Understand now how death in family causes riffs

[Lisa99]

My MIL passed 3 weeks ago. DH, SIL and I came from across the country for the funeral and to help FIL get the house ready to sell.

After the funeral SIL did one thing... Clean out her mothers clothes and pick the jewelry she wanted to keep. Other than that for 3 solid weeks she has sat on her butt watching soaps.

Oh, and she claimed the good china (worth about $8k) but she was too lazy to pack it up so DH and I packed it.

She left about a week ago to go home to enjoy the rest of her summer leaving us here to do the hard work of getting the house emptied and ready to sell.

I think there is a major showdown coming between DH and SIL. He wanted the china since we entertain and she doesn't but FIL gave her first pick of literally everything. In his mind we're well off and she's a single mom, no money, blah, blah.

I get his thought process but it was decidedly not cool.

But bottom line - it isn't any of my business so I'm keeping my mouth shut, but I had to vent or I would have exploded! Thank you for your time, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

 

[easysurfer]

Sorry to hear about the chaos.

Congrats to you for knowing the bottom line, staying out of the fray and letting your DH deal with your SIL.

Feel free to vent.

 

[marko]

FIL gave her first pick of literally everything. In his mind we're well off and she's a single mom, no money, blah, blah.
:

At my grandma's passing, gramps had an entirely opposite approach. His view was "they don't have any money, what do they want with good stuff?"

To those with more, he gave more.... His view was that there's a reason you're poor.

 

[MichaelB]

But bottom line - it isn't any of my business so I'm keeping my mouth shut, but I had to vent or I would have exploded! Thank you for your time, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Vent all you want Even small amounts of money and things bring out the worst in some people. Stepping back is the smart thing to do.

 

[2B]

Yes. It definitely is an issue. DW had decided that it was not possible for her to keep caring for her father with Alzheimer's. Her mother was already in a nursing home and she was having to deal with her issues also. Making it more fun was that FIL wanted to be in his wife's room most of the day. The obvious answer was to move him into assisted living at the same facility.

Enter SIL who lives over 1,000 miles away. She came in one time and spent a week living with their father. She announced that she showed it could be done with him staying in the house and then promptly flew off. After DW's manipulated guilt wore off, she realized that spending the next several years trying to do that would not work and went back to the plan to move him.

SIL was not to be deterred. After "healtfelt" appeals to DW and me, she moved on to lobbying our adult children. "Your grandfather doesn't want to be moved to an old folks home" was her chant. I got good and pissed. She called again and started in on me. I replied that I could put him on a plane and she could pick him up at the airport. Oh, she couldn't do that! She has a job like my DW used to have before she spent so much time trying to care for her parents.

Then their is what happened when my own father passed away and how my stupid brothers fought over the most meaningly, worthless junk. Fortunately, my sisters had more sense.

 

[marko]

Funny how the further away the BIL/SIL lives, the more expert they are at how things should be done for FIL/MIL.

 

[2B]

I think there is a major showdown coming between DH and SIL. He wanted the china since we entertain and she doesn't but FIL gave her first pick of literally everything. In his mind we're well off and she's a single mom, no money, blah, blah.

I get his thought process but it was decidedly not cool.

But bottom line - it isn't any of my business so I'm keeping my mouth shut, but I had to vent or I would have exploded! Thank you for your time, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

I hope your DH handles it. There's no way you can be anything but the bad guy. Remember it's just stuff. My DW is just not very assertive.

 

[2B]

Funny how the further away the BIL/SIL lives, the more expert they are at how things should be done for FIL/MIL.

BIL's mother had Alzheimer's and he also live many miles away from her. His siblings dealt with all the issues but he waded in with all his opinions on what they should be doing. He generated a horrible rift with them over all his "advice." This predated my FIL's issue so he didn't see the results of his own mother's situation as being the result of his actions (or lack thereof).

 

[LOL!]

My mom passed away last year. She knew she was getting old and got rid of all her stuff herself after letting any of the family come claim things. She had a web site with photos of stuff for the kids to pick. (There are lots of kids.) Basically, nobody wanted anything and everything was decided well before she died. No bickering and pretty good time at the funeral for everybody.

One of the in-laws remarked, "Your family doesn't hide anything. Everybody comes out and tells it like is it, but somehow no one is offended and even if they are offended, no one else cares. My family was never any good at conflict resolution and that's led to problems where we don't talk to each other anymore. With your family, everybody talks to each other, but no one will shut up."

 

[easysurfer]

All it takes is a family crisis for folks to show their true colors.

 

[steelyman]

LOL! : that's nearly as good as you can hope for.

It takes a lot to "get under my skin", but when an ex-brother-in-law (yes, EX) came creeping around after a family death, it kicked in. I felt really insulted, but was relieved there was an attorney of years who knew what to do. From Chicago.

I called him, he said "do you want me to call? We lawyers have a way of talking.".

It's been quiet ever since.

