Equity vs equality in inheritance
June 29, 2018 12:47 PM   Subscribe

The executor of my father’s estate wants to know if I intend to challenge his will. Should I?

I am 60yrs old and the middle child of three (female, single). My eldest sibling (male, married) has two adult children and is very wealthy with multiple, fully-owned residential, holiday, and investment properties. My youngest sibling (female, married) has three teenage children, owns their own home, and has shares in a couple of holiday places with their in-laws. I have no children, don’t own any property and am renting.

Our father’s will leaves money to the two adult grandchildren, a large trust for the teenage grandchildren, and the residual is split three ways between myself and my two siblings. This means brother and family get 30%+, sister and family get 45%, which leaves me with less than 25% of the estate which will buy me 25% of a house in my small town. Fortunately, after years of working in the non-profit sector, I finally have a job that pays a reasonable wage and can afford a home loan. However, the home will not be paid off by the time I retire at 70, in ten years time.

Due to family trauma when I was a young teen (our mother died), a lot of responsibility was placed on me to fill her shoes. This responsibility also came with a lot of physical and verbal abuse, including explicit misogyny. My education was truncated, and I was kicked out of the house at 16yrs because I wouldn’t accept my father’s and brother’s treatment of me. Fortunately for my sister, a family friend stepped in and helped her cope after I left. She was able to finish her schooling and go to university while it was still free. By the time I attended university in my 30s, universities were charging for courses. I now have about $50k in student loans but no other debt.

In later years, our father bought a home in our sister’s town and she became his advocate, helping him arrange community support etc. Until his death, late last year, she would visit once or twice a week, and call once a day. I lived interstate at would visit once or twice a year at great expense. Our brother lived overseas and would visit every few years.

One part of me says don’t contest. Take what’s given and move on. But another part screams with despair at how I have been minimalised and dismissed again. My father disrespected my non-profit work (environment and human rights) and thought I should be out there making as much money as I could.

One of the reasons I don’t have children is that our mother was also abusive. As the oldest daughter, I copped a lot of verbal and physical abuse as a young child. Brother was the golden child, and sister was the baby of the family. I was the scapegoat. It didn’t help that I was born with a facial condition that impacted my looks. My mother and father preferred pretty girls like my sister. From the time I could talk, my mother would call me names and say I was just like her (despised) mother. My father has often said that he doesn’t like me.

Their treatment of me impacted my self esteem and ability to form healthy relationships with people. It also made me scared of having children in case I treated a child as I had been treated. So now I am an aging single childless woman looking down the barrel of potential poverty in my old age if I can’t pay off a home by the time I retire.

I am wondering if I should contest and ask for a greater portion of the residual estate. I don’t begrudge the gifts to the grandchildren, but I do wonder if equal shares between a millionaire and someone with only $2k in savings is equitable. What should I do?
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (28 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is super personal. You have to decide what you want. Your complaint may be with your father but your fight will be with your living family. Do you want a fight with your siblings?

If it were me, and it's not, I would never contest an even split. Because I just can't imagine coming out looking like the good guy there. Which matters to me I suppose. I also have never expected an inheritance of any kind, I only had one ancestor with any wealth and when she died she left trusts for my cousins still of college age or younger as college funds. Those of use older than college got nothing. That seemed fine with me at the time. Because in the end it's all a gift and I don't begrudge other people getting gifts.
posted by French Fry at 1:01 PM on June 29, 2018 [31 favorites]


I can understand why you are hurt. The money wasn’t really going to make things “fair” though. The difference between 25% and 33% isn’t huge and is probably smaller than what the legal fees will cost you. If he left a small estate the dollar amount is really not a lot, if he left a large estate the will is probably crafted strong enough to withstand the legal challenge.

You sound like you have found peace and happiness and that is worth more than your brother’s millions. Enjoy the inheritance and the house you will buy and continue to live each day to its fullest.
posted by saucysault at 1:09 PM on June 29, 2018 [10 favorites]


A very important initial consideration missing from this is whether a contest would have any chance of success, and if so, how much of a chance. In many places, on the facts you’ve given here, it might not even be worth tying yourself in knots considering because it’d be a nonstarter legally. You need a conversation with an estate lawyer in your jurisdiction, pronto — it should not cost much for someone experienced to assess this, and it might literally buy you piece of mind over your decision.

