Skids, money and inheritance

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Christag's blog got me to thinking about this.

I know a lot of our circumstances regarding this topic differ. Many of our skids' parents are alive. However, some of their parents are not.

How would you feel if your living parent used the money your late parent bequeathed to them on their new spouse and their spouse's kids? How would you handle your feelings, and how do you think anyone who becomes a skid in this position should handle their feelings?

For myself, I'd be very hurt if I became a skid in that position.

I'd probably be so hurt that I'd take a walk away from the situation for awhile.

If the late parent had wanted

If the late parent had wanted the couple's kids to be the beneficiaries, wouldn't a trust have been created? My will has my property going to my kids with a life interest to DH. If I predecease DH he doesn't get my savings, but if he then cashes in the life insurance he gains from his policy on my death,and spends it on a new wife and kids, then surely I meant that to be a possibility, otherwise I should have ensured any life insurance was put in trust too? When a spouse leaves goods to a spouse with no strings attached, that's surely exactly what the spouse means to do. Marital property is marital property. Anything else is just gravediggers chasing what-ifs and should-have-beens and is a recipe for heartache/bitterness.

HOw does a life trust work?

HOw does a life trust work? Does that mean the spouse left with the life trust can never sell the house or move? That is what I don't understand. If we set up a life trust for each other, does that mean we are stuck maintaining the same property until we die? Doesn't seem practical to me - am I missing something here? What would happen if one is too old to care for the property and needs the cash to move into a retirement facility? If the life trust states that once it is sold it goes to kids, then what is the elder parent or step parent to do to live??? I am very confused about this.

Whatever my parents do with

Whatever my parents do with their money is their business. My parents are VERY well off, but we were always taught that money given is not worth money you earned. I think I'd be hurt, if they gave it to their SKIDS (not their real kids, if I had half-sibs I'd be okay with that.) and I would definitely walk away for a bit, but it is a good time to train myself and to truly get to know myself and the root of why it hurts me.

My personal development plan includes not being greedy or jealous, so I will use it as a opportunity to become better.

With ss... we don't see him and DH is not raising him nor is he currently having any part in raising him... and the only thing DH has right now is A LOT OF CREDIT CARD DEBT (a tiny bit in retirement since he only started his job a year ago), and some old junk. So... I don't know if he'd want to inherit that...

I mean he can have the junk if he really wants them, if DH passes. I would have no need or use for them.

But the houses are mine (bought and maintained by me), and so are all of the businesses he helps me in... so that's not even on the table.

I am completely and totally

I am completely and totally with you on this one. A couple's money is a couple's money and it should all belong to the one left living to do with as they see fit.

This is coming from someone who has watched her parents support her ADULT brother and sister for years - I mean my parents pay my sister's cable and internet bills. Do I think it's not right? YES. I do. BUT...I would rather be ME than her or them and I don't resent it from an "I am jealous" standpoint. I more feel sorry for the lot of them.

I value self-sufficiency VERY highly and it is extremely important to me. I would rather do without things (and I DO) than have somebody give them to me out of a sense of pity or obligation or because I feel "entitled". That is crap.

If the money was left to the

If the money was left to the spouse, it is the spouse's money...If it was left to take care of the kids, it is wrong.

I'm with everyone else. My

I'm with everyone else. My parent's money is THEIR money. I would only assume that if one of them died that the other would get EVERYTHING that the other one possessed to do with what they want. EXCEPT the things I am supposed to inherit upon my mother's death, which I know my father would not try to do anything about that anyway. (It's all jewelry passed down from her mother)

I don't expect anything from my parents death. On the contrary , I'd rather them spend every penny they had on whatever makes them happy. If meaning I had one more day with them meant that I didn't get anything, I'd praise to whatever forces out there to allow me that one more day.

My husband does always joke with his mom when he fixes stuff at her house that he's doing it right since it will be his house one day. LOL.

I think parents should enjoy

I think parents should enjoy their old age and spend their money before they die. That way, there is no fighting and bickering over who gets what. When nobody gets anything, there is nothing to fight about. Relatives can get pretty ugly when it comes to this kind of stuff. I've seen it happen at my grandma's funeral. Aunts, uncles, cousins....all normally good people, except when there is a will involved.

