My husband and I have 2 kids (11 and 25). Our son is from his previous marriage (I consider him mine as well as he lived with us and I raised him with little contact/appearances from his mother). My husband and I did our wills recently. I have seen so many horror stories about families fighting over everything from an old car to money to property, so I wanted to avoid that and make sure that if anything happens to us, there’s no issues with anything, especially custody of our daughter. So, I decided it would be a good idea to give one trusted member of each side of our family a copy of our will for safekeeping. This ended up being my husband’s sister and my sister.
My husbands sister saw the details and she, lost her ever loving mind. She was upset that my sister will be our daughters guardian, but after some explanation, understood my reasons. She REALLY lost it over how our finances would be divided between our kids. She kept shouting me and accusing us of playing favorites with our kids , my husband of being brainwashed by me and saying that this proves I never loved our son like he was actually mine, just kept a facade (for 20 years?).
My husband and I agreed to only giving our son 1/4 of our assets, with the remainder hoing into trust for our daughter. It’s worth noting that we’re by no means rich or anything. The reasons for this are that if we both kick the bucket, our son will still have 1 parent remaining to inherent from, while our daughter will have none (the major reason my SIL gave for saying that I never really loved my son). Also, our son is an adult, married and self sufficient with a child of his own, while our daughter is still a child and that money will be needed for my sister to be able to continue to raise her without incurring huge expenses.
AITA if I proceed with the plan to not split evenly between the kids?
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My husband and I have 2 kids (11 and 25). Our son is from his previous marriage (I consider him mine as well as he lived with us and I raised him with little contact/appearances from his mother). My husband and I did our wills recently. I have seen so many horror stories about families fighting over everything from an old car to money to property, so I wanted to avoid that and make sure that if anything happens to us, there’s no issues with anything, especially custody of our daughter. So, I decided it would be a good idea to give one trusted member of each side of our family a copy of our will for safekeeping. This ended up being my husband’s sister and my sister.
My husbands sister saw the details and she, lost her ever loving mind. She was upset that my sister will be our daughters guardian, but after some explanation, understood my reasons. She REALLY lost it over how our finances would be divided between our kids. She kept shouting me and accusing us of playing favorites with our kids , my husband of being brainwashed by me and saying that this proves I never loved our son like he was actually mine, just kept a facade (for 20 years?).
My husband and I agreed to only giving our son 1/4 of our assets, with the remainder hoing into trust for our daughter. It’s worth noting that we’re by no means rich or anything. The reasons for this are that if we both kick the bucket, our son will still have 1 parent remaining to inherent from, while our daughter will have none (the major reason my SIL gave for saying that I never really loved my son). Also, our son is an adult, married and self sufficient with a child of his own, while our daughter is still a child and that money will be needed for my sister to be able to continue to raise her without incurring huge expenses.
AITA if I proceed with the plan to not split evenly between the kids?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) decided not to split our assets equally
(2) giving our daughter a bigger share of our assets
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) decided not to split our assets equally
(2) giving our daughter a bigger share of our assets
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Do upvote interesting posts!
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
YTA. You’re telliing your son he’s worth half of his sister.
INFO: Did you work with an attorney to compose your will?
Info- once daughter is older, will the devide change?
YTA Don’t ever say you think of him as your son. You proved you don’t when you wrote that will.
NTA, you didn’t have to give either one of them anything. They should be grateful
NTA It’s your money and you can do with it what you want. Your son has a child, so you are grandparents. What about leaving something for the grandchild to possibly even things out?
Your son is 25 wouldn’t it make sense to give him the custody in the event of both your deaths and give him the inheritance to manage
This makes sense to me. Also if your daughter feels like this is unfair she can always give a portion to her half brother. Also when your daughter is older and more stable you still have the option to change your will. Plenty of families do this.
INFO
> I decided it would be a good idea to give one trusted member of each side of our family a copy of our will for safekeeping.
… why?
Shouldn’t it be in a safe deposit box? Or with your lawyer?
INFO: Do you plan on updating the will once your daughter hits 18, and then dividing it equally?
Huge YTA. Should just be a 50/50 split. You are so obviously showing you care more for your bio daughter than your step son. This is messed up, and shame on you.
Soft NTA
It’s your and your husbands money. It’s no one else’s business or choice.
Having said that, really ask yourself if this is the best decision for your family. It sounds like your son is older than your daughter, perhaps sit him down and ask how he feels?
Why was she reading your will to begin with? If it was in her custody, that DOESN’T give her permission to read it. That’s a betrayal of trust.
NTA.
Your SIL is not entitled to have a say about your will. It’s you and your husbands property to manage and handle how you see fit.
NTA as long as you change will to be more equitable when your daughter is grown and out of school.
NTA.
reading the title alone I immediately thought, “the kids are probably different ages.” they’re not different generations altogether! exactly as you’ve said, your son is much older and already a self-sustaining adult. your wills are based on your current situation, which doesn’t negate the potential to update once your daughter is older. you guys may decide to split more evenly between them then.
Nta.
One is 25 and self-sufficient. So you know that he will be fine.
The other is 11 and will need a guardian and more help along the way if you’re not there.
The money is split unequally because the situation and the level of care needed will not be the same.
I would tell your son why the will is set up like that so he doesn’t have to hear it from someone else.
Info: did you pay for expenses in early adulthood for your son? College? Trade school? Rent? Buying a first car?
The extra quarter your daughter is getting is evening the playing field… and that’s how you should explain it to your son
NTA, your will set up to provide for an underage child. If you and your husband make it to see her grow into a self sufficient adult, revise the will to a more equal distribution.
NTA, tell SIL to pound sand
NAH/ESH why did she need to read it rather than just keep it safe?
does the son think it’s fair? Is his mother well off enough to even out the inheritance if all 3 parents die simultaneously?
Making wills is difficult with stepkids. I have a yours mine and ours set of kids (in this relationship one parent is widowed, the other is divorced) so thinking of how to set up my will is tricky.
So son’s bio mom couldn’t be trusted to be consistently involved in his life growing up, but you’re banking on her taking care of him when she dies?
It think your fault is giving this to family and thinking this wouldn’t be a problem. You should have never let anyone read it.
NTA I follow your logic and that makes sense. maybe you could amend it to say that it is meant to be set aside for her care, and when she becomes independent it changes? And yeah I guess I would talk to the son so he can see your reasoning. Like someone asked above, why not make him the guardian, since he is already grown enough to have his own family?
NTA. The people who are saying you are, more than likely they’re the sibling who raised hell because the last cookie wasn’t split evenly down to the last atom.
NTA. On the assumption you’ve talked to your son and he is fine with it.
If this would blindside him YTA massively.