Polygamy, first family and financial trouble - need some perspective here

[Lillonely]

Right so I’m going to try and be as a clear as I can be without being massively outing.

DH is from a minority community in the UK. His father has 2 wives. MIL and SMIL. It was some nasty business how it was done, both had no idea. It is not bigamy because only one marriage is legal MIL, so please no bigamy Comments. Polygamy is accepted in DHs community. There is a clear 1st and 2nd family situation. DH grew up in squalor and 2nd family grew up with the best of the best. MIL has never worked a day in her life, (she’s a very simple woman, illiterate no English) she claims she couldn’t work, she doesn’t claim or has never claimed because she woildnt ride the bus to get to English classes and job interviews etc and obviously it was during school time/ working hours so DH couldn’t accompany her. From 16 years old DH worked 3 jobs whilst in school to provide for them. he still went to university and got a degree and started working but due to financial burden was racked in debt. House repairs, bills, her glasses, dents treatment, food, new boiler, bathroom, kitchen you name it, DH paid for it. FIL gave them when DH was a child a £15k auction house, so there were A LOT of repairs needed.

he met me, we married. Prior to marriage he was upfront about his debt, because he was in a v bad place and long story short he had to beg FIL to start covering MIL expenses (to be clear it is now religious and cultural obligation to do so especially in a polygamous marriage). We worked out his finances and he’s still paying his way out of debt nearly 10 years later. I’m from another culture and not to go into it because it’s not strictly relevant here but MIL has been quite unkind to me over the years, she is better now that I have children but it’s worth a mention:

it has come out that FIL has purposely cut MIL and DH out of the will. He probably assets included it’s about 300k. DH told MIL and she said she didn’t care it’s DHs responsibility to pay for her to live, that’s why she had him to take care of her and we should sell our house to take care of her because we shouldnt have bought a house. I don’t know where she thinks our 3 kids are supposed to live. He’s her only child.

FIL has had some health scares lately and with the rising cost of everything we’re both worried about this additional financial burden. She’s paid no NI so has no state pension. She has money but won’t spend that to top up NI because she’s saving it for a religious pilgrimage. We have good jobs and we most certainly do not live beyond our means. We live in the most affordable decent area commutable distance from where we work, but also close enough to her because she had a meltdown when she found out we wanted a house. We also have 3 kids and associated childcare and expenses, a 4 bed house, one car, no pets, we do have savings but it’s for our retirement at probably 80 and for overpayments and rainy day funds. We have good jobs like I said, between 85-90 before tax, but the rises in everything are steep. Mortgage looks like it will be going up by £200 a month (no extra borrowing) childcare has gone up by £7 per child per day, we all know about energy and petrol and inflation. Our annual rises didn’t even touch the sides of how high inflation is. We are fairly comfy and definitely aren’t kitted out in designer attire but I do feel loathed to stop the children having any hobbies or sell our house to cover the extra £5/600 for pcm for MIL cost of living, or basically live from paycheque to paycheque and start the cycle of debt, which is what would happen given the rises, which will keep rising. Even selling the house would be daft because what we paid for a 4 bed would get you a 3 bed now because property prices have risen so much.

FIL is a v unkind man who has treated her and DH like dogshit for years, I do genuinely believe the best outcome would be for MIL to file for divorce and then she’d be entitled to half of his assets, even if she just got 75k, it’s something. But she won’t. She’s also not w particularly nice person in truth, a lot of emotional manipulation and abuse has been used against dh over the years.
i cannot move in with her for my mental health so that’s not an option, even if we got on like a house on fire, it’s a v small house. 2 bed, one a small double and the other a single.

what’s the utopia here? I can’t think straight, how do you work through this situation. She won’t work, won’t claim, won’t divorce him, would spend her money on a pilgrimage rather than cost of living and will have no inheritance, it’s just for DH to figure out. DH has spoken to his M and it’s like banging head against a brick wall and frankly the things she is coming out with are repugnant. Like you can’t afford to take care of me, well you should have thought of that before you bought a house you can’t afford’. It’s making us both stressed and me quite angry because I’d never put this on my kids: I’ve got no issue with helping out someone in need or even helping her out a bit but I think we might go under if we took everything on with no other income.

can anyone suggest anything?

This is going to sound really harsh and I appreciate it's easy to say from outside the culture but at some point your DH will need to make a decision - he can prioritise his own wife and children, or he can prioritise his parents.

His mum is not helpless in this if she gets support from someone who speaks her language and understands their culture without forcing her to adhere to it.

She can divorce him. She won't, but that's an active choice.

Your husband is holding you and your children hostage financially and preventing you from being able to provide your children with the life you should be able to provide for them based on your healthy household income.

He's choosing to fund his mum over funding their future, whether support for their further education, help with getting them on the housing ladder, support with driving lessons etc. All stuff you don't have to help your kids with but stuff that presumably you would like to contribute to as you should be able to afford it on your household income and have worked bloody hard for.

Ditto your own retirement. He's finding someone else's elderly years to the detriment of both your future elderly years, including any necessary healthcare and care home costs.

His decision to continue this cycle, and his mums decision to expect him to do so and emotionally blackmail him into it, is to the direct and long term detriment of him, you and your children.

It will be a painful choice but it's a necessary one.

The sad truth is that financially, and resentment wise, you yourself would probably be more financially secure long term if you were to divorce him.

