Resentment of what parents did with their inheritance has wrecked our relationship

[MalePoster9000]

Parents are late 70s. I’m mid-40s.

I could go into details but it might be outing.

Anyway my mother always says “family is everything” but this has really not been reflected in any decisions / actions she and my father took with all that they inherited and didn’t need from the generation above them.

Anyone experience anything similar?

I hope, for your sake, that your parents never discover how much contempt you hold for them.

So now it's their fault you did a degree of (presumably) your choice.

I think you are projecting your own failures on to them so you can play the victim. Grow up.

ETA plenty of non drivers with arts degrees managed to find meaningful work, me for one.

You don't have an Inheritance as your parents aren't dead. An Inheritance can only be yours when it's in your bank account.

Until then, it's their money to spend how they choose if they have capacity to do so, whether you like it or not.

@MalePoster9000 are you an incel? These ‘it’s everyone else’s fault why I’m unemployed and living with my parents and can’t find a partner even though I’m middle aged’ vibes are coming off in your posts.

Get a grip. Take ownership of your life. You’re MIDDLE AGED. Get a job. Move out. Support yourself on your own two feet. Find somewhere to live within your budget. Grow up, and stop behaving like a teenage boy.

they’ve enjoyed a long upper middle class retirement (my mother only worked for 20-25 years also) after very ordinary middle class careers.

Good for them

He can’t be a heroine - he’s a man and actually says so in his username, which I too didn’t clock. I think it helps to explain his entitlement.

Hester makes a good point, OP. Use that self awareness of yours to drive yourself forward. And maybe check with your GP that you’re not suffering from depression.

This is a quite incredible thread, OP.

You sound very resentful and angry about things most people don't get from their parents and not at all grateful for the things they did give you (supporting you at home when things went wrong, money if I understand that correctly).

They are living a long life and in that long life, properties and money change hands. I also had property I sold that in hindsight might have been better to keep, but at the time, the mortgage or the service charge or even just the hassle was too much. I suspect the same was similar for your parents. Ultimately the properties were left to them and they used them to support your lifestyle as a child and their lifestyle as long-lived adults. This is pretty normal stuff.

Properties in other countries also devalue when unattended, buildings crumble, you have to pay not only service, but water, tax, electricity if you want to use it, and if in a shared flat there will be lump sums that have to be paid if something need redecorating or redoing which is every few years.

In short, you seem to blame even living in a boring place on them! And your boring job through lack of their direction?

You do sound down and I think seeing the GP about depression and getting some therapy would help you start to reframe some of this stuff.

It's fine to have a feeling of 'oh, I wish they hadn't sold that central London property', my children probably have it too, but that's the ups and downs of life. It's not fine to blame your entire life on their lack of foresight and knowledge of the economy and housing market for the past 30 years.

You can have a lodger in pretty much any city as well! Plus if you don't enjoy being single you've got a better chance of changing that if you live independently rather than with your parents.

I think at the moment this is a self fulfilling prophecy. You don't seem happy with your life at the moment but by focusing on things you have no control over (your parents past financial decisions) you're just going to become more unhappy and resentful and your life isn't going to get any better. By living with your parents while resenting them and being angry with them you're only going to make your situation (and your relationships with your family) worse.

You are in your 40s. Go find your pot and pee freely and how you wish!

You don't need to live in London, you really don't and that doesn't mean you need to live in a small village either. There are loads and loads of large towns and cities everywhere.

What job did you used to do? Can you go back to that? Do you need to re-train? Absolutely not too old for that. I have an arts degree, I work in a completely unrelated field now

Would it be nice if mummy and daddy bought you a house, absolutely but they are not going to. Don't rely on the inheritance from when they do die either. For all you know it could be sold and spent, could go in nursing home fees, one could remarry and have it all go to a new spouse.

OP I think a therapist or counsellor could help you explore your victim complex and why you feel entitled to your parents’ money. This could help you feel better by accepting that their choices are their choices, and you need to be the driving force in your own life.

personally? I think you experienced emotional neglect in your formative years so you now feel a very strong desire to “get” something from your parents since you didn’t get the safety and love you should have. That’s what they should have given you, not a flat.

Incel. 100%.
You live rent free, you don’t work, you’ve done nothing (that I can tell from your posts) with your life and now you are blaming your parents. Stop blaming everyone else and get off your X-Box playing bum and find a job.

Ultimately I feel my parents should have seen I was set up with somewhere to live 20 years ago.

Why, OP? You’re not disabled or with learning difficulties. Your anxiety is probably exacerbated by blaming the world or other people for your problems — that must increase feelings of helplessness.

You should have sought treatment for your anxiety and hearing difficulties.

But this story is so extreme that I suspect it’s a wind-up.

This has to be a reverse!

Maybe the father of the entitled, work shy, inexplicably single, mid 40s "bachelor" who wants to throw the moocher out but his wife is a softer touch, and he wants an external opinion.

Because no one with half a brain cell could be this lacking in self-awareness...

Why won’t you be safe driving due to being deaf???

