My Husband has been Disinherited. Devastated for him.

[nursy1]

Of course there is a back story to this. His family was fairly dysfunctional, 5 kids in all. He is dyslexic but diagnosed as an adult, all through his childhood his father told him he was lazy, didn’t work hard enough at school, would never amount to anything. It culminated in him being thrown out when he was 17 after he had chosen to do an engineering apprenticeship rather than anything acedemic.
Now FIL is in his 90s, suffering from heart failure and Parkinson’s, bed bound and in the care of his eldest daughter. (DH Mum died 12 years ago) He lives next door to her I n a bungalow which she half owns with him. He pays her his carers allowance.
He lives a 4 hour drive away from us. Dh visited him at the weekend. He was very agitated, calmed down eventually. As he left, daughter came around to car to say that as her DH house was going straight to his kids she would be left with nothing and would have no income once FIL died. In the light of this he had changed his will.
DH discovered from his brother subsequently that he is to be disinherited and his share given to eldest sister as we are “well off” and didn’t come to visit him enough.
My husband is devastated. We are only well off because he has worked like a dog 50 - 60 hour weeks for 35 years or more. Never had much time for visiting then but he has seen him 4 times in the past year. He also took him on a week long holiday to Cornwall where he spent his honeymoon. He has been blocked many times from visiting by eldest daughter as, according to he4 “ Dads not up to it” . DH has a good pension we saved hard for and I have a pension as well which will start later this year. We have a small mortgage on our house. And six kids between us. We are not wealthy, only comfortable on a budget I would say. His other younger siblings will be much the same by the time they are our age. The eldest sibling has made a number of crazy decisions in her life and was an alcoholic for some years. However, she drives a Mercedes and is not short of money.
It’s not the money so much as it is bringing back the terrible feelings of rejection he had all those years ago. He hasn’t slept and is on the verge of tears when we speak about it.
I am fuming and at times if I’m honest that’s not helping. I want to confront them but DH worried it will kill his frail Dad and would rather challenge the will after his death
Anyone any experience of similar. What helped?

£200 per week to look after an elderly person is not a lot really.
As you know it's huge amount of work, physically and emotionally. If they have dementia is is frustrating and I expect boring. You are also so tied down. You cant go away for too long. Cant take off somewhere for the weekend. If she has to be back by a certain time to help him with supper etc.

The sister should get the lot for all that.

Maybe try and see a positive in this, your FIL knows (even after doubting your DH years ago) that you are secure financially, you are on your own two/four feet and don't "need" this money.

What loads of rubbish! Ofc this will hit him hard and making peace is a lot easier said then done. Being disinherited DOES give a sense of less worth and trying to get to terms that a parent you love and has hurt you sees you as something not even worth a symbolic inheritance is going to be devastating. The nonsense that inheriting doesn't mean closure is not true as there is something fundamental about the feeling of value from ones parents. When my grandmother died, years of bitterness and resentment from my mother was laid to rest and my grandmother made sure that my mother was left things of value and made sure that my mother knew she was loved despite her mothers actions in the past. They managed to patch things up days before death made that impossible.. and not one of the "kids" was left with more or less then the other. They are all content with how this was handled and feel that although they didn't all get what they wanted they got something to remember their parents by. The main thing was to insure that friendship and family remained and grew after death and inheritance. The actions from DHs father is wrong regardless, and it is not about the money, it is about the feeling, that one feeling of worth, of value, of being seen and recognized. Even if the sister gets a majority, the rest should not be excluded completely. The only way for OPs husband to get around this is carefully talking with his father that this isn't about the money but the feeling that he is worth less

I honestly don't know anyone who would discuss their future inheritance and how they will spend it. The only talk in my own family is the opposite, my kids telling me to spend it and enjoy it and don't leave anything.

Firstly it's your DH's Dad and it should be between him and his Dad. And not you. You've admitted yourself you seldom see your FIL and his daughter is his full time carer. When folk say it's not about the money it often is or at least is a part of it. And as others have pointed out if he'd been in a care home there would be no money to share out. You're not even short of money from what you've said.

Shiftymake maybe the father thinks his daughter values him more and he appreciates it. Four visits a year or 24/7 it is a big difference.

so after his wife died he employed eldest daughter as carter, as I said, at £200 a week not a bad gig

Not a bad gig? Really? It's soul destroying hard work. I've done it.

I think this is terrible for your DH.

I am firmly of the view that inheritance should not be if you NEED it. It should be about recognition that you are a child of the deceased and unless you have behaved appalling all siblings should inherit an equal share.

Good grief this only serves to make your DH feel utterly unloved and shit. I’m surprised his sister can’t see that.

"Good grief this only serves to make your DH feel utterly unloved and shit. I’m surprised his sister can’t see that."

Re-read what OP has to say about the sister. I suspect she feels unloved, shit, and trapped.

Your DH's feelings of hurt and rejection at not inheriting anything from his father are very understandable and not at all unreasonable.

Your attitude towards your SIL and her caring role is unreasonable. Your very obvious disappointment that you won't get a chunk of money to enable you to pay off your mortgage is, IMO, also unreasonable- especially in light of your insistence that this is not about the money.

The priority for you surely has to be helping your DH to get the emotional support he needs, possibly through counselling, rather than anything else?