 

[calmloki]

For over four years my gal flew back and forth from the SoCal desert to Oregon, 2 weeks on, two off, caring for her Mother. Not an insignificant cost to us in money or relationship, but her Mom was a fine lady. Toward the end my gal's sister, who lived 1/2 the distance away, stopped at the Mom's house and decided to stay and take over care and dictate when and how my gal was to provide aid - to her, the sister. SIL rearranged the house, locked off 1/2 of it so she could have some private space, threw away some of the things we had provided, spent Mom's money changing the house to accommodate her, the sister - all in all, demonstrated her Borderline Personality Disorder to the fullest.

Three years later the trust still cannot be settled because it would hurt the sister's feelings to just settle the estate without her being fully on board. SIL already has the house earmarked for her (at a stupid 1/2 valuation, but wants to be compensated for the care she gave in the final 4 months of her Mom's life - but won't give a number for that compensation. My gal, a Co-executor with her 1/2 brother, is powerless against her sister and opts for disengagement. I try - badly - not to get cranked up about the whole affair. It isn't about the money, we wouldn't starve if my gal got nothing - its the emotional cost that just keeps dragging on and on and on....

 

[ERD50]

...
But bottom line - it isn't any of my business so I'm keeping my mouth shut, but I had to vent or I would have exploded! Thank you for your time, now back to the regularly scheduled program.

That sure isn't easy, but it probably is best. Try to remember that, there are bound to be some times you want to choke someone.

.... Oh, and she claimed the good china (worth about $8k) but she was too lazy to pack it up so DH and I packed it.

She left about a week ago to go home to enjoy the rest of her summer leaving us here to do the hard work of getting the house emptied and ready to sell. ....

OK, keeping your mouth shut is one thing, but this sounds like you are actively enabling her bad behavior.

I would have told her, 'We will try to take care of cleaning up all this other stuff, though we sure could use your help. You need to get anything you claim out of here by xx/xx/xxxxx or it goes to Good Will. It isn't valuable to us (little white lie maybe?), so if it is valuable to you, please come get it'

Who is the executor? They should have a means to deal with this.

-ERD50

 

[MRG]

This thread makes my realize (even more) how blessed our family has been. When DF lost it with dementia before he passed, it was a terrible year for the three children. My sister took care of his needs while in assisted living. She refused any additional compensation, even what was allowed for being the executor.

Yes we all knew what his assets were so everything was above board.

 

[Lisa99]

OK, keeping your mouth shut is one thing, but this sounds like you are actively enabling her bad behavior.
-ERD50

DH hates confrontation so just stewed while she was here and not helping. Unfortunately we didn't have a choice with the china packing.

FIL is selling 90% of the house contents so he can move to a smaller space. The hutch the china was in is being sold. SIL left town without packing up the china so it was left to us to do. There isn't an estate since FIL is still with us.

I'm realizing it isn't the stuff that makes me so mad, it's that as DIL I'm taking vacation from work to get him moved and SIL is already off all summer and is not here helping!

Appears from everyone's responses this is a universal problem.

 

[easysurfer]

DH hates confrontation so just stewed while she was here and not helping. Unfortunately we didn't have a choice with the china packing.

FIL is selling 90% of the house contents so he can move to a smaller space. The hutch the china was in is being sold. SIL left town without packing up the china so it was left to us to do. There isn't an estate since FIL is still with us.

I'm realizing it isn't the stuff that makes me so mad, it's that as DIL I'm taking vacation from work to get him moved and SIL is already off all summer and is not here helping!

Appears from everyone's responses this is a universal problem.

No doubt in family dynamics there are the slackers and there are the ones who honestly try to get things done for the sake of the family. Plus, taking turns, share and share responsibility alike often does not happen.

Instead of "You carried the weight this time, so why don't I do that this time", what ends up happening instead is "You did such a good job last time, so why don't you take care of things again." Or even more, when the slackers try to take credit afterwards

 

[rodi]

My sister and I were totally on the same page wrt inheritance/etc... My brother was not. My sis and I valued relationships over money/stuff.... my brother and his wife started putting "dibs" on stuff with every visit. My mom saw that and made special notes in her will/trust that some of the claimed stuff was NOT to go to them. They'd overplayed their claims and pissed off my parents.

When my husbands dad died last year we saw some amazing behavior from some of the siblings. They were so intent on inheritance they didn't consider that most of the assets were jointly titled with their still living mother. Oops. Guess they'll have to wait.

Family can be very challenging.

 

[Ally]

When my parents died, they left a huge house full of things and a vacation home. It took a couple of years to untangle. I have 3 brothers and I had to play peacemaker, as always, and it got really old. As it ended up, there is one brother that no one plans to see or talk to again due to his behavior. He realizes that, but preferred to cheat the rest of us out of a rather small amount of money that maintain relationships.

 

[jetpack]

having just gone through this with my mother, you should definitely have a better system and accounting. Anything SIL wants, she needs to pay for out of her share. Also, you alternate between picks of things. Does she want $8k or $8k worth of china? Indeed, who is the executor?

