<p>Well, I hope so too. So far they are still in school and haven’t really thought about it, other than paying tuition without student loans. I’d say that’s pretty typical for kids in their late teens, early 20’s.</p>
<p>My FIL left almost everything to wife #2 and her four adult children. My husband’s response? My Dad didn’t do anything for me when he was alive, why would I expect anything different? It was weird. </p>
<p>At least your friend’s kids got it. Imagine if she had left it all to the Humane Society–or someone else’s kids.</p>
<p>My brother-in-law passed away before Christmas leaving my sister and a grown son and daughter. My sister than made a new will leaving everything to be divided between the kids. At the exact same time, my sister’s MIL, who is very wealthy, re-wrote her will to leave everything to her surviving son and remove reference to her deceased son so his kids wouldn’t get anything. They don’t want the money and don’t care, but it’s noteworthy that my nephew is the relative who lives closest to her and he and his wife take care of the grandmother. But he’s not her son.</p>
<p>This thread should serve as a reminder that people should update their wills–or get one. I know that mine could use an update.</p>
<p>zoosermom: </p>
<p>So she cut out the person who was taking care of her? That’s cold.</p>
<p>Yes, very cold.</p>
<p>She is a cold woman. Met a man (she was widowed very young) when her sons were 14 and 16 and within a couple of months had moved from NY to California to follow the man, leaving the sons to fend for themselves.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is about being cold, though. She just believes parents should only leave to their own kids.</p>
<p>We set up our wills so that everything goes into trusts, this will minmize estate taxes for our son. It was exspensive in the short term, but wise in the long term. My in-laws use the same estate lawyer so I assume their wills are set up similiarly. My best friends father carefully set up a will leaving things for his adult children and his second wife. When he died her children challenged the will, he very specifically left them nothing, it was a mess. My friend wanted to preserve the relationship with his step mother. They agreed to much of what she wanted, but no longer speak to their step siblings.</p>
<p>My dad married his second wife in 1984. She left him a few months later. They have a formal separation agreement, but no official divorce (as far as Dad knows). Dad just wrote his will last week. (Finally!) In it he identifies step-mom as his wife and leaves her $1. He also says that omitting the step-sons was intentional. We hope this prevents the situation anothercrazymom described. </p>
<p>Now let’s hope he gets the thing witnessed and notarized. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>They say blood is thicker than water. They also say that the difference between an in-law and an outlaw is that the outlaw is wanted. Many a truth in both statements.</p>
<p>Seriously, though, you just never know what will happen in a marriage. You are pretty much stuck with your own kids. Not so much a blood issue as the fact that you raised them from infancy and you are truly a part of them. When a divorce occurs, usually, the parties get new lives and most of the time the in laws drift apart. Not always, but usually. My MIL was treated like a daughter by her MIL and there was much love between the two women, but when my FIL divorced her, that was the end of those women’s relationship. The acrimony was such that the MIL had to choose between son or former DIL. There are exceptions but the bond of parent/child is very strong, often the strongest and someone who comes into your life as an in-law does not usually have that strong of a bond.</p>
<p>Dougbetsy, you had better check if that will is even valid. In many states unless there is an official divorce, the wife gets 2/3 regardless of what the will says and regardless of a formal separation agreement. You can omit stepchildren but it is usually recommended to leave them $1 each instead of leaving them out, because if a will is ruled invalid (which it may be because he is not leaving his wife the statuatory 2/3 if that is the law in his state), the steps may share equally in the 1/3 left since they are not mentioned. </p>
<p>I am not an attorney and am not a Marylander but I know this is the case in some states, and you and you dad had better check this out with an attorney.</p>
<p>Thanks, cpt. I’ll pass that along.</p>
<p>What it boils down to is that grandmothers feel that their grandchildren are part of the link and the in law is not. I take care of my MIL but I am not even mentioned in the will. It’s also a tradition, and common law thing and old folks are really stuck on that. It’s the “right thing to do” is the way they think about it. No way either my mother or MIL will leave a dime to in laws.</p>
<p>There have been situations when someone dies leaving spouse and kids, and that person’s parents do make a stipulation in the will that the surviving in-law get some of the assets, but this is rare.</p>
<p>I started to craft a post about the money belonging to the husband’s mother and she is leaving it to whom she wants it to go to, in this case her grandchildren.</p>
