Mum and my Mum rises to it every time so we just try to keep them apart.

DD sees my parents several times a week and spends one night a fortnight there. She loves her Grandma and Grandad almost as much as she loves me and her Dad.

I don't expect them to (and they've confirmed they won't) leave anything to SD- the relationship is just not there.

I’m basing this on what OP has said. I’m sorry you’re not able to read the whole post. I don’t know how to help you other than theres a button to read only what OP has said. Also, genetics tell us that lots of traits are hereditary. I’m not the one with trauma or a chip on my shoulder. I’m basing my opinion on science and the info from OP.

Op, ignore people being nasty to you and your older son. I understand you are sad to see that your son do not have the opportunities other kids in family have. I also understand you are worried he may not have that close relationships with cousins like your other son. You can’t control any of that. Provide guidance to your son with his education and job. Help him understand value of his own money and saving. Teach him good work ethics, it’s important for everyone but more so for those who do not have financial support like your younger one and his cousins. Maybe he can get into financial lucrative career as he is going to university through graduate programs, even if he sticks to teaching, it is a good profession. Hopefully he doesn't need help from his step family. If you can find any part time work, you should do that.

Not how I see it. To me it suggests my neice was viewed as twice as important as either of my 2 DDs. My neice already had half a million my sister scammed in insurance for my late brother in law so really didn't need twice as much.

But would you expect your older son to share a house if he inherited his father’s estate and ended up with something more valuable?

If my dad had not thought it a bit dodgy I would have been aware of the situation, not discovered it after his death.

I would just like to have heard it explained why my 2 were 2nd class.

Nope, neither a stepchild nor a stepparent. My experience with blended families was a professional one, and I have seen situations like OP’s play out more than once. The reality is that the vast majority of people place greater importance on blood family does than non blood family (spouses being the exception), and this is something that has always been the case.

You are quite crackers. That’s all.

You are entitled to your opinion and if my parents had split the money between me and my sister I would agree with you. However they didn't and instead in their lifetime chose to give twice as much money to one granddaughter as the other 2. This is something I would never consider doing. If I have grandkids. What 1 gets they will all get.

You know about genetic make up of a 20 year old you never met based on such little info?

You definitely have a chip on your shoulder to talk about not being good looking but still not marrying an ugly man with money. It seems like you have been conscious of your looks and see a genetic connection, and projecting it on OP’s older son. Ability to hold jobs or finish a uni course is not genetic like physical appearance.

I sympathise, it does seem hard, but on the other hand expecting them both to be treated the same by your in laws is not really reasonable, and clearly in your heart you know that. I also think you may be overcompensating with the older son-dropped out of uni, really not his fault in any way? In and out of employment completely not his fault either? I think you should really look at the evidence more dispassionately, parents always claim they treat their children the same- but it is never true, favouritism is always a factor to some extent.
Did you really expect the in-laws to give a boy who is in no way related to them by blood a property?
I wouldn't and I don't think anyone not emotionally invested would either.
You can't really expect your husband to change his will to favour your older son- he did bring him up as his own, it's likely he feels he has done enough.
I think you have never really considered exactly what marrying a man when you already have a 3 year old child means , practically, on the ground- there are always problems, you have ignored the probability of problems for years, but they always surface eventually.

I don't think leaving a step child out of your estate is in any way normal!

My husband is the father of one of my DDs and not the other but his will is written for both to inherit equally, as of course is mine. I cannot think that any fair person would do differently. Were my husband and I not in agreement re this my will would exclude him from inheriting any of my estate.

I can assure you it very much is normal. Standard, even. Stepchildren inheriting from stepparents is the exception, not the rule. This is particularly true in families with substantial assets. That this isn’t your personal experience or preference does and will not change this, or make it wrong.

You are extremely cheeky and unreasonable to expect the grandparents to gift your elder son! And you clearly thought you had it all sussed out!

You chose to have children with two different men, and that comes with inbuilt differences, I.e. two different extended families. It isn’t your son’s fault.

i choose not to have more children, as I did not want to end up in a situation like that! My children have the same father, and I did not want to have a blended family at all. It often does not end well.

If your husband had an elder child from before you met him, would you expect your parents to gift that child an inheritance, therefore lowering the amount your own child would receive? No, thought not!!

But your child has a father other than your husband, and biological family on that side. So she now has two fathers and an extra set of grandparents to inherit from? Seems very unfair on your other daughter.

That’s why they’ve done it this way, to avoid their family assets being filtered down to non-family members (in their eyes I mean). I’ve seen this in my own wider family and it’s been tough for those involved. One of my cousins will inherit a lot, and their sibling won’t, due to exactly this kind of situation. I’m staying well out of it, but can see the problems it is causing, and this with people in their 30s, it must be so much harder when the children are younger like in your case.

Blended families is a tough navigation. My mum owns her own house, her and my dad brought it together years ago, he cheated and moved out, they remained amicable, when we sold the house and moved in with my nan my mum paid off my dads debt and that was his share of the house. She also paid the rest of our mortgage off, my nans and paid for an extension on my nans house to accommodate everyone. My dad went onto have another mini family. 3 kids and a step son. Somewhere down the line me, my brother and sister will all get some sort of inheritance, my half siblings won’t get anything because my dad and thier mum only rent, they don’t have anything, and my dads parents don’t have too much, pretty sure they rent too, but have 4 kids, 12 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Not much you can do about it even if it does suck.

Is it reasonable to expect grandparents to give their money to a step-grandchild? No.

Is it reasonable to change your will to advantage the eldest? No, you need to make it 50/50.

It is down to your son. It is his money. If he wants to financially help his brother (now or in future) that’s HIS choice.

You say he won’t want to share his good fortune with his brother. Well that’s an end to the matter then. The money is rightfully his to do as he wants with. He may think differently in future, he may not.

Hopefully it won’t affect their relationship, but if it does, that’s on them to manage and work out, not you.

It is what happens - I’m not saying it’s right but it does. My dad was my dad from when I was younger than 3, to when I was in my 30s, I helped care for him when he was forced out of work by ill health - his bio child never once had anything to do with him all the years me and mum were nursing him. We were really close, and when he died he left almost everything to his bio child, not to me or mum. Another friend of mine, also adopted, was left a few thousand by her parents when they died, but her sister - their biological ‘miracle’ child they had after adopting my friend as a baby, was left the multimillion pound house and all the other assets. For most people, it seems like genetics trumps everything else.

That's not what this means. The situation with fostered and adopted children is completely different. In both cases the children are actively chosen to be part of the family by their parents (or temp foster families). There is an arduous process to be followed to reach this stage, arguably much more rigorous than conceiving biological children in many cases or blending families that can be done by anyone without any assessment of commitment. If extended family are involved in adoption proceedings, they are also assessed. They will also have time to prepare for the child becoming part of their lives often unlike situations when a family member introduces a new partner alongside their existing children.

Grandparents will often naturally feel love for these children because of the love they feel for their own children and the joy they see for them. Adopted children are also legally related to the family.

Brutal as it is and as much as OP's husband may love her son, he most probably did not choose to bring this child specifically into his life. He chose his mother and had to make the decision whether his wish to be with her was enough to accept her child (and his father) as part of the package. That's a subtle difference to someone fostering/adopting when they actively choose to have the child in their lives.

This is such a good point about DS1 sharing the same traits as the Ex.

Totally agree 're OP's focus on £ too.

You could marry a rich handsome man 😅.