To tell my elderly father that I do have objections to him marrying his partner he met 6 months after my mother died?

[Perimomof2]

My mother died 5 years ago quite suddenly after a short illness. My dad was devastated, they’d been together 50+ years. But later the same year he announced that he’d met someone, similar age and also widowed. They have been together ever since, not exactly living together but they live close by so pretty much do everything as a couple.
My sibling and I didn’t object, he was happy enough and had been clear from the start that he wouldn’t be moving in with her or vice versa and had no intention of marrying again. We don’t particularly like her (my DF has no idea, we include her in pretty much everything) but that’s our problem, not theirs.

Fast forward 5 years, he asked me out of the blue if I had any objection to them marrying. I said I did. That it was something he said wouldn’t happen, and that if I gave them my blessing it would feel disrespectful to my DM’s memory.

Was I wrong to say this? I’m concerned that if he marries his wife will have POA around health and finances and that his estate (house and savings which were accumulated jointly with my DM) will not pass solely to his two children but to his wife who his has known for a relatively short time and will subsequently be split with her children. For context, his estate is likely to be considerably larger than hers.

I certainly do. Our assets as a couple have mostly come from me (big redundancy payout plus inheriting half my late DM's estate) so I would be gutted if our DS didn't inherit.
I've said to my DH that it's fine if he takes up with some floozy after my death (big of me, I know😉) but DS, who is unlikely to be able to afford his own property as things stand should inherit it all, in due course. So have relationships by all means but please don't marry again, especially if floozy has children of her own.

It will at least give our DS worry-free middle years and security in later life. I also have no intention of ever remarrying should DH pre-decease me, there would be no need.
I came to this realisation when a close friend inherited all her stepfather's estate because he died before her DM and of course her DM then left the lot to her. Her stepfather had a son from a previous marriage but 'he didn't need the money, so that was OK,' according to my friend. It changed how I thought of her.

Yes. Marriage automatically revokes any existing will and the advice is to make a new one as soon as possible after marrying.

You weren't bothered about his health when you happily upset your own father just because you want his money. I started off thinking you were just a bit messed up by the thought of your dad moving on. It is hard to see someone else in your mum's place. But the more you post, the more it clear it becomes that you are not interested in anything apart from yourself and the money. Your poor parents, what have they brought up?!

That’s why I said sometimes

Yes and you can sometimes make a will in notice of marrying

You’re absolutely right. You are a money grabber. You have the right to speak for yourself but absolutely not for your parent. I absolutely abhor this culture of expectation around inheritance now. You’re supposed to be an independent adult. Act like it instead of demanding freebies.

Exactly

this happened to a friend of mine. Her DF remarried less than 6 months after her DM passed and moved into the family home. New wife threw out almost everything, including all sentimental things of friend and her Dsis’s DM. They were devastated because much was family things from DGP. All gone in new wife’s purge. It massively impacted my friend and her Dsis’s ability to move forward and grieve.

When I was researching my family history and got a copy of my grandad’s will (only to confirm I had the right person and he went under several names which were very common) I found out he left all his estate to another woman on account of my grandma’s many admissions to a mental health hospital. Didn’t know that was possible to leave your estate to someone other than your spouse!

Marriage is absolutely not a red herring. In the UK any existing wills are legally automatically revoked on marriage and the advice is to make a new one as soon as possible after marrying. And if her father is of sound mind, OP can object all she wants to him being in a relationship - won’t make a jot of difference.

No reason he can't marry new wife and make a will after stating 75 percent of assets to go to his 2 DC and 25 percent to his new wife.

He would have to make a new will if this is what he wants because on marrying any existing will would be automatically revoked, and if he didn’t make a new one his estate would be distributed as though he died intestate.

This is quite a good opener actually OP.
He might not realise this.

I think you’ve rather shot yourself in the foot though by not giving your blessing. You would do better to say you’ve had time to think about things and you want what makes him happy. And then broach the subject of what he intends doing about making a new will as the old one will be voided on his marriage.

Yes this and then say your mum assumed you would inherit becuase he wouldn’t remarry but now he is you want to talk with him about her wishes

YABU - My late gradfather met someone else less than a year after DGM, who he adored, died and honestly we were all delighted; they married abour 2 years later. She was widowed around the same time and needed someone to look after, he needed someone to look after him as he'd gone straight from home, to army, to being married. I don't think you can be against a marriage because of seeing it as 'disrespect' after 5 while years, that is more than enough time, even if they met soon after.

My grandfather was always very mindful of his estate and made sure that she could live in their home while she is alive, but that it will be sold if she moves into care or dies and the proceeds go to family as I understand it (step grandma has resources of her own from the sale of her own house), I think TBH my dad has been a bit resentful because she's needed care for the last 2 years but I think the rest of us feel she gave my grandfather 25 happy years and she earned it. May be easier for us though because we do like her.

For crying out loud. You do realise a will could be drafted and trusts set up so the children still inherit and not the new wife? This can all be sorted legally if it's your dad's wish to do so. If it's not, he can do what he wants with his estate. I think it's extremely unreasonable of you to put him in this position emotionally. His money and estate are not yours and he can do whatever he wants with his life and assets. He doesn't owe you anything and it sounds like he's very considerate he even asked your opinion five years on (!). YABU.

Agree - my mum died of cancer at 53 and her worst fear was that my dad would remarry and her money would go to a new wife. He never remarried but I understand her worries. My dad earned more but was crap at maths and my mum very carefully managed the family money including a sizeable redundancy package he’d been given after 35 years working for the same national newspaper. All the money he had was down to her and she’d have been devastated if her kids had lost out.