What are your step-son's feelings about the clock? Is he ok with his dad accepting it with the condition of passing it on to the cousin/nephew because of homophobia? How can your husband stand to go along with that.

It should be about recognition that you are a child of the deceased and unless you have behaved appalling all siblings should inherit an equal share

I disagree. If one relative has taken on the burden of care (£200 a week is a laughable amount for such a demanding role) they deserve the lion's share of the inheritance.

Looneytune253, has this been made clear to all the other siblings? Its a pretty dysfuctional act so not surprising the family was dysfunctional and other siblings mostly absent. Personally, I woud never ever agree to it but I am used to those kind of mind games

grannytomine that is just alluding that OP and her husband should suddenly move closer, maybe next door like dbs, so visits like that are possible and not hours away working hard to earn their keep. I can't see why she means all and the rest means nothing down to where they work and live. And where in that post did I say she should receive less, she is doing the job none of the others can or want! But excluding all your children for the sake of one is in my book not on and not taking the other children into account nor talking to them that "I am doing this because of x,y,z" is disrespectful towards the remaining children when one is singled out like this. In my family we do talk about inheritance, so we all know whats what and why.

Does the FiL pay rent for half of the bungalow owned by the SiL?

Sorry my earlier calculations were wrong - she is in fact paid £1.19/hr for her 24/7 service of an immobile, bed ridden suffer of Parkinsons.

"My DH has just made me cry. I quote “ my father never learned that there are different types of wealth. I’ve got far more of that than he ever had”. I think it’s dissipated my anger a bit and I am hopeful that he will get through it."

He sounds very emotionally intelligent. You, on the other hand with your contempt and anger over £25K against a woman who has successfully battled alcoholism and cared for 12 years to date for her DF (probably supported her mother before her death?)....don't.

Cherry she gets the carers allowance and £200 a week. Although I think the carers allowance has now gone to pay for other carers twice a day
Yes I do know how hard caring is. This is why all siblings were in agreement about her having the whole of the bungalow after his death. We thought that was the end of it. She has come back for more in these final weeks if his life.
As I said, until recently, he has not been immobile so did not need full time care. Before he had a stroke about 18 months ago. It was a question of shopping and taking him to appointments once he could not drive. ( about 8 years ago) he does not have dementia.
As I have said repeatedly, it’s not so much the money but more the cruel way of singling DH out. Especially linking it to not visiting enough. That IMO is just not true. It could have been said if us a couple of decades ago perhaps but we had six kids at home, my husband worked very long hours and spent years being abroad Monday to Friday. This is the time period he is talking about.
To me, the man is a selfish tyrant and sil takes after him.
Dysfunctional families are hard to explain but the emotional abuse often came in collusion between this elder sibling and FIL. My DH misses the sibling who cut herself off from the family terribly as they used to spend time clinging to each other in childhood. She told him she just couldn’t take any more and would miss him out of all of them but vanished years ago without giving address. Nobody knows where she is. We had sporadic contact with her by phone initiated by her.

cousins visit once a year but I reckon they will be there sharpish to see the will.

"Where there's a will, there's a relative" as they say Granny

ANdit's always the ones whodoleast who seem to expect the most.

Another20. That’s a really horrible comment. Why so nasty? I don’t deny that he is more emotionally intelligent about this than me. I just feel so angry on his behalf. He is devastated. The money thing makes me fume because the justice of it doesn’t seem right to me.
The bungalow was bought after mil died at sil urging. She wanted him to move in next to her and it had come up for sale at this time. At the last moment FIL decided he didnt want to move in so it was rented out for 8 years with all the rent going to sil. He was asked for money to repair the fence around it and told sister in law to pay for it out of the rent. Sil told him if he didn’t pay it, it could mean the end of his marriage.

I am sorry, nursy1, but you do sound like the classic relatives who suddenly start taking an interest in the final stretch when for decades you have been too busy to make a visit. And I think you have lost 99% of people's sympathy with your remarks about your sil. So you may not like her, but that does not alter the fact that she has been there , on the spot , dealing with years of old person stuff.

I think if your dh tackles his df about this now he will appear mercenary.

Frayedhem. We haven’t told my stepson about the clock tbh. It’s too horrible.

The SIL deserves recognition for her care over the years.

What she doesn’t deserve though, is to be able to get one of her siblings to be entirely disinherited in a really nasty way because she has some kind of chip on her shoulder. Not when the other three siblings are retaining their shares but also doing no caring or visiting.

There are four non-caring siblings here. Why does only one, the non-academic one with the (gasp) gay son, get disinherited? That’s what I’d be upset about.

Ladyincement. Your analysis isn’t right. We have never been out of contact. Tried always to help as much as we could. Often been obstructed by sil.

And definitely don’t leave the clock to your nephew. Keep it, it’s yours. Don’t pander to your FIL’s manipulations any further.

Sashkin. Exactly!

I don't think you owe it to your FIL to adhere to any conditions he places on something your already own given the circumstances.

my DM has an extremely toxic and dysfunctional family and DH's brother behaved like a scavenging dog at a rubbish tip when his mother died, so I can understand the extremely complex emotions around this. Of course the OP will be feeling emotional and angry and protective of her husband. It's only natural. Especially, if - as it sounds like- the FIL has played siblings off each other.

It is actually very difficult to disinherit one of your children and have that stand in court.

Nonsense (well, at least if you're in the UK)