I’m sorry your family has treated you so unfairly and wrongly.
posted by LadyInWaiting at 1:11 PM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


You need some specific legal grounds for contesting a will - not merely a belief that the distribution of the estate isn't somehow ideally fair.

There is a separate, informal and unofficial path open to you, of trying to convince your siblings to voluntarily forward some of their inheritance to you for the sake of fairness or your greater need - but that's not 'contesting the will' in the sense that you're being asked.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:12 PM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


You can't answer this question without knowing the likelihood of success. Have you spoken to a lawyer? What are the chances that you have a case?

Leaving aside the legal issues, to me, the distribution does not sound unreasonable and I think it's odd to count your nieces' and nephews' shares of the inheritance as "part of" your siblings' shares. If you contest the will, what outcome will you be looking for? That your nieces and nephews receive nothing? That their shares come out of your siblings shares? That doesn't seem fair to me. The nieces and nephews are members of the family in their own right.
posted by enn at 1:17 PM on June 29, 2018 [16 favorites]


Wow, families are often difficult. My heart goes out to you. I bet your siblings have forgotten the years you spent filling your mom's shoes. Have you ever discussed any of this with them? You've very eloquently and cogently made your case. I'd be curious what their response would be if they read this question.

One approach might to to ask their advice, saying, as your said, you don't begrudge the money to the kids. But you might ask whether they're forgetting those teenage years, forgoing college for a decade, etc.

I think the best outcome might be asking their advice, getting the conversation going, but not going thru to the lawyer stage. If your brother is half sane, maybe he'll kick your $100K or $200K to pay the college loans, pay for a house, and get you some semblance of fincancial security.
posted by at at 1:21 PM on June 29, 2018


If I found myself in your position I would set aside the question of whether or not I was deserving of a greater share of the inheritance until I had determined whether or not I was likely to succeed in claiming it. This seems to me like the sort of question that you should discuss with a lawyer, but the impression that I am under is that if you want to contest the will you will need grounds to do so. Do you have reason to believe that your father was not mentally competent at the time his will was drafted? Do you suspect that your siblings forced him under duress to write his will the way that he did? You are going to need some basis to contest if that is what you decide to do.

Contesting the will is likely to burn some bridges with your siblings. That alone should make it worth talking to a lawyer about the likelihood of success before committing to a decision.

And your feelings regarding this matter are valid but also complicated. A lawyer might not be the only professional you want to bring into your decision-making process. Therapy can help.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:22 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


"Leaving aside the legal issues, to me, the distribution does not sound unreasonable and I think it's odd to count your nieces' and nephews' shares of the inheritance as "part of" your siblings' shares"

I completely agree with enn. If anything, this will sounds to me like it has been considered extremely carefully. If this was split 3 ways, so that you got 33%, that wouldn't seem very fair to me, because of the grandchildren...
posted by thereader at 1:23 PM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


IANAL and I want to state that more emphatically than usual here, but like, you can't just challenge a will because it doesn't seem fair to you; they're often allowed to be unfair as long as they're unfair in the way that the deceased really wanted. (There are some exceptions but very broadly they're more in the lines of obligations that mirror those you had in life, like to spouses and minor children, whether you wanted to support them or not.) Do you think this represents what your dad really wanted you to have, or do you think that there was some kind of issue where someone else made him or convinced him to change it like this?

From the way you describe him, the will at this point seems in keeping with his actual desires and values, and it sounds like a lot of that sucks, but this process isn't really here to fix the fact that your dad was kind of crap, unfortunately. Which I don't mean flippantly--I had a lot of stuff to process when my dad died about his failures, too. Counseling might help a lot. I'm not saying you definitely shouldn't consult a lawyer, but if this isn't very much money, I wouldn't expend a lot of it on that. If you can get a free consultation or something, definitely still a fine plan to talk to an expert if only for your peace of mind.
posted by Sequence at 1:25 PM on June 29, 2018 [13 favorites]


Take what’s given and move on. But another part screams with despair at how I have been minimalised and dismissed again.

From the way you describe him, the will at this point seems in keeping with his actual desires and values, and it sounds like a lot of that sucks, but this process isn't really here to fix the fact that your dad was kind of crap, unfortunately.


