One DC has been NC for years, should they inherit equally?

[debauchedsloth]

I have 2 adult DC. One stoppped all contact with me about seven years ago and I hear from their sibling and father that they have no intention of reconnecting with me despite my sincere attempts to listen to them and understand how I have clearly failed them.

I have a very good relationship with the other DC (as does the sibling and their father).

I need to make a will and have significant value in my estate - many noughts.

Is it fair to split my estate equally between the DC given that one has decided to cut me out of their life?

I'm sure my adhd impacted them in many ways. But nothing whatsoever like it has your DH and his parenting.

If anything I was too involved in their lives. I picked them up from school, cooked their tea, sat with them doing homework. I bought them clothes made and took them to medical appointments, knew all their friends, welcomed their friends to our home. I drove them wherever. I listened to their woes. Good grief I was a good enough mother. No prize winner, but not shit.

Wow this is an excellent article especially the last paragraph. @debauchedsloth you need to read this.

I’d probably try one last time for contact, to give them a chance. If they don’t respond, write your will and leave them £20k or so, and the rest to other DC. Sorry but if they can’t make the effort to patch things up / be civil, they don’t get your inheritance. Why should they??

What about leaving it to the DP who picked up the slack for you in parenting?

As you say in a previous post, this is on the ethical dilemma board but I'm not sure that is the best place for it. You have more of an emotional dilemma, I would think. Leaving an equal share of your estate to your estranged child clearly shows that you still love and value them and want them to have resources to draw on in any hard times ahead. Cutting them out, or leaving them less than their share, would give a different message - perhaps that you are angry with them for going no contact, or you resent them for not showing affection and care to you during your lifetime, or you don't care what happens to them in future, or that you don't think they 'deserve' to inherit equally because of their behaviour.

And the message you intend to give by leaving them out may not be the one that is received.

I don't know about ethics, but I think the safest option is to give this child an equal share and hope that they may receive through the legacy the love that weren't able to accept in your lifetime.

Every update you post makes it clearer that you actually have very little insight into your behaviour and how it could have impacted your child.

In this specific instance, money may be equated with love by each of the OPs children. But I think the general presumption that money always implies love (and lack of money implies lack of love) is wrong and often hurtful.

The key is communication and listening.

I am aware of a situation where there are two siblings, one financially much better off than the other. The surviving joint parent will leave a meaningful but not-that-large estate when they die. This estate could make a huge difference for the living standard of the poorer sibling, while it would make absolutely no difference for the wealthier sibling.

In this specific situation, it makes logical sense for the less well-off sibling to inherit more, or even all, of the estate, provided only that the better-off sibling is happy with this, and will not feel less loved as a result.

There has been communication to this effect, which was actually initiated by the better-off sibling, who is happy to inherit nothing, and that is what has been agreed with the surviving parent and between the siblings.

I don't think that's justified. OP has been begging her child to explain for years, and it appears clear that his sibling doesn't see any issue. Would it really hurt him to explain what his problem is?

OP, like a previous poster said, I wonder if your estranged child is neuro-diverse/adhd too and is simply unable to cope with the ... energy for want of a better word - needed to relate to you. So rather than there being one big reason or a big fault on your part, they simply cannot deal with your personality/affect.

I think in your case I would make a will leaving everything divided equally between my children. wills are not about money so much as love. Like someone said upthread if I were you I would like my will to reflect my equal love for my children. As life goes on, if your other child ends up with significantly more responsibility for you as you age, then I would change the will to reflect that but would still try to keep it as close as possible to reflect that.

I know it is a given on MN that if a child is NC with a parent it is always the parent's fault - but in real life there are black and white situations and other situations which are a whole lot greyer.

This is odd OP. You say you have no idea why your child went NC, indeed you say no-one does, and then you explain quite clearly why they went NC.

An consistently inconsistent parent is very hard on the child. An broken parent is also very hard. You may remember there being good times, but they may remember them as times they were on tenterhooks, waiting for your next burst of 'brokeness.' You describe you ' begging them to go to family therapy' but this may have just reminded them of the pain of your emotional brokeness in their childhood. I don't think you are being honest with yourself about how it was for them as a child.

Its hard on you as you did not intend it, but your child obviously suffered greatly in their childhood and is trying to protect themselves as an adult by going NC.