He needs to take some responsibility and accountability in this. Again, I appreciate that's easy for me to say but it is the truth.

I doubt v much he’s got that long left, his health isn’t great.

do you become her power of attorney?

I think you do this,
www.gov.uk/become-deputy

If she has capacity she has to consent to having someone act financially for her and in any case she cant have UC claimed on her behalf. If she didnt have capacity then she would really need to claim disability benefits but would need proof of why she cant work or cant make her own claim.

Not caring enough to be bothered or thinking that your son owes you an income isnt really a valid reason

You can claim UC as a deputy for someone it’s how most adults who cannot manage their finances access them. She’s obviously unable to navigate the system but you can ask SS to assess her.

To be clear I’m suggesting she consents to your dh managing her finances not you trick her into it. This would be in line with her belief that he must are for her surely?

He CAN write a Will leaving his estate elsewhere. But as his legal wife she can contest it. Easier if she’s dependent on him of course. He needs to pay for her.

I work in probate.

To be blunt, if she can't make phone calls, can't speak English, get a bus, or read or write her own language, DH could fill in every online form required to take over her finances and she'd know no different until she had to sign something. He could, frankly, tell her it was anything, when it came to signature time.

I mean, it would be wrong of me to suggest that he does. But...

If it's just for benefits, it's this, I think.

www.gov.uk/become-appointee-for-someone-claiming-benefits

Neither of these options are for someone who has capacity, I cant believe people are suggesting this.

Shed never actively challenge the will though would need DH to do it, ive always understood that to be pricey Af, it would be us that would have to foot the bill

I'm pretty sure that's illegal though so nowhere close to an option.

You can have capacity to manage your day to day life but not your finances. Becoming her appointee involves phoning hmrc for her and explaining that she wants dh to manage her finances because she is illiterate and can’t speak English and it is beyond her to sort out.

it would be OUTRAGEOUS to do it without her consent, but I don’t see why she wouldn’t do it. Who organises her bills/council tax?

All in direct debit she does nothing

So how do they get checked? Who applied for her single residency reduction?

To be honest I don’t think you need to worry about this past when she reaches state pension age.

She can get Pension Credit if she’s a homeowner. They will take income and savings into account, not homeownership. She doesn’t need to have paid NI for that.

So I don’t think there would be any point in you topping up her NI. She’d end up with the same income. Pension credit tops up to the state pension level as long as you don’t have other income or savings over a certain level. £16k I think.

So hope FIL makes it to when she has is of state pension age, or perhaps in addition try to persuade him to leave a small sum that would be enough to see her through til pension age if he dies before she reaches that.

From the amount FIL is giving her now, she might well be better off when she gets to pension age so need less support from you.

She might be manipulative and not-so nice, but sounds like she’s been in the end of a lot of emotional abuse too over the years, and that can have a bad effect on people.

I think you need to make it clear to Dh that you are very proud of all that he’s achieved, and that his mother is just as problematic a relationship as his father, and you won’t see him sucked back into terrible relationships and dependencies. That if he sells the house to fund his mother or moves her in, you will divorce him. So it is very clearly not an option.
dh should challenge the religious leaders- ask in front of others you know my father has not provided for his wife, you know he leaves her nothing for when he is dead. When she is destitute I will bring her to you and the world will know that you do not follow <law name> And are not a good Muslim. It may be quite different having someone say it out loud ! But you can never rely on what’s in a will, so see a lawyer so you know where you stand on challenging it, see an accountant on whether the cb counts toward ni (you may need her with you or PoA for this) and see an accountant on a reverse mortgage. If she owns the house in her name she has options.

And to clarify from your title, the polygamy is not an issue. Nor is the father the only problem/ bad person here re your dh, so is his mother. It’s a classic case of husband not supporting his wife and abandoning his child, it’s not terribly relevant that he has a second wife.

At retirement age, MIL will be able to claim means tested benefits. She will be entitled to one called Pension Credit which is £791 a month. That's a lot more than people under pension age get on Universal Credit. Additionally,she could get extra benefits to help with rent costs. Topping up NI contributions could just be a waste of money. You can't make up for decades of missing NI contributions. You could ask for a Pension forecast from DWP so you can check. I would suspect that FIL "gave" her the house in the sense of handing her the keys,not actually transferring ownership to her. So she'd have to move if FIL has left all to wife 2. Technically, when FIL dies, MIL could contest the Will. It may not be worth it. It would be fairly easy for FIL to arrange his affairs /assets in life to make sure it wouldn't be worthwhile. You might want to check who actually owns the house with Land Register.

This woman was willing to let her teenage son go into debt to support her when she could have chosen to take charge of her own situation. She doesn’t deserve sympathy.

I would make it very clear that no more money from your household is going to support MIL. If your husband feels the need to step in and support her financially again it will end in divorce so you can protect what assets you can.

he needs to make it very clear to his mother and his father that he is not going to play the hero here.

the one thing I would consent to him doing is helping her hire a solicitor if she agrees, but it needs to be now, not against deceased Fil’s estate.

I was thinking something along these lines too

Apparently under UK law, if to left descendents nothing then the will can be contested, if however you e.g. Left 1k to each say siblings, then 900,000 k to chairty then legally it cannot be contested as you left them something.

I could be wrong but that's my understan ding