To wonder if my DIL is a gold digger?

[practicalorparanoid]

My son (28) got married recently. His father, who sadly passed away, and I had built a successful business, so there is significant family wealth involved.

As a wedding gift, I bought my son and DIL a lovely 3 bedroom flat in central London (they gave me a shortlist of 3, then we picked out altogether) so they’d never have to worry about housing, but I kept it in my name. My son also works in the family business, but he doesn’t own any shares in it. He earns a perfectly decent salary (around £50k), although the business could obviously afford to pay him much more if we wanted. The company ownership and the wider family assets are all structured so they stay within the bloodline and can’t be lost in the event of a divorce. Hopefully one day they’ll pass to his children.

I’ve genuinely tried to be a good MIL. I have only ever been complimentary to DIL, I don’t give unsolicited advice, and despite technically owning the flat they live in, I’d never dream of letting myself in or turning up unannounced. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their home.

My son was completely on board with all of this. He was happy to sign a prenup because he felt that if someone genuinely loved him, sensible financial protections shouldn’t be an issue.

The problem is that my DIL seems increasingly unhappy with the arrangements. She’s commented that the flat “isn’t really theirs”, questioned why my son doesn’t own shares in the company, and has said that if he had more access to the family money they could have had more domestic help (they already have a cleaner coming once a week), live a more relaxed lifestyle and she’d be able to stop working and become a SAHM once they have children.

That, to me, is where alarm bells start ringing. They’re living rent-free in a beautiful home that I bought for them, my son has a stable career, and they’re comfortable. Yet the focus seems to be on why they don’t have access to more.

I’m not accusing her of anything outright, but it’s hard not to wonder whether she’s more interested in the wealth than in my son when the main complaints are about not having access to assets that were never intended to be marital property in the first place.

@Velvian
Of course I respect that she works, just as I respect that my son works. At the time, I realise that they’re both simply going out to work, as millions of adults do. I can’t say I’m “grateful” that either of them work - to me, it’s just part of being an adult. They’re building a life together, and if they have children they’ll both be working to provide for their family. That’s exactly what most parents do.

If and when they have children, and if she decides she’d rather stay at home, I absolutely understand why she might feel that way. I just don’t think that automatically means my late husband’s and my assets should be used to fund that choice.

Just in case you actually meant my other DIL, I wasn’t quite sure because you mentioned my grandchildren and my youngest son / DIL don’t have kids yet. If so, I think she’s doing brilliantly. She has a great career and my grandson should be incredibly proud of his mum. Equally, if she ever decided she’d rather stay at home, I’d respect that too. Being a working mum is hard, being a SAHM is hard. They’re just different kinds of hard.

What I don’t think is that she’s going to work to benefit me and I’m not “grateful” to either of my DILs for working - they’re doing what most adults do: work and, if they choose to have children, raise children.

Honestly? I don’t think the OP should have given them anything at all if there were strings attached or it meant she’d be involved in their marriage.

With parents I think it should either be absolutely no strings attached or nothing is given. If the OP is so concerned about bloodlines she could have surpassed her children entirely and just set up trusts for GC. But maybe she wants control there as well.

This.
You bought yourself a flat in London.

I wouldn’t care if someone wanted to give me millions. If it comes with strings attached I would turn it down. And before posters jump on me and say “yeah right”, I literally did just that when my father passed away.

How has this thread grown so large. It seemed so straightforward.
They are grown adults who are married and talking about having children, more from mummy shouldn't be the answer to any questions here. Controlled? He can do whatever he wants, he's a grown man. Daughter in law can also do whatever she wants as she's a grown woman.
They should live within their means, the DILs thinking would make me withdraw the generous offer of free accommodation as they are spoilt and entitled. He is a mid-level/junior marketing exec and she is a whatever she is that earns less than 50k. They can proceed from there and enjoy their freedom.

@Lotus717
I have wondered that. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. Maybe she’s simply relaxed now the wedding is over and is saying what she really thinks. Or perhaps she genuinely expected there to be more material benefits from marrying into the family, or that I’d subsidise their lifestyle more than I do. I honestly don’t know.

As for the gift itself, I don’t think the issue is the gift. If they’d said “Mum, we genuinely don’t want a house, we’d rather fund the property ourselves”, I’d have said absolutely fine. If they’d wanted, for the same budget, a couple of rental properties elsewhere, or a holiday flat abroad, I’d have been perfectly happy with that. If they’d said “Please don’t spend that sort of money on us at all”, I’d have bought them a perfectly normal wedding present instead. It would certainly have been quicker for me to pop into John Lewis for a nice set of wine glasses than spend months buying a property! The only thing I wasn’t willing to do was gift family assets outright in a way that defeated the whole purpose of protecting them.

It’s not a gift. You are letting them stay in your house for free. That’s not a gift, millions of parents are doing that up and down the country, and they don’t call it a gift.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with wanting to control one's own assets, which is all OP is doing. She's offered DS and dil a free place to live (of their choosing) for as long as they want it. She's not letting herself in and rearranging their furniture!
That kind of help is worth thousands. But son and dil were under no obligation to accept it! Sil's issue isn't that mil is giving them financial advantage, it's that she thinks she's not getting enough of someone else's money.

Shes only just married OP's son and is already carping that the thousands of pound she's effectively being given every year is insufficient.

