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Dear Prudence,
Years ago, my father told me a secret. Being a sort of traditional guy, he wanted a cash backup in case of a financial apocalypse. He never told my brother about the stash. He had his reasons, but it’s a long story. It’s, perhaps stereotypically, buried near the house in a lockbox. I know where it is and what’s in it. Now my father is dead, and my mother is aging, and my brother and I are planning what to do after she’s gone. Her will says to split all her property 50/50 between us. My brother is doing better than me financially. He and his wife both have lucrative jobs. While I make good money, my wife definitely doesn’t, and we live in a city that eats a lot of our income. My brother is in a cheaper area. One could argue he’s made better decisions, but the bottom line is that I need that money more than he does. I feel a bit guilty, but can I just take the box before the will is settled out? This box would change my entire life.
—Dad’s Lockbox
At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, perhaps you and your brother have spent too much time planning what to do after your mother is dead and not enough time planning her care while she is still, at present, alive. It is possible that stealing the money from your aging mother (and it is stealing—if you have to get something by secretly digging it up and never telling a soul where you found it, you can be confident you have stolen it) is not the best use of this money. It’s possible that your frail mother needs the money more than you do right now. You live in an expensive city, and your wife doesn’t make as much money as you do. You’re not facing eviction or crushing medical debt. You just wish you were as rich as your brother.
Imagine the work you’d have to do to keep this windfall a secret for the rest of your life. That means never explaining to your wife where this sudden influx of cash came from or taking her into your confidence and hoping she never tells anyone else, not once, not even in a slightly tipsy moment with a close friend who’s super curious about where she’s been getting all those amazing new clothes. That means figuring out how to report this on your income tax so you don’t get investigated by the IRS. That means hoping your dad really never did tell your brother about the lockbox (instead of, say, telling you both that he hadn’t told the other). That means knowing that if anyone ever discovers what you’ve done, you might potentially face arrest for stealing something that wasn’t openly willed to you through legal channels. That means hoping that you will not wake any neighbors if you go digging through your mother’s backyard one night. If you feel a bit guilty now, imagine the guilt and stress and anxiety that will be yours if you commit to keeping this a secret for the rest of your life.
All of this also presupposed that your dad wasn’t just messing with you, that the lockbox is really as full of cash as he said it was, that you’ll be able to find it, and that the cash inside won’t have deteriorated. I agree that if you take this box, it will probably change your life forever, but not necessarily only in the ways you want it to. I’d recommend you inform the lawyer handling your father’s will about the (possible) cache, look forward to the day when you inherit half of your parents’ property, enjoy what you have, and don’t borrow trouble.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/10/dear-prudence-taylor-swift-straining-marriage.html
Years ago, my father told me a secret. Being a sort of traditional guy, he wanted a cash backup in case of a financial apocalypse. He never told my brother about the stash. He had his reasons, but it’s a long story. It’s, perhaps stereotypically, buried near the house in a lockbox. I know where it is and what