Unfortunately, I don't think anything you do here is going to make you feel better about this. You were the black sheep, apparently. You can't make that better even with money. He literally told you he didn't like you, you can't fix that. Getting money won't fix your emotionally being slighted. I am more concerned with the "I can't pay this off in ten years" thing, but I know jack shit about houses so I don't feel like I can advise you there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:28 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


So it seems to me like you never would have pursued this on your own, but are being asked to state an opinion which may have legal ramifications. That would make me uncomfortable- and consider all possibilities- as well. The fact that he even asked you if you plan to contest suggests that you may have grounds to contest.

I agree with those who suggest that the legal fees wouldn't be worth it. But you could have an "out of court" settlement where the mere threat of contesting has your siblings coughing up some money.

I also agree that this is not necessarily an inequitable distribution, although it would rub me the wrong way anyway.

I would probably let it go- what you gain will probably not be worth the acrimony it brings up in your heart and relationships.

You may consider sharing your feelings about this in letters to your siblings and why you're letting it go. Sometimes it's nice to express the sacrifices we make for others so they don't take them for granted. You answering that you don't want to contest would be voluntarily ceding an option that you were presented with for a reason.

Finally, consider continuing to rent so that you don't have to worry about retiring with the home not paid off. Also consider whether you want to buy or rent a home in an area with a low cost of living.

May you find peace and happiness in how you proceed. If the option you pick leaves you bitter, consider the other option.
posted by cacao at 1:30 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


equal shares between a millionaire and someone with only $2k in savings is equitable

Of course it isn’t. I can’t tell you what to do, but I wanted to tell you that you are right about that. I’m sorry for this shitty treatment by your father and siblings.
posted by SaltySalticid at 1:35 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


Seconding Sequence. A will needs to follow neither equity nor equality in order to be valid.
posted by craven_morhead at 1:40 PM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


To me it's partly a question of whether you were making plans around getting a larger chunk of the estate. Personally, I've decided that that's not something I'm ever going to do. I know there's probably some money coming at some point after my parents die, but it's not something I want to base my life around so whatever I end up getting will just be sort of a windfall. However it gets split up, I'll be no worse off financially than I was before.

Also, I have decided that whatever happens I'm not going to fight about it. The decision is my parents' to make, and it's none of my business how they do it. I've also decided that if one of my siblings decides to get weird about it, I'm not going to fight them. The main thing I want is for there not to be drama and not to have to worry about whether I'm coming off as grasping or ungrateful. I don't want my parents' deaths to be the thing that drives a fatal wedge between their children—I have an uncle that my family still doesn't speak to twenty years after my grandmother's death, and that's not the kind of thing that I want to be part of my parents' legacy. Whatever happens, happens—but if there's any ill will, it's not going to be because of me.

To me, this is the only sane way to approach this. Plan my financial life as if my parents are going to live forever, and when they do pass on just take whatever I get and be grateful, even if I get nothing at all. To me, preserving good will within my family is much more important than the size of my inheritance.

None of that is exactly advice, it's just my perspective. I agree with folks above who say that this is a personal decision and you need to be guided by your own conscience. I'm coming from a position of having good relationships with both my parents and my siblings, which sounds a bit different from where you're at. To me though, those relationships are important enough that I don't want to tarnish them by fighting over my parents' estate. If it looks like there might be a fight, I'll just walk away.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 1:41 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


You complain about unequal treatment during your lifetime which is sad. But in the end, as his last and final bequest, it seems that your father for once is treating you and your siblings perfectly equally, giving you equal shares. You might take comfort in that.
posted by JackFlash at 2:03 PM on June 29, 2018 [8 favorites]


My mother just told me she plans to split her estate the same way - equal shares to me, my sister, and my sister's three (small) children. My sister and I are both in excellent financial shape, but my sister and her husband just bought a house with a tennis court (seriously I love her but wtf) and have a vacation home and fancy cars while my husband and I rent a one bed apartment and drive a 14-year-old car (a lot of this is due to lifestyle choices and priorities rather than the actual difference in our household incomes, though). I'm not, like, thrilled about my mother's decision, and it definitely feels like it's an expression of her disapproval of my decision to not have kids.