And you can most definitely be a sahm on £50,000 per year if you've saved money prior to getting pg and you have no mortgage or rent to pay. You might not be able to do it in great luxury and spend totally freely but it's not OPs responsibility to give dil a luxury at home lifestyle.

People need to learn to pay their own bills, to appreciate the help they are given and not be so greedy and entitled.

But how are they supposed to know what their means are when the OP is dangling possibilities and for instances in front of them?

The OP has given them a glimpse of another way of living and is now rowing back. Why give two average earners the possibility of living in a central London flat? They will never be able to afford that lifestyle on their own, so why dangle it in front them? It just seems mean.

@practicalorparanoid do you ever give gifts that you don’t get back eg would you treat them to a holiday, or would you only do that for bloodline relatives?

Its either a 'family asset' or a gift.
If its in your name... its not a gift to them is it?

Hm I wonder what would happen if step or adopted children were involved. The “bloodline” thing just makes me feel a bit ill.

Two words: Bunny McDougall.

They are pushing 30, time to sort themselves out. OP has done nothing wrong except be generous and they have been ungrateful. Their means are what they bring in themselves, their salaries and any savings they have accumulated. Them not having much is down to them. They are all grown now, time to start adulting. Definitely before even thinking about adding children to whatever this is.

The gift is in the thousands of pound they would otherwise spend on rent.

My parents didn't give me money - they didn't have any. But they did give me free childcare. It saved me a lot of money. Just because a person isn't handing over a concrete 'thing' that doesn't make it less of a gift. Dil is still getting to live rent free in a home of her choosing, for so long as she is married to the OPs son. Most people get married thinking it's forever - if dil already has one eye on her potential divorce settlement, it's as well that OP is protecting that asset. Dil has contributed nothing to the family wealth and has no right to benefit from it. She's doing okay so far and should be grateful.

DS has also had 80k handed to him - that would be a nice deposit if they want assets in their own names.

So why does the OP keep calling it a gift? Because she doesn’t want her son or his wife to ever forget who they are beholden to.

Millions of parents around the country buy a house, of their adult child & their spouse's choosing, and let them live in it for as long as they want, rent free?

Are you confusing this situation with the millions of parents who let an adult child or sometimes an adult child & partner have a bedroom in the house already occupied by the parents? They're not the same are they.

Fwiw my parents in law let me and my partner live with them (as in, in a house they owned, in a spare room, and use their kitchen etc) for free for 6 months when we were trying to save enough to rent our own flat and I remain, 18 years later, immensely grateful for it.
...Even if there were "strings attached" like I wasn't allowed to turf them out and sell it for my own personal profit 😂

@sittingonabeach holidays - yes, we normally do a big holiday paid by us for big birthdays (anything ending in 0 or 5), and given there’s 4 siblings plus myself these tend to happen every few years or so. So yes, she’s come on a couple of holidays with us where my husband and I paid for everything except their flights, I fully paid for their wedding and honeymoon, which I guess could also be considered a gift.

It's either a gift or it isn't regarding the flat? How does it work if they want to move and want to use it to get a mortgage on a dearer place for example?

I completely agree with you. They absolutely do need to start adulting. I can imagine though that’s difficult to do if you’ve spent a lifetime being infantilised by your mother who is now inserting herself into your marriage. This happens to so many couples and if it wasn’t for the wealth, posters on here would be saying a lot different.

Financial control is just as much of an issue as other forms of control.

The gift is not having to pay rent or mortgage on a flat they chose themselves but op paid for. Is that not enough? Who here wasn’t paying rent or mortgage in their 20s unless they were living with parents?

But op is cruel to let them have a taste of the high life, cruel to not be paying her son a fortune, cruel to not put her dil on the deeds, cruel to not be handing over shares in her business, cruel to be giving son work in the first place as it’s making him unambitious, cruel to not be thinking of dil in a hypothetical divorce situation, cruel to not be enabling dil’s wish to be funded as a sahm etc etc. It’s a hard knock life for dil that’s for sure

What’s the difference?

And actually, the same thing happened in my family: my parents let my adult siblings live in one of their houses rent-free. Guess what? It didn’t end well.

So a large family holiday or just a holiday for DS and DIL?

I genuinely think it’s possible your DIL didn’t know how she would feel beforehand. It’s also possible that having conversations with your son after the event has indicated he is not interested in looking to buy anywhere else ever - that’s why I think a 3 bed flat might have been a bad idea because takes away any future need to move.
You know the price of a central London 3 bedroom flat, newly renovated in a nice area. Is he ever realistically going to be able to afford to move out to something comparable or ever going to want to- especially if there is room there to have a family?
If I was the DIL and I wasn’t planning for children it wouldn’t worry me I would increase my own salary as much as possible and buy another property in my name and rent that out. If I was planning children it might feel like a lot of juggling to achieve very little and then trying to move a potentially unwilling husband out to a lower standard property with small children just starting school.
But I would always think it would be nicer to own my own home that I could live in.
Also your DIL was talking to someone she believed she could trust as her friend rather than your daughter. I think you can definitely rant to a friend in a way that would sound really inappropriate if relayed to your in-laws.
The comments made to your DD were when she was drunk so may have been much more forcefully expressed than she meant.
I wouldn’t revise years worth of good opinion of her based on one drunk night out