to want to make my own will without DH knowing??

[Chocmad]

Really bizarre question i know, but since that newly married couple were killed on honeymoon have really been thinking that i should get a will organised ( something i've been meaning to do since getting married / having DC's but just never got round to ). But.....I'm not entirely sure that if something happened to just me, whether i would want my DH to have total control over how the kids are brought up - awful thing to say and he's lovely most of the time but i just know that if i wasn't here his parents would get hugely involved in their upbringing and i really wouldn't want that ( always had issues as they don't particularly like me and i don't agree with some of their parenting / granparenting methods!! ) Just wondered what everyones opinion is? It's probably not even legal to ask that my DC's have a 'guardian' anyway seeing as we're married and really do feel awful saying it but it's been running round my head for a few days now and was wondering... views would be good please?

I currently have parental responsibility of my DC's as DP and I are not married....the shared parental responsibility rule only came in after DD was born. If I were to die DP would not have a say with regard to financial matters as by his own admission he has no ability with money....my sister would take care of everything financial that involved the kids, and would carry out my wishes as much as she could with discussion with DP....she would in effect be their gurdian. DP knows this and feels very ok with it. DP would however be responsible for being a dad ....so nothing really would change except I wouldnt be there

I had a will made recently to say that I would like my parents to be guardians of my son if i died.

As far as I'm aware, whatever you say in your will about your children isn't in any way binding, it's just your wishes made formal.

My son's biological father has never met him and has actively avoided any contact with us, so I hope that noone would suggest he should get custody over my parents, who have helped bring ds up.

I'm not sure what the deal would be with my boyfriend though, who we've lived with for a year and my son calls daddy.

Guardianship in a will isn't legally binding. Your DH would be entitled to contest the will and would be highly likely to win.

Will's are really about reassigning your possesions after your death. Your DC's are not your posessions, they're your kids, even if you tried to come up with a loophole that gave your DP control and also meant the control their GPs had was minimal, it would be very unlikely to be unheld if contested. If you're that worried and you own your house I would leave your 'share' of the house to your kids under the guardianship of somebody who is not your DP until they come of age, then at least you know he's can't sell up and move in with the GP's without your guardian's consent [my father did something similar, but we were over 18 at the time so no guardian's required don't know how much this would complicate things]. This still might well leave your DP feeling hurt and not trusted.

Interesting. Made me think about god-parents, who I was brought up to believe were there to look after you if your parents died (cheery!).

Friends tell me this is out dated and god-parents are now just for giving presents. But it shows that in days gone by where people died younger people did think about it.

I would say, make a will money-wise and check the status of your house if you have a joint mortgage/property. There are two ways of doing it, one where you die it all automatically goes to the other person. The other, where you die it goes to people you have named. Usually married/partners are put on the first sort but if you are worried look into changing it so your half can go to the kids rather than the partner.

Me and my mum both have arrangements where if we die the share of the house goes to the kids not the husband. The men have arrangements where if they die their halves go to us. Bonus!!

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.I think the whole process of making a will just made me question things that i'd never really thought of before..like if me and DH weren't here, who other than my parents would i trust with my children?? Had a chat to DH last night and told him my thoughts ( held my breath in case he asked for divorce!! ) he understood what i meant and didn't take it as a slight on him...he is a great dad but isn't really involved at all with their day-to-day lives, leaves for work just after they wake up and usually comes home after bedtime ( weekends as well as weekdays ) so he gets that if i weren't here i would like my mum to take over a large part of my role ( which i've spoken to her about and she's happy to - she's still relatively young ). I was just really asking if anyone else had this kind of thought as it's such a huge thing to have to think about, and as AbbeyA said there's no guarantee how long any of us are here for. Quite a morbid and depressing post though so promise next time i'll ask about something a bit more upbeat!!!

This is all really interesting. DH and I are planning to make a will soon - the main reason for this being that if we both died we wouldn't want DS to live with any of our parents or siblings.

We want to arange for DS to go to his auntie - my brother's soon-to-be-ex-wife. She was at his birth and babysits him at least once a week when I am at work. They have a relationship, and his cousins love him. I'd also trust her to let him see DH's family (who aren't bad, but who wouldn't give him the sort of upbringing we want for him)

Would our families be able to contest this?

sorry if its a bit of a hijack!

Also, if I died but DH didn't at least I know SIL would step in to be surrogate mummy