<p>But while I was writing it I realized that in this kind of sad situation where a child precedes their parent in death the most important thing is to think about where the deceased child would have wanted the money to go. In this case the husband would have wanted some of it to go to his wife, that’s where it would have gone had he lived to inherit it.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that my parents and my in-laws will pass their estates to their children and grandchildren, but not to their DILs and SILs. In almost all cases the adult children are secure financially, so there wouldn’t be any worries about leaving a widowed SIL or DIL stranded.</p>
<p>Each side of the family has one DIL or SIL who is (trying to be delicate here) more tolerated than beloved; in both cases, these individuals haven’t demonstrated great earning potential. There are young kids in one case, no kids in the other. I wouldn’t expect either set of (grand)parents to be enthused about leaving assets to these ILs. Easier just to leave nothing to any of the ILs and avoid the entire problem.</p>
<p>I would guess the standard will language follows blood (and adoptions) because it works for most situations and most life changes after the will is made. It’s also traditional so courts and lawyers know how it works. Changing it after every marriage and divorce, birth and death is not only a bit of a hassle, but also more likely to result in mistakes and confusion. For example, what if it is maintained after one series of events, but neglected thereafter?</p>
<p>I know a person with a less than successful adult child (why is it that nearly every family with 4 or more adult kids has one ne’er do well?) and that child’s share of the money left in the will is set up to be put into an annuity so that kid will have an income for life and cannot squander it (unless of course they are savvy enough to sell that annuity on the secondary market :eek:)</p>
<p>These oldtimers are stuck in their ways when it comes to these things. Trust me on that one, I live with two of them. Ain’t no way either would leave a dime to anyone outside of direct link family. No in laws. </p>
<p>Yes, it is true if the money does go to the son/daughter and s/he dies with the money going to the spouse, the money could go for a whole new life for him/her instead of being used for the kids’ benefit, but by then the old one will be dead and not the wiser. If the son/daughter dies while the old one is alive, the possibility that the money going directly to the in law can be diverted from the grandchildren is a first degree reality that is right in her face whereas while the child is a live it is a full degree away.</p>
<p>Put yourself in the deceased son’s shoes for a minute. What would he have wanted? It sounds to me like his widowed wife is not financially secure and at this point will never be. Since he was 58 she might be around that age, it’s a tough time to think about earning power. I don’t think this is what he would have wanted. It’s money he would have inherited had he not died an untimely death, I think his wishes should be factored in.</p>
<p>I know once the money is hers she can do as she pleases, which is certainly an argument for making her portion of the inheritance modest, but there should be some effort to acknowlege what he would have wanted.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse is a little off base with her estates law. Many states do indeed require minimum inheritances for a spouse, but as far as I know (a) none as high as 2/3, (b) none applicable if there is a formal separation decree in effect, and (c) in most cases its waivable in a prenup. Still, worth checking.</p>
<p>Re: In-law relationships after a divorce. My oldest sister-in-law was married for about three years right after she graduated from college in 1971. The two of them went to graduate school at the same university, and the marriage fell apart over those tricky 70s issues like how many people other than your wife you were allowed to have sex with. The husband moved far away; she wound up living with, having children with, and marrying his former best friend. Anyway, when my mother-in-law got Alzheimer’s, one of the things we learned was that she had carried on a continuous relationship with the first husband – through his second marriage, the birth of his children, second divorce, etc. They exchanged warm letters and phone calls several times a year, and visited one another several times. My sister-in-law had no idea this was happening; she had no contact at all with the guy since about 1974, except once when she had to call him up and ask him for a divorce when she realized that the child she was about to give birth to would be legally his. I had never met him, since I only showed up around 1978, but I wound up having extensive telephone conversations with him about my mother-in-law’s condition and her place in his life. My wife – who would gladly have accepted an assignment to castrate him – was completely scandalized by her mother’s behavior.</p>
<p>JHS–I’m not ordinarily a fan of the “wow. just wow” meme, but,</p>
<p>wow, just wow.</p>