But, at least where in my country/state, it's her right to do that. She doesn't have to give me anything at all. Challenging the will seems like a pretty extreme step to take for, as others have pointed out, not a whole lot of gain. Even if you won (which seems legally unlikely, though I don't know your jurisdiction or anything), you would be able to put 33% down on a house instead of 25%.

Your dad treated you unfairly, but challenging the will won't fix that.
posted by mskyle at 3:08 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


As noted, the answer depends on where you are. In many countries, inheritances are to some degree regulated by law. There are often limits in how far children can be disinherited, even in favour of grandchildren. Do not take advice from the Internet, ask a lawyer. I tend to dislike the practice of passing over children in favour of grandchildren, but that is because I saw a split similar to the one you describe cause huge bitterness in my mother’s family of origin. Opinions here will differ. Personally I would find out if I had a legal leg to stand on and then carefully consider what to do with that information.
posted by frumiousb at 3:26 PM on June 29, 2018


If you can disengage your emotions from this situation, consider your inheritance to be found money, and be glad that your father can’t impose his unfairness and bullshit on you any longer....I would recommend doing it.

It is tremendously unfair that your parents were super shitty, that their treatment had a lifelong negative impact on your education and earning potential, and that you suffered as a result. It might not be surprising that this pattern bore out in the distribution of the estate, but it still sucks. You have every right to feel like “This sucks and I’m only visiting your grave when I really have to pee.”

But you can’t undo it. Presumably if you legally challenged the will, the resulting battle would drain what assets you inherited, while alienating your siblings. It certainly won’t change the past, and to be absolutely fair, your siblings are not morally obligated to “pay you back” because they got rich, or married into wealth, or had children, and you didn’t. You chose your path. You chose to assume educational debt, you chose to stay in the non-profit sector, you chose to maintain minimal contact with your father. And those were probably all good, valid choices, but even good choices have consequences that might turn out to be negative in comparison to others you might have made.

In comparison.

So, if you can, do not compare what you have with what your siblings have. What’s that saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy”? It’s not their fault that you are in the position you’re in—it’s nobody’s fault. That’s how the cookie crumbled. Certainly your parents’ treatment of you as a child put a lot of roadblocks in your path, and as a fellow scapegoat, I can definitely relate. But you’re an adult, you’ve been one for a long time, and nobody owes you money for what you have done in the intervening decades.

And I also think that it is a mistake to believe “I’m headed toward poverty if I can’t pay off a house.” That’s crap. You can invest the money and grow it, you can make a concerted effort to create a community of friends that might extend to finding some sort of group housing a la Golden Girls, you could even legally marry one of your good friends as a way to protect each other in case of medical emergency and so on—like, think outside the box. Maybe go to your bank or find a well-recommended financial planner and get some good solid advice on how to plan for retirement so that you don’t end up in poverty. That person will tell you whether buying a house is a smart move or not.

But challenging the will (against two wealthy siblings) sounds like a good way to wind up with nothing except legal bills. For that reason alone, I would not do it. It will never heal the wounds your parents dealt you, it will only make them worse, and forfeit the money you did get.
posted by Autumnheart at 4:28 PM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


IANAL, but I don’t see any legal grounds for contesting the will. Your father wasn’t required to be fair and you haven’t suggested that he was unduly influenced or not in his right mind. What I want to add that I’m not seeing here is that it’s very possible a lawyer will take your money to contest it even if you have no chance of winning. A relative has been doing this to me over a gift I received from our aunt. She has no legal grounds, but I’m still spending a lot of time and money because she’s getting bad legal advice. So unless there’s something you haven’t mentioned, if a lawyer tells you this is reasonable, please get a second opinion from a different lawyer.
posted by FencingGal at 4:29 PM on June 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


My dad left a slightly complicated will that infuriated my mother and a sibling which led to a 7-year legal struggle to settle things. It still isn't entirely settled, and legal fees and idiocy took a huge chunk, and there are restraining orders, etc. The best way those of us who got through it managed was not to make plans on the money but treat it as a windfall. Ignore what the others got and walk away.

I had the choice to screw over a sibling and get a significantly larger share. I chose with another sibling not to do that, and we are both much happier in our choices and lives than the family members who backstabbed. You know this already from your own life values though after leaving them - a dinner of herbs with love vs fatted ox with hate etc. Don't let them suck you back into their family drama where you have to be someone you aren't anymore.