I want to be quite clear: I

I want to be quite clear: I do value self sufficiency and financial independence. DH has his own small business and has for 18 years. I work part time for him and part time for my dad. I've also worked very hard at one job or another since turning 16. So money isn't the issue for me. But I think it's tacky for a parent to discuss spending money they inherited from the other parent who's passed on with their kids. And I can see why people would be hurt to know their living parent is spending it on others (I don't agree with how christag's SKs handled themselves but can see why they feel the way they do). That's why I'd make a clean cut from the living parent for awhile until I could handle myself more calmly. I think it would hurt me so much because it would just emphasize that my parent isn't coming back, and I'd feel it'd be my living parent unintentionally rubbing salt in that wound. So I'd hopefully have the ability to distance myself from the living parent while I worked through my emotions and came to a place where I could behave calmly about the situation.

The fact remains it is still

The fact remains it is still not your money. As one other poster commented there should have been specific arrangements if she wanted your Dad to give some of the money to you. I agree it is tacky for the surviving parent to discuss the money that was left to them by their deceased spouse, and I can understand that it could cause hard feelings. Your idea of distancing yourself to work through your emotions is a good one. Thanks for bringing up this subject. I now know I need to really be specific about my will or trust.

The fact remains it is still

This is one of the problems

This is one of the problems wives of widowers have. Usually it's always money but things. The evil stepmom selling the late wife's family heirlooms at the yard sale type of situation.

Married couples keep finances separate more nowadays but that wasn't always the case. My DH's LW assets were put into a trust along with the house and other things that were clearly hers. The conflict comes from his kids and their ideas on what is their mothers. They view anything DH had prior to marrying me as their moms.

The LW inherited money and used that to buy furniture when they first bought their house. His kids see that furniture as their moms. It's not part of the trust. it wasn't in the will. It's in the house, it's Dh's. But god forbid something happens to him, all hell will break loose over what is their mom's.

Anyone that marries a widower has to live with the golddigger accusations, even if they're the furthest from the truth. The skids never have said that but the former MIL was clear that's what she thought I was.

If you all think BMs are bad, you haven't had to deal with former MILs (the LW's mother). Yikes. These women are scary.

Is DH in charge of that trust

Is DH in charge of that trust fund?

Also, you said in your recent post that DH has been being harsh with your kids. I do not agree with his treatment of your kids but I can understand why so many stepparents are hesitant to financially support their stepkids. The fact is that they had nothing to do with the creation of their SKs. Do you work?

Yes, DH is the executor of

Yes, DH is the executor of the trust. I work for the school district, so nice summer vacation but not a high paying job.

"I think they should take a

"I think they should take a good hard look at themselves and wonder why they covet what they havent worked for and how can they address this within themselves."

I would love to copy and paste this and send it to all of my stepkids. It's truly correct.

The problem is they use this same thing back at me and my kids. They view it as my kids stealing their mother's money and taking the money she inherited from her grandfather's company any time their dad uses money that was from a joint account like the college savings account.

My kids don't have any idea about their mother's will, the trust, where money comes from. They just know that there's this big conflict over anything involving money, what their stepsiblings were able to do and what they don't have the money to do. yet there's money that their stepdad could give them that he won't because he doesn't want to start a war with my kids over whether the money did or didn't come from their mother/ maternal great-grandfather.

My son would likely feel awkward even taking the money to use for college because he knows all the conflict and would feel like he was taking money from DH's late wife because of all the noise his stepsiblings have caused.

I'm for a 100% tax when you die. Spend all the money you have while alive. Brats like my skids are set for life due to all the money they inherited. The conflict is all over money their mom inherited. The only person who actually worked for this money is their great-grandfather. None of them earned it. It's all invested in stocks and keep them rich while my kids will never be able to afford college.

Dh's only argument is that his late wife would be upset if she knew their kids' college fund was being used to send his stepkids to college.

Was any of the money from the

Was any of the money from the college fund used on his kids?

