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?

Pearls aringer. I feel angry with both of them. It’s the collusion about it and just excluding DH.
I know I will have to let it go and move on for all our sakes but it’s really made me angry.

Karelia. That’s what we have been told is to happen by bil as directed by FIL. We all have to attend Solicitirs office.

And just to clarify that last point, if we hadn’t been told about this now. My DH would have found out at the will reading when a note would have been read out in front of everyone. “You didn’t visit me enough”

Nope - no such thing as a will reading.

OP -you sound very bitter and somewhat vindictive. In contrast FIL’s daughter / carer is coming across better and better notwithstanding your increasing sniping

Will readings are quite common, in fact. They are just people gathering informally to read a will.

Ari I think you might be confused about who is sounding unpleasant here.

I'm a million percent certain if my DHs DGP had been told the truth about the sex offender before they died (and the fact that his mother chose the pervert over her only son) that they would have got FUCK ALL 😡

Realistically you will never get to the bottom of how this has come about and it will eat away at you trying to work it out. You FIL might actually have dementia in its early stages. That can lead to some pretty weird decisions being made whilst apparently fully functional. I’d go with that explanation if you want to help your DH get over this. On the plus side, you never have to speak to your SIL again if you don’t want to. Genuinely wishing you well with this OP

and

Thanks everyone. ( almost everyone). Checking myself about not being appreciate enough of the caring role.
Trying to get to the moving on part and just hugging my DH a lot , wishing it were different.

SheGotBetteDavisEyes

Been there. DB proffers an extravagant Christmas invitation as a grand gesture. DM accepts it enthusiastically, as she would love to have been invited in the past. (DB was busy so it was only ever the two or three short visits a year, virtually none to their house.) Then frets. Lots. Enough for it to register through her lack of memory. Sensible stuff, like what would happen if she wakes up in the middle of the night and does not know where she is, let alone where the loo is. And how she will cope with being patronised by SiL, who has a tendency to giggle obviously if DM repeats herself. DB is high handed and wont discuss detail, wont even discuss her medication, but says his 21 year old daughter, who she has not seen for a couple of years will pick her up and drive her to London, three hours away.

I was very tempted to just let it happen. However DB's comment that they would just dump her in front of the TV when guests came round, was too much. I did not want to pick up the pieces. I did not want there to be pieces.

So evil me tells DB that it is a bad idea. Evil me is the one "preventing" him from seeing his mother. Evil me is apparently ignoring the fact that she was delighted to receive the invitation.

What I really don't understand is why DB has only been willing to help if was his idea. So small requests like asking him to pick up a small cheap alarm clock as a hospital gift when DM was coming round from surgery, as she was having problems with orientation, were absolutely dismissed.

I am probably projecting, but there is nothing OP has said that my SiL would not have said. (Bar the fact I have not been an alcoholic, but I am sure she accuses me of things that are equally heinous.) I am very sick of being looked down on and treated as undeserving of any consideration.

If he hasn't visited nor cared for his father much in 35 years he has no right to anything his father will pass on.

Needmoresleep, . Your own experience almost mirrors the one that I'm referencing in my comments to the OP. You've explained so well, but yes, all the the OP says about her dreadful, alcoholic, controlling SiL, is just what has been levelled by members of my own family at the one doing the caring (not me, incidentally - I'm in a different country).

I think this thread is very, very sad, but NOT because the poor old DH doesn't get his cut of the will of a father with whom he hasn't had a great relationship - on both sides apparently - who is still alive.

The encouragement to demonise the very ill FiL and the SiL is awful.

I"m out. Hope you and your DH can genuinely move on, OP.

Yea, will readings is not a thing. I have been a lawyer for 15 years in wills and probate and there’s no way on earth I would have a will reading. Especially in these circumstances! Why would any lawyer invite that into their office or life.

Frankly this whole story is becoming more convoluted and less believable by the minute, and I say this as someone who has seen families break apart because of wills.