Talk to a lawyer of your own to establish exactly what your options are and then make your peace with a decision that sets you free.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:34 PM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


Oh boy, I would really really think carefully about going down the path of contesting a will.

I have seen these things, more than once, absolutely destroy a family. I don't know what your relationship with your siblings is like now, but it likely will be irrevocably damaged with both if you decide to do this. Are you prepared for that?

Additionally I have seen estates absolutely consumed by legal fees - the people who "won" got a few thousand bucks after the lawyers, maybe 10k, and the ones who lost were out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars. You talk about your financial precarity, can you take a hit like that?

Furthermore, I have seen battles around wills go on for the better part of a decade. You could be paying a lawyer and solicitor fees for years and years without getting anything back.

Finally what are your grounds to contest? I would be super careful here. If your sister moved into the neighbourhood, cared for your dad etc she may well do the equivalent of a counter sue and say she should be entitled to more because she was the one looking after him.

Equity doesn't have much to do with contesting wills - especially not with the kind of split you describe (which, your pain aside, is not superficially awful like cutting a child out completely etc).

Contesting is an option, but talk to a lawyer really hard before doing that, and assess all the risks for your mental health, relationships, finances before taking that step. That's a huge amount of risk, for probably not a huge amount of money. Best of luck,
posted by smoke at 7:55 PM on June 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


Your dad left his grandkids money, and then split the rest equally between you and your siblings. I'm sorry that seems unfair to you, but it won't change your childhood.

Contesting the will is going to drive a wider split between you and your family. Think hard about whether this is worth it, as well as if it's worth spending the emotional energy to fight. You could possibly spend a lot of money and have your life in turmoil for several years either to lose or to win a very minor victory against your siblings. The bottom line is that the remaining money was split equally between you. I sincerely doubt that the average judge will want to look at the backstory long enough to care.

Invest the money you would pay to a lawyer. You'll come out much healthier emotionally and a lot further ahead financially. You have to let go sometime.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:12 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


You don't say what the state of your relationship with your siblings or nieces/nephews is now, but that is important to your decision. You also don't write whether you were building on a larger inheritance, or whether it didn't previously feature in your planning.

I can see two ways of possibly improving your situation in a non-explosive way. One is to team up with your sister, who might also be feeling a little dismissed (from her perspective: she spent years taking care of your father on her own time and dime with no help from her siblings while she was also busy raising children, she still has college costs ahead of her, she too is not a millionaire). If she also feels that the will is kind of inequitable, maybe you and she, together, could have a talk with your brother and broach the possibility of his voluntarily reducing his own portion. You'd want to do this in a way that would make him feel good about it, and it really would depend on him being a fundamentally decent and generous guy who doesn't buy in too much to the bootstrap narrative. He would, despite everything, be doing you a favor, and you'd need to recognize that.

The other option would be just to talk about your feelings with whatever siblings you have a good enough relationship with, and listen to theirs. Let them know your fears about your old age, and your feelings about your childhood. Ideally they'll be there for you as you get older, just like your sister was there for your father, but that requires strong relationships and a sense of mutual benefit. (In other words: money isn't the only kind of resource that helps in old age; strong relationships are also a resource, whether they're with family or friends.)

If your sibling relationships aren't strong enough for either of those paths, then I guess you could look into legal possibilities. But it might be more productive ultimately to spend that time instead with a financial planner and see how you can best use that money to help you later in life. Buying a house where you live might not be the most helpful way to go.
posted by trig at 11:45 PM on June 29, 2018


I am wondering if I should contest and ask for a greater portion of the residual estate. I don’t begrudge the gifts to the grandchildren, but I do wonder if equal shares between a millionaire and someone with only $2k in savings is equitable. What should I do?

As background, I am in a fairly similar situation. I have two siblings, one is very wealthy, one is middle-class with a pension, and I am the poorest of the bunch (I also suffered abuse and neglect as a child, as did my siblings). My mother's will looks identical to your dad's, with my nephew and niece receiving a substantial percentage of what she will leave behind and the rest split evenly between me and my sisters.