I’m beginning to see why your parents are not planning to split any inheritance left behind 50-50 between you and your brother! You have a degree and a masters and seem to have made very little use of them. You are vague about what you worked at previously and now you are unemployed. I’m not surprised London was too expensive for you if you lived in an apartment/house which was large enough for you to have a lodger. Why did you think you needed that much space? Why were you not sharing a flat with other people and being responsible only for your share of the bills? Why did you not learn to drive 20 years ago, given that partial deafness is no barrier to doing so?

Everything in life is someone else’s fault as far as you are concerned – your parents didn’t give you the support or direction that you apparently needed to get started in the working world, you are unhappy because everyone else in the world is coupled up and you are not, you’ve had to give up your overly large home in London because you couldn’t afford it, You have anxiety and a hearing problem so you can’t drive, etc etc. Are you taking responsibility for any part of how your life has turned out so far?

I’ve only read OPs posts, but my goodness!

‘Poor me, poor me, I’ve achieved nothing in my life, made poor decisions, can’t drive, don’t have a career or even a basic job, can’t get a gf and it’s all my parents’ fault because my childhood was rubbish, they didn’t manage my life for me, buy me a house or give me lots of money.

They are letting me live with them rent free, but they’re arseholes for not living in a city with better transport links to facilitate my life.

I am a failure and it’s everybody else’s fault, except mine, because obliviously partial deaf, single people with anxiety can’t possibility be expected to achieve anything in life.

Oh, and did I mention that I want my nephews + nieces to struggle the same way I have, because I’ll be damned if they get a penny of my parents’ money which is rightfully mine?!’

This is so outrageous OP can’t possibly be genuine …

There are plenty of extraordinarily wealthy people who have made it very clear that they intend to leave not a single penny to their children. They do this precisely because they love their kids and want them to learn to work hard and stand on their own two feet, rather than being lazy and entitled and having everything handed to them.

You seem to have interpreted “family is everything” to mean “you never need to work because we will give you everything”.

Were you privately educated OP?

You have an MA and yet, you can't get (or keep?) a job?

I think you need to turn your ire inward, how do you rationalise your own 'missed opportunities' with those of your parents? Do you constantly berate yourself as you do your parents? I think not, it is always much easier to blame others then ourselves.

Take a deep breath and stand on your own two feet, you might like it.

I am absolutely sure your parents will love it.

I would be ashamed of you if you were my son. Own your issues.

You sound pretty bitter and resentful. Life is what you make of it. You’re fortunate enough to still get some inheritance, many of us don’t and have to make our own fortune.

I'm guessing too that your further education time was spent hanging out with a 'Common People' selection of Arts grads, underwritten by parents who didn't really expect them to do much with their Film Studies/Photography/Eng Lit degrees and so provided London accommodation and future contacts - and this has coloured your expectations somewhat.

Speaking as an Arts grad of a similar vintage, I can assure you that this isn't uncommon, but it's not the norm, honestly.

This level of self-pity, entitlement and lack of insight is not healthy.

The problem is not your parents, or your brother, or the landlord, or the university or the job market or the housing market.

It's your mental health that's the problem. That may well be down to your childhood and of course your parents are largely responsible for that. But I would strongly urge you to seek proper psychological support to unpick these issues, because you're focusing on perceived injustices which are just angering you further.

My god, this might just he the most entitled post I’ve ever seen on here. You have a victim complex OP, most people aren’t handed everything by their parents, some of us even had abusive parents and no support at all, and we still don’t blame them for the state of our lives as much as you do.

I don't see why you should expect your parents to do what you think in regard to disposing of properties. And it's no joke being a landlord and doesn't necessarily give big profits, what with maintenance, unlet periods, bad tenants, tenants who don't pay that you have to take to court. Twenty Twenty hindsight is a wonderful thing, we would all have done things differently if we knew what the housing market, stock market etc did over the last twenty years twenty years ago.

I also don't think it unreasonable to go 1/3 for you, 1/3 for DB and 1/3 to his DCs. Presumably your money will likely go to your DBs DCs anyway if you have no children. How much are we talking about as 1/3 it seems as if it could be substantial.

They help you out if necessary, take you in if you have problems, they sound pretty nice really. Have you asked them if they could give you an advance on your inheritance for a deposit for a flat in London or another big city where you think you would be happier?

OP, you don’t come across well.

You have a masters degree and are in your 40s, your life is hardly over. You can retrain and work, which it sounds like your much criticised mother did, simultaneously to bringing you and your sibling up.

You just can’t live with someone for free and clearly dislike them, it is dishonourable and hypocritical. Either accept them for who they are graciously or move out and make your own life.

Parents give children a decent shot at life, that is where their obligations end, and it sounds as if your parents did that for you. I am not sure money would solve any of your insecurities for more than the time it took you to spend it, if that. No one deserves an inheritance and it sounds like your parents still provide you with support when you need it.

You need to work on yourself and your values. Then you can build a decent equal relationship with your parents.

(although the misandrist ‘INCEL’ comments are totally uncalled for).

Oh, and btw, there is no such thing as an ‘advance on an inheritance’. It is how entitled people justify to themselves asking for a large gift from their parents as if they were still children.

If parents choose to give their adult children help, it is a kind gift, not any kind of advance on a legal obligation.