Yes. But OSS went to a state

Yes. But OSS went to a state school close to home due to his mom's illness. YSS used some of the money but SD had her grandmother pay for college because she didn't want to talk to her dad at all. Theres a considerable amount of money left over.

What a greedy self centered

What a greedy self centered generation of young people with overinflated senses of entitlement we have to leave the planet to.
They blame us for climate change etc., demand we clean it up for them want to be fed housed and clothed by mum and dad not only while mum and dad are alive but even after their death they still want mum and dad to provide for them. Now we have to worry about how they should handle their feelings as well. Well their feelings are just that THEIRS so let them deal with it any way they like. Their parents money is their parents money. An inheritance is a privellage not a birth right. No one is entitled to an inheritance. If the surviving spouse gets everything and spends it on the new spouse and/or kids maybe they could start to deal with their feelings by taking a long hard look at THEMSELVES. because if they were decent respectful hard working kids the surviving parent wouldn't spend all the money and leave them nothing. You'd only do that if your children treated you badly.

What a greedy self centered

Thanks I agree in that it's

Thanks I agree in that it's not something I'd make a stink about for years, and that the DH shouldn't have discussed it with his kids. I can also understand why the SKs would want their kids to inherit some of their late family's money. I think many people would want the same thing.

I also think emotions can run high in cases like these. While those of the SKs are understandable, another truth is that legally, now this money is DH's. As long as these skids get their fair share of it (and I agree, it does sound like they already are) if their dad wants to spend a little of it on his step kids, that's his choice.

Like I said in the beginning, if I were the SK in this situation, hopefully I'd have the grace to "take a break" from the living parent in question and the situation to work out my emotions so that when I was ready to resurface, I could act calmly and civilly about it, and at least act respectfully about the choices my parent makes as a fellow adult.

From the point of joining assets/having joint accounts, maybe the skids don''t agree with it and therefore don't have joint accounts with their spouses. But again, this is their dad's choice as a fellow adult. They don't have to like it but hopefully they will come to a place where they can act respectfully about it, just like they'd want him to act respectfully about choices they make that he might disagree with.

Truth be told, I think both sides could have handled it differently. Hopefully each side (including skids) will analyze what they could have done better and make positive changes at some point.

Let me add that the person

Let me add that the person who made the most noise and threw up the biggest fit about the late wife's family money going to me and my kids was the late wife's mother. She was the instigator in all of this. She made it out like DH was giving all of her daughter's money to his mistress.

The will was made when the late wife first was diagnosed so all of her kids were minors and SD was little. It was the type of will you would expect for someone with small children that needed to be provided for but by the time she passed away two of the kids were in college but she never changed it.

It's easier to deal with these situations if the kids are adults living independantly.

DH tried to give all family heirlooms to his MIL so she could give them to his kids when they were older but there were still things years later that they fought over him having. There was a necklace that DH cannot find and his former MIL believes he gave to me or sold. The fact that the late wife may have contributed some money to the college fund is just a way for them to raise more noise about the other situations they are pissed off about.

I know I said this sort of

I know I said this sort of thing before some months back on another thread, but this debate even further convinces me that I am happy with our not having told anything to our kids or skids about what will happen to any of our property when we die. This is in the mould of my own mom who is not wealthy at all but will be leaving a tiny little bit to us kids no doubt in her will. I would not even dream of asking her about it. And if she doesn't, and her property is all made over to anyone else or to a charity, I won't turn a hair. It's so not done in my family to talk about these matters, maybe it's so easy because there is not much at stake. DH on the other hand has parents that go on about the subject to their kids, and their kids have even seen the wills. I hate that. But they don't mention it that much I guess compared to some folks.
I would bet my skids have tried to talk to DH about their sense of entitlement on his death but I would hope he would have fobbed them off as he is rather good at being conversationally evasive about cash handouts to them already. If they ever tried it on me they would be shown the door (the two that I allow in that is). If my own kids tried it (though they are unlikely to, the way they have been brought up) they would be told the whole subject is private and that we are bringing them up to stand on their own two feet.

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Skids, money and inheritance