Needmoresleep
It sounds horrible but every situation has different nuances.
My DH is not high handed, the very opposite. He had such A low sense of self esteem as a child he is endlessly trying to please everyone. To his own detriment. Let me be clear, ALL offers of help for sil have been rejected or obstructed. Not just from us. If we had been asked to get him an alarm clock we would have done so. In fact DH brought his mantel clock back with him last Christmas when he complained it wasn’t working, took it apart, fixed it and returned it on our next visit. Took hours. I think you are projecting your own situation on us.
I am however listening and worrying if I have handled it wrong in the past. I think it was you said you were sick of expert relatives swooping in giving advice. Perhaps I’m guilty of this. Dunno?. As help from OT was refused for a long time there were appliances I knew about and could get hold of that made his life easier ( like the sock putter on thing). Honestly I do think my sil relished his dependence but perhaps it’s just our mutual dislike.
Utmost respect for your caring role but you dB attitude is not ours. He sounds awful but I guess perhaps you could interpret it that he is trying to help. I know you say he doesn’t like any idea that isn’t his but you could write him a list perhaps? We would have appreciated it.

Totally disagree with comments saying that wills and inheritance shouldn't be discussed inadvance. They absolutely should, provided everyone is a reasonable human being. My
Mum left us in a really complex legal state with her property and (complete arsehole of a) husband but it was almost so much worse - she had a much worse plan (not financially worse for us, just complicated and precarious) and I had to be the bad guy and bring up the potential issues. Despite the fact that I was the one there supporting her through her treatment and terminal illness, I came out of tht discussion badly when I didn't give a crap about the money - in fact I told her to leave more to her husband in financial terms, to save the crazy complexity of her original plan, knowing he was not to be trusted. As it is, the situation she left in her will landed with incurring many thousands in costs and legal fees, and losing a lot of money on the value of her house (which she fought for decades to keep solely because she wanted her kids to inherit it). If she were here today to see the mess created, or the fact that her prick of a husband had a new girlfriend before she was even dead and is now living the life of Riley with her flat and all her money, she would have done things very differently.

So yeah - definitely talk about wills to those who stand to benefit or not. Saves a lot of trouble later.

A woman I know convinced her mother to disinherit her brother. She was doing all the caring and had all the responsibility. The son couldn't even be bothered to visit or attend the funeral, so can't really blame her, but I do feel things were manipulated there.

Let's just disregard the OP's story for a moment.
The thought that someone would deliberately disinherit their own children baffles me. I can understand that parent and child don't see eye to eye or never liked each other much but to deliberately cut your child(ren) out of your will at the end of your life sounds rather harsh or strange at least. I know it's not relevant to this particular case but I once read or heard years ago that there are countries where, by law, a percentage of an estate is 'reserved' for the children and must be shared between them (don't know where and don't know the ins and outs of it).
Of course there are always ways around around inheritance law.

I don't think it is the talking about your will that people are talking about, it is the people who think they are entitled to be beneficiaries talking about what they are getting, what you are getting, what auntie nellie is getting and is it fair and if you approve of who is getting what and what they are going to do with it. It is really tacky. If there is a legal problem then a solicitor is the person to talk to.

OP, the scenario I face is very common, repeated my times on the elderly parents board. (Do join us granny and others!) I am sure that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and that the roots inevitably extend back to childhood.

(When clearing my mother's flat I found DB's O level certificates which showed he had to retake several. I was off to University, with my excellent exam results, so had no idea. Did I say he resents me?!)

One of the key things about caring is that you may be right, or may be wrong, but you have to get on with it in a way that works for you. From what you have said, you are all probably lucky that your FiL trusts your SiL. You are certainly lucky that she has been willing to take him on.

It is quite possible your SiL is dug in, coping with it all. She probably does not trust you or your motives and may not like you. Fairly, or unfairly "helpful suggestions" don't seem helpful to her at the coal face. It may be too late to gain her trust. There will be things she resents. (Carers allowance is £62.50 pw. Add in £200pw and take away the cost of other bought in care, and I would be resentful.) She may feel that you do not understand what she is up against, or simply want to swan in, swan out and criticise.

A couple of months after my mum had a replacement hip, DB was demanding that I organise gym membership as this is what my mother told him she wanted. I went along with it with predictable results. Only a few weeks before she had got lost in a hospital changing cubicle, and indeed had had to be rescued when she forgot her way home from the supermarket. Even if she got to the gym, there was no way she could use it. Then bless him, he ordered a white board and told me to organise workmen to get it put up on her wall, as it would "help her memory". No way did DM want her living room looking like a conference centre, so I had it put up in the hall. It was never used. Then he says there is no point in him offering to help, as I never listen.