Sure, on the surface, it isn't fair in terms of our relative wealth. But it is fair in that we are all equally children, and therefore deserve equal parts of that resource no matter how our lives have turned out. Money that comes from an inheritance is tied up in much more than dollars and cents, it has to do with how people feel loved by their parents, which is why it is so fraught.

This doesn't mean you can't ask your siblings for more of the inheritance, due to your limited means, I would in your situation. It doesn't hurt to ask. Who knows? But if you don't get any takers, then just drop the whole thing and be happy for the money you have received and move on with your life.
posted by nanook at 9:21 AM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


The thing about wills is that the money can get conflated with love to people. So I don't think that it necessarily makes sense to give less to the wealthy brother. I have siblings who are wealthier than me, and I highly doubt that any inheritance (should there even be one) would be split any way other than evenly.

I do think there is an argument for splitting things three ways and then letting each child hand out whatever they want to the grandchildren. On the other, apparently your father wanted to recognize the grandchildren individually, as their own people whom he wanted to help, and I don't think that's necessarily wrong. I'm sorry his treatment of you was so awful though.
posted by salvia at 2:30 PM on June 30, 2018


Here's another take on the question.

What I'm getting is that there are 3 children who received an even amount of X apiece, and 5 grandchildren. Let's say the grandchildren each received Y.
3X + 5Y = 100 percent
X (your portion) = 25 percent
Solving for Y, that would be 5 percent.
But according to that, your sister would receive 40 percent (X + 3Y) and your brother would receive 35 percent (X + 2Y). Instead, you said your sister would receive 45 percent and your brother would receive 30 percent. So there was some adjustment there, perhaps to account for your sister's long-standing help to your dad, your brother's wealth, or the fact that your sister still has to put three kids through college. I don't know if it's at all helpful to know that your brother's share was adjusted downward.

On another note, you might look into what you can afford with a 10- or 15-year mortgage, if you aren't already. Sometimes the interest rates are lower in a way that makes the payments not all that much higher (higher, yes, but like 1/4-1/3 higher, to pay it off in half the time).
posted by salvia at 3:00 PM on June 30, 2018


IANAL. So it looks like the consensus here is that you likely have no legal right to contest the will, and contesting it could leave you with considerably less or nothing at all from your father’s estate. I personally think the will seems quite fair and with the factors you describe, might deduce that your father likely have you a bigger share than he might have been considering.
That being said, there is a possible solution that could be beneficial to both you and your siblings. Giving you a higher percentage of your father’s estate outright may be irresponsible of them, and they both seem like fairly responsible people. If thy gave you all of their share and you died next year, what would happen to your estate? You sound like you would probably leave it to some charity where it would likely be wasted. Or maybe you marry some loser and he inherits your house. There may also be tax implications depending on the size of the estate and jurisdiction.
But a potential win-win is if you and your siblings defer your shares in the estate to a trust designed to provide you with housing, which would then liquidate upon your death with your estate then going to your siblings or their heirs. That would essentially be investing their portions of your father’s estate (which you claim they do not need) to have a probably favorable return at a later date when both will presumably be long retired and may need the money then. This way the trust could put down a much larger down payment on a house for you so you could likely pay off your student debt and complete the mortgage term before your retirement. Presumably, your mortgage payments could be added to the trust, but this you would have to consult with a lawyer/accountant. This would likely need to be agreed upon by both siblings.
posted by Short End Of A Wishbone at 11:00 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


I am really sorry about everything you went through in your childhood and young adulthood. Someone I know of a similar age to you had an abusive parent die and leave dramatically more to her younger sibling (no dependents, doing fine) than her (several kids approaching college age). She decided that she would only want more if he chose to split it equally with her, and he didn't. That told her what she needed to know about their relationship, sadly. And the will seemed like the final kick in the teeth from the parent.

However, I want to tell you that, many years down the line, this person is contented, happy with her life choices, and surrounded by loving people. The sibling got the money, sure, but I would guess is not so fulfilled with their life despite it.

I'm telling you this partly to commiserate, but also to assure you that, if you make a decision not to contest, it is not giving up. It is not letting your family get the better of you once again, or anything like that. It is deciding - I am happy with my life. I do good work, have done good work, and have made the world a little better. I might not have all the money my siblings have, or have bought a house yet, but that's ok, and right for me. It matters as much as you decide it matters.
posted by greenish at 4:17 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


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