Leave them an equal share in your will. Its the one act that you can do, where you will receive nothing back yourself and gain nothing from, where you can show them you did love them, always did, and as much as you loved their siblings.

Legally he can’t take out a POA without permission and several signed documents, next of kin’s permission and more.

He must have lied or cheated. Or maybe he’s pretending he has this.

Go to a solicitor as soon as possible and sort this out.

best of luck

We’re dreading an unbalanced will from pils, cutting out DH’s db. We’ve decided that if it happens we will gift back a fair portion but obviously the amount claimed by the taxman will dramatically increase . hoping this will make fil sees sense as he hates the thought of paying unnecessary tax, but it might just prompt him to leave the lot to another sibling who would happily keep it all.

I think I’d share it equally.

I cut all contact with my toxic mother and all my relatives on her side a few years ago.

I have no interest in hearing from her ever again or to receive a penny from her.

My freedom and a life away from her influence are my most valued possessions.

wills are not about money so much as love

That’s a worthy sentiment, but totally untrue. They are only about money - the wrangles and legal quagmires that arise from them, in previously ‘close’ families, demonstrates this I’m afraid.

'If anything I was too involved in their lives. I picked them up from school, cooked their tea, sat with them doing homework'

'Their father did most of the routine care of feeding and clothes washing'

Which is it op? I'm not attacking you promise but as your very own recollections vary perhaps the estranged dc has reason to keep a distance.

If I were you I'd leave equal amounts to dc in your Will then forget about money. Really try and reflect on what went on and why the dc has felt they can't have a relationship with you .

OP herself says what the reason is, in the exact same post as she says she has no idea what the reason is.

I suspect the child will not elaborate further as she knows how the conversation will go and that it will be fruitless and painful.

One sided and filled with assumptions.

Believe it or not sometimes people do lie about their parents.

If they have children, I'd leave their share between them.

I have absolutely ZERO doubt that OPs child has tried to communicate with her prior to deciding to to NC.

However, people who don’t/can’t really listen and reflect on their behaviour don’t see this.

For OP it might appear to have come out of nowhere but there is just absolutely no way it has. Her child will have tried to express how they have felt and she just didn’t hear it.

My mother also uses ‘I would love to go to therapy with you to sort things out’ as a bargaining chip. She needs to go to therapy herself to sort her shit out!!!! It’s not my responsibility. I hear echoes of this in OPs post.

All 3 of my siblings are also still in regular contact with my mother. They have various reasons for that but that certainly doesn’t mean my experience and choices are right and justified. We all had ‘roles’ in the family which meant we all had very different experiences of my mother.

Her updates regarding having dropped a cake and this being the reason for NC show she DOES NOT TAKE HER CHILD AND THEIR PAIN SERIOUSLY. Hence my comment.

But you said yourself OP:
Fun, intense, exuberant, funny, passionate, deeply interested in them and their worlds. Never sweated the small stuff. No drugs or violence ever. But inconsistent in mood - lively one day, broken on another day. Their father did most of the routine care of feeding and clothes washing (we lived as a family) but I made the house a home in every other respect.

When you are a child, having an inconsistent parent is incredibly stressful. Your home life is unpredictable. You learn to watch everything you say and do, become hypervigilant. It causes so much anxiety. It's very unlikely to be over one specific incident, like a dropped birthday cake (FFS). It's the accumulation of years of little cuts that in the end just becomes overwhelming. And what's worse is that the parent who did it to you can't see it. Sometimes stepping away is the only thing you can do.

@pikkumyy77 you could equally say that 50% of the time it must be the child's fault.

Children should feel love for their parents as well as parents feeling love for their children - but on mumsnet that love is only expected to go one way.

It's your final act for your children. It's something that can't be underdone or rectified.

My estate won't be used to punish or send a message.

Damn right I'd divide it equally.

Agreed. Why should the child receive anything. They’ve shown contempt for the mother despite the mother trying to contact / make amends, maybe admitting she wasn’t perfect. But who is.

And how do you think that patient would feel about you using their abuse as anecdote fodder for shock value online...? It's certainly very professional 👍🏻

Because there are 2 sides to every story. Barring the estranged dc behaving appallingly, and that isn't the case here, we should treat our dc equally.