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.

Why is it the brother's fault? If I were OP's eldest I'd struggle to maintain a relationship with the in-laws as the unequal treatment is their decision, but I wouldn't fall out with my brother over it - it's simply not his fault (even if he benefits from their unequal treatment).

let's not pretend there are NO JOBS when you look for one, maybe he couldn't find the same pre-Uni job his younger brother has, who says he can't work at all?

He needs to drive? Why can't the OP pay for his driving lessons? That's what every parent I know do!

grandparents. They weren’t requiring him to have a job before they gave him the money. why should they require anything? They made a gift, that's normal, good on him to use it as a boost, instead of an excuse to do nothing.

if the grandparents were so hung up on the blood relations they really should have been more upfront earlier.

HOW and WHY would that even come about?

grand-parents were not asked for their opinion when their son got with the OP, didn't offer their (unwanted) opinion, good on them. Perfectly reasonable and decent.

It doesn't mean they should give away their assets to anyone who is not family.

I imagined the in-laws would leave money to their own kids not grandkids.

They probably decided it was fairer to leave to their biological grandkids. They knew if shared between their own kids, your husbands share would end up in the non biological grandkids hands. They didn’t want that. Tough to take but a consequence of blended families.

@DelaneyDonkey

So you’ve now let us know that actually your eldest does see his Dad so I presume he also has a relationship with his Dads parents.

Why would your husbands parents financially support your eldest son when he already has two sets of Grandparents in his life?

If anything that would be doing their blood relatives a disservice and your eldest would be being supported by three sets of Grandparents whilst the others only had two.

It is not your husbands parents responsibility to pay the way of a child who has their own family.

Husband doesn’t want to speak to his parents about this.
what do you want him to say?

Exclude my own child, so it's equal with his step-brother? or
Give away your asset to a child that is not family?

Not a reasonable solution either way.

Your dh may be against changing his will, but you can absolutely leave your half to your older son.
It won't stop the inequity of course. But it shows you have done what you can

I think to the grandparents they see the older child does have a father, even if he isn’t fully involved and so that is what makes a huge difference also. With an adopted child they would of no doubt gone through the process with their child and partner and wanted to make a special effort to welcome this new baby grandchild as their own from the start, can’t really compare the 2 situations

OP do you actually know ILs aren't going to will anything to DH? Because you mention the blood GC being given houses, but presumably ILs still have a property they live in?

So, your husband’s brothers had help to buy their houses but your husband wasn’t given help? That’s probably because he was with you, and they didn’t want you taking half.

It’s quite clear they don’t approve of you and are trying to make sure their money doesn’t go to you and your oldest son. What would be the point in talking to them?

Your have a simple choice. You and your husband accept it and continue civil relations with them or you tell them it’s unacceptable to have treated your husband differently from
his brothers and now your sons differently and you go no contact.

I’d be prepared for then to bypass your husband in their will and give his share to their grandson instead.

In all honesty I think your DH has already been generous in agreeing to 50:50 wills. I think often it would be that your 50% gets split between your two sons and his son gets his 50%.

I can imagine as a mother it is hard to see two sons treated differently through no fault of their own. But I don't think there's much to be done apart from telling your sons that you love them both and will treat them both equally yourself.

His dad sounds useless but not totally uninvolved? He should be contributing to his son's upbringing and that's the big issue here I think.

With blended families becoming more common, it’s also become more common for grandparents to leave their assets directly to their grandchildren.

I’m not sure what your husband speaking to his parents would achieve. They haven’t done anything wrong here, and your husband taking issue with their decisions is unlikely to go well.

Right now your own assets are being left 50/50. While you can change your own will to leave a greater proportion to your eldest, if you do that your husband can do the same for his son in response. Without your husband’s agreement, your son isn’t going to end up with more than the 50% he’s already going to get. Acting unilaterally to change the will only create bad feeling and make no material difference for your eldest.

That's life. As much as you'd like to think you're one, happy family, you're not. As the old adage (long since fallen out of favour) goes, life isn't fair.

Your eldest son is an adult. He has to make his own decisons and live by them - like choosing a job that involves long periods of unemployment. If he wants his fortunes to change, he needs to be proactive about it and change something.

Her husband has already agreed to share his share with OP's son and you think she should now will him her entire half too? What happens if he inherits from his own grandparents/father?

What are you doing to help your eldest settle down and think of his future?
Can he do another course or an apprenticeship?

YOU need to stop looking to your husbands family and shoulder the responsibility to speak plainly to your son that he needs to think about his future.

Plenty of students stick with courses they don't like because it makes sense.

My own son hated his university course but finished it because he knew it was hugely beneficial to him to have such an employable degree.

Forget about inheritance and look at what you can do for your son.
Borrow if necessary to get him driving lessons.

The exact same thing happened to me at a similar age. My brother was given a house from his parental grandparents and an allowance and I struggled to make ends meet.
My maternal grandmother was outraged at it and openly changed her will to leave everything to me, which made me uncomfortable in itself.
I haven’t benefited and probably won’t, given she’s been in a care home for many years and the house is now gone.
Its shit and it never leaves you but there’s nothing you can do. I blamed my mother for years, thinking she could’ve put a stop to it but what would that have achieved? My brother having nothing wouldn’t have made me any richer. What annoys me the most is she still boasts about his lovely home and life like it wasn’t handed to him on a plate; don’t do that.

It's true, DH agreeing a 50/50 split for a DSS could be much worse.

So shall we just be honest and agree a lot of you are basically shaming a woman for daring to have children to different fathers. Hearts of fucking stone. OP don't listen to this archaic sexist shaming nonsense. Do what feels fair to you. I'm not sure much has changed in terms of how society treats women and their fatherless children. And to those of you passing judgement, congratulations on making all the "right" choices, let's hope you're never on the wrong side of mob one day. Vile.

I never understand these posts… of course there will be a disparity. Surely you knew this when you created a blended family.

OP Is more than within her rights to change her will and give her money to who she chooses.

That doesn’t mean she gets to dictate that other people financially support her child who has two parents and two sets of grandparents already.

If that's all you can interpret, despite what's been written down, there's not a lot anyone can about that.

No one particularly cares how many men OP chooses to have children with.

They are saying she's being unreasonable for expecting two unrelated people to gift her child hundreds of thousands via a house.

My kids would not have tolerated that and whoever had hit the jackpot like that would have shared equally with the other.

Wow, raw nerve or something? That reaction is really OTT. Hearts of stone 🙄

I haven't seen any shaming going on, just pointing out this is the reality of the situation. Life isn't fair. It's not fair that one child has a shittier, less involved dad while the other, has a better one who is involved in his life, but that's life.

I’m not sure what you expected here. In laws are sensibly ensuring that their grandchildren inherit their money by passing it on directly. Passing it on to married children usually means spouse inherits and can do what they like.
mirror wills made sense if your husband inherited directly but now don’t. But you can change your own will and don’t have to even tell your husband. In your shoes I would ask eldest bio father whether he has made a will and put anything aside for child. Tell eldest I will support with house deposit etc etc which I would have been saving for.

you are the only one who see "shaming the woman".

It's telling that YOU translate it as a punishing the mother, when everybody else sees it simply at prioritising family.

let's hope you're never on the wrong side of mob one day. Vile. someone is reading to many novels 😂