When my FIL died my husband was not consulted at all about the funeral service or his ashes. I find that upsetting cos he was my husband’s dad for 50+ years and the new wife for only 20 years.

OP, whether he marries or not won’t make any difference to his new partner being able to make health decisions. Power of Attorney is a legal process entirely separate to marriage. If your Dad has mental capacity to make a health decision he will be the decision-maker, if he lacks it (capacity is time and decision specific) a best interest decision would be made by the health or social care professional who has a legal responsibility to consult with all relevant persons so that would include you and his new partner. If he arranges a PoA it will be whoever he gives those decision making powers to who would be the decision maker for anything he can’t decide himself. The person appointed still has to act in his best interests and in consultation with others who are important to him. I’m not sure if you are, but lots of people get PoA (power of attorney) mixed up with next of kin - NoK has no legal standing in health. I hope that allays some of your health based concerns.
In terms of finances there are lots of ways he can protect your inheritance, the most simple one being a clearly written will. If this is the root of your objection then I think you’re right to talk with him openly and honestly about it and your understanding of your Mum’s wishes.
as to whether it’s disrespectful to your Mum for them to marry, none of us can answer that. I would recommend trying to consider what your Mum would say if she were able.

So you don’t really care about your father, you’re only interested in what you may not inherit! If he went into a care home eventually your inheritance would be gone!

If I'd read this a year ago I'd have probably said you were being unreasonable. But after what happened to my friend this year, I think you're perfectly justified.

When my best friend's mum died 6 years ago, her dad was destroyed - they were like a loved-up teenage couple despite being married 50 years and had never spent a night apart. So my friend was shellshocked when her dad introduced his new 'companion' 12 weeks later. She wanted to keep the peace so initially pretended to be happy for him but as time went on she started seeing so many red flags with this woman, who was only 2 years older than my friend. One of them being - my friend was due to buy her first home and her dad had long previously offered to help her with her deposit. When she found somewhere to buy and arranged to see a mortgage broker, her dad confessed that he could no longer help her as he had 'lent' his companion £70,000 (about two-thirds of his life savings, accumulated by both her dad AND her mum) to help her pay off her debts and settle an agreement with her ex-husband, so she could 'draw a line under the past'.

Fast forward to last September. Her dad is seriously ill and bedbound. His now wife (yes they got married after 8 months) is fiercely controlling access to visits, and even to phone calls, even though her dad told her to ignore his wife and she could visit whenever she wanted and he wanted to see her every day and for her to be there at the end. He dies in the first week of October. When my friend goes to the house a week later to discuss the funeral, his wife has eradicated all trace of him, saying she didn't want to 'dwell on the sadness' - his clothes, possessions, trinkets, papers, everything. Gone. The only thing left was a couple of packets of photos, with the bulk of their childhood years completely absent. She was devastated.

Anyway. The point of this rambling post. She then discovers that her dad changed his will in the last three weeks of his life. When he was bedbound. She doesn't know how. Presumably a solicitor came to the house. The previous arrangement, which her dad had explicitly told her when he married again, was that the house would be split between her and her sister eventually but his wife would have a 'lifetime interest' to live in it. Even that was pretty galling, as the wife is essentially the same age so every possibility my friend would never see a penny, but she accepted it. Now, the updated will states that the lifetime interest still exists, but when the house is eventually sold, the proceeds will be split into thirds - 33% to the wife, 33% to the wife's 2 children from her previous marriage and 33% to my friend and her sister. If the wife dies first, her 33% share passes directly to her children. And now, to cap it off, she (the wife) has met someone new, moved into his double-fronted, three-storey Victorian villa, and rather than sell the property so my friend and her sister could get their 16.6% share of the proceeds, she has rented it out for £2,350 per month (it's only a very modest 3-bed bungalow but we're in the south east). Pure profit, after any fees, as there's no mortgage. This income will be on top of his NHS spouse pension that she inherited.

She's so sad. She really thinks her dad was bullied under duress to change the will at the last minute but she's got no evidence or the energy/funds to fight it. And yes, it's partly about the money, but she keeps thinking about how utterly disappointed her mum would be at what's happened. That's what hurts her the most.

My parents were courting (their words, not mine!) for several years before marriage (possibly around 5 or 6) then married for 5 years before having children.

My DM and DF have mirror wills, leaving to each other and then to my sibling and me.

I feel that giving my blessing is disrespectful to my DM’s memory as they were married for so long and she died so suddenly.

my DF very much has his wits but prior to DM’s death had no involvement in the finances and generally keeping the house. Despite support from us, he struggled to pick this all up and this is likely a contributing factor to the speed with which he started his new relationship.

Without being too outing, we don’t find her at all interesting. She doesn’t do much, or go anywhere. Has no sense of humour. And yes, in all honesty she is nothing like my DM.

Your points about power of attorney and inheritance are not correct. Married or not, he has every right to give them to who he wishes.

He asked. Nothing wrong with your honest opinion.

And realistically if he dies first, her kids, not you, will end up with the fruits of your parents’ lifetime of labour. That would be galling.

Why do they feel the need to marry?

I would hope you are more worried about his happiness then your inheritance. Get him to make sure you are well cared for in his will.

I think you have every right to be upset and I would be too. My mum died suddenly but my father was never interested in meeting anyone else. They had met at aged 14. I do feel though that after 5 years getting married again is a respectable amount of time. However not sure why they need to marry unless it is for her to be taken care of financially.