 

[aja8888]

The above situations are one reason why we are giving "stuff" to kids right now to enjoy and covet. We have less and less items that are heirlooms and when the *day* comes, it will be a simple call to a estate liquidator to get rid of all the remaining furniture. The older we get, the less we seem to be attached to physical things anymore. The financial asset distribution end of it is already in-place.

One thing DW did was make a couple of family photo albums up using a lot of old photos from the past and give them to her daughters (extended family here) as Christmas gifts.

We have gone through the exercise of family inheritance fights, bad feelings, etc a couple of times and don't want to have the kids go through it.

 

[Animorph]

Some of the OP SIL favoritism might just be SIL getting most of MIL's stuff because she's the same gender. Kind of the automatic default. I'm old enough, barely, that a son inheriting the fine china instead of the daughter sounds somewhat strange just on the surface of it. I'm not surprised the SIL would get a majority of MIL's stuff. Maybe it will equal out a bit when the time comes for FIL's downsized personal stuff. Not that SIL won't complain of course.

 

[MissMolly]

It doesn't have to be this way, and I don't understand why it deteriorates to this. My father passed away in 2002. Shortly after, my mother developed multiple medical problems as well as frontal lobe dementia. She became almost impossible to deal with. Her sisters, one by one, cutoff all contact with her. Her life-long friends, one by one, cut off all contact with her. All she had left were her 7 children and we dreaded any kind of contact with her. But we stepped up to the plate.. My oldest brother who lives far from Mom took over her finances/investments/bill paying. Another brother who lived about 5 miles from Mom took over any maintenance/repair issues at her condo. I lived an hour and a half away but I took over taking her to all doctor appointments (which were weekly) and did her shopping and for awhile her cooking (until we got in-home care and then they did the cooking). The other 4 siblings would make occasional calls and visits - they were living all out of the state. The 4 who were not directly involved in Mom's care deferred all decisions regarding Mom to the 3 of us that were involved (and we are the 3 oldest) Mom died in December of last year.

Not only did we have her estate (in a trust) to settle, we had my father's to settle as well since his was left in a trust with Mom getting the income for her life. My oldest brother was Mom's Estate Trustee and I was Dad's. We divided up the money as equally as possible in all their numerous accounts and investments and distributed to everyone. In a couple of cases, the financial institution would not permit fractional shares to be distributed, so two of us (me being one) got a larger % than the other 5. So we wrote checks to the other 5 so it could all be even. The total value of the estates was almost $2,000,000 so we aren't exactly talking chump change.

We took pictures of all the furniture and anything of value in Mom's condo and posted it. Then everyone signed up for what they wanted. If two people wanted the same thing, they worked it out. There were absolutely no fights for anything. Everyone was so accommodating to the others, it was amazing. Everyone was given a deadline to get their stuff out of the condo and once it was cleared out we listed the condo for sale. It sold in 1 day to the first looker.

So my point is, if the 7 of us could work out all these issues without fighting and everyone pulling their fair share given their proximity to Mom, I just don't understand why some families have all the problems and issues they do when there is a death. It doesn't have to bring out the worst and it shouldn't. Maybe it's because with all 7 of us, we are all either in good jobs with good incomes or retired already with comfortable retirements. Some are better off then others, but nobody is needy. Maybe we were just lucky.

 

[Lisa99]

having just gone through this with my mother, you should definitely have a better system and accounting. Anything SIL wants, she needs to pay for out of her share. Also, you alternate between picks of things. Does she want $8k or $8k worth of china? Indeed, who is the executor?

There is no executor. My FIL is still alive but gave SIL 1st pick of anything she wanted that he didn't need.

 

[Chuckanut]

When my husbands dad died last year we saw some amazing behavior from some of the siblings. They were so intent on inheritance they didn't consider that most of the assets were jointly titled with their still living mother. Oops. Guess they'll have to wait.

I heard this story from a lawyer being interviewed about the need for good, specific wills. He had written a book full of horror stories about what happens when relatives fight over assets because the will was not specific enough.

An old lady with no children of her own but from a large family, was in the hospital with a heart condition and not expected to pull through. But, after many weeks she recovered well enough to return home and resume her life. One day she sees a post-it note on the floor with the name of one of her nieces. A few days later she finds another post-it not with the name of another relative. Curious, she looked around for the source of these notes. Finally, she discovered that under every piece of furniture was a post-it note with the name of a family member. Apparently, they had entered her home and divided up her property even before she had died and the will had been processed.

She made a new will disinheriting the lot of them.

 

[Meadbh]

FIL is being unfair, but miscommunication is usually a root cause of these issues. He may be holding to old stereotypes while not realizing that DH would really have appreciated getting that china. Given that decision, I don't understand why Lisa felt obligated to take time off work to pack it up for SIL, who could have done it herself or hired a moving company.

What's done us done. Next time FIL needs help, it would be perfectly reasonable to refer him to SIL. In fact, it might be worth communicating this to FIL in a very polite way before the situation arises.