I don't think the Will will be a fight, as I honestly don't care. I know that after my father died DM had wanted to change it, but think she was not sufficiently organised to do so. (The correspondence is incomplete but she was certainly in touch with the lawyer.) I also know that there will be an awful lot more money than there would have been, had I not stepped up to the mark. Indeed had I not done so, I suspect it would be gone long before any Will reading. It took a year of almost full-time to sort out her financial affairs, including a tax investigation, fraud, misselling, carrying out a gas safety check on a rental property and discovering an active leak in a 25 year old boiler and lots more. Three months alone to find and sort the paperwork.

So DB has been lucky. Does he show any appreciation....

A thank-you would go a long way. You might find the same.

I am really sorry for the pain your husband is going through, but I agree with some previous posters that this is only one side of the story. I know my own family have a version of events that completely omit various crucial things, and they have speculated motives that do not exist based on the character they have assigned to me.

It's never straightforward in these sorts of situations and there will be more to it than you're able to tell us.

I do think your SIL deserves some remuneration for being the carer; as people have pointed out, her sacrifice is the only reason there's any inheritance left at all. It's hard for family members who live far away and it can seem as though they just swan in and out even if they are doing as much as they can from a distance. The one left to pick up the slack at home can feel under appreciated. Offers of help don't always come across that way even if it's how they are intended.

What I'm saying in a clumsy, roundabout way is that this is a complicated, painful situation with a lot of different interpretations and views. I don't know if it would help to try to sit down and talk it all out? It would be really important for everyone involved to honestly listen to what everyone else is saying and really, really take it on board. Which is difficult. My family's never managed it.

@PaxUniversalis you might be thinking of Spain. Correct me if I’m wrong someone but from memory the estate is divided into three equal parts. Part 1 must be divided equally between your children. Part 2 must also go to your children but in any proportion you choose. The third part can go to anyone. Clever if you think about it, as it means you can’t just leave your children dependant on the state when you die while you have assets.

Don't know the details but in Scotland, France and Spain you have to leave a proportion of your estate to spouse and children. We don't have this in England we have freedom of testamentary capacity. You can leave it all to the cats home if you want. Certain categories of people can challenge a will through the courts, but judges often reluctant to overturn a will unless a claimant was being supported by the deceased, but it's up to the individual judge.

Pearlsaringer - yes it was something along those lines. I can't remember exactly. Anyhow the idea that parents cut children out of their will somehow doesn't feel right, even if the relationship between them has broken down. There is a discussion on this thread about children not visiting their parents regularly, but what about children who have moved to the other side of the world and can only visit their elderly parents once a year? Or, children who have their own physical or mental health problems and are not in a position to visit frequently?

Needmoresleep, thanks I will come and have a look. The thing I found most irritating was being told to "just put her in a home." No thought of what she might want or finding the right place, just dump her and forget her.

Update.
DH had phone call from his dB. ( executor) He also feels very uncomfortable about the situation. He thinks there has been some coercion by sil and told us that the Will Company had contacted him to ask if FIL fit to visit as they feel it is a very unusual situation.
He offered to pay over the correct proportion to my DH from his share and discuss the same with other siblings. Although this is very kind DH refused as he feels this is not the point. Outcome is they are all going to FIL House in a couple of weeks when bil has planned a visit to discuss. I think this will give my DH some closure. As he put it if fil still wants to treat him as a lesser member of the family then he will just accept that but wants fil to know the pain he has caused him.
Fair enough I think.

So your FIL has not actually died yet but you are all going to his house to discuss his will with him. This is just so inappropriate and frankly more than a little incredible than anybody could think this was right. Never heard of a Will Company for a start. Do you mean the solicitors. This just isn't how things are done. And somebody has kindly agreed to hand over their share of money than has not even been inherited yet.

Well I guess you could say they are forcing the conversation he should have had but I think they feel he has behaved badly. As bil put it, “ he is taking away the basement of any family cohesion we have built” my DH said he didn’t want to do it like a lynch mob but just to explain to everyone openly what his thinking is.
I’m in support. I have rarely seen my DH as upset as he has been the past couple of days. I think he needs to talk to him about it
He has discussed the will with sil and bil after all so it’s not like it’s unmentionable.

He thinks there has been some coercion by sil and told us that the Will Company had contacted him to ask if FIL fit to visit as they feel it is a very unusual situation

Outcome is they are all going to FIL House in a couple of weeks when bil has planned a visit to discuss. I think this will give my DH some closure. As he put it if fil still wants to treat him as a lesser member of the family then he will just accept that but wants fil to know the pain he has caused him

Ffs. How lovely of you all. No wonder your SiL has been protective of your DF.

Of course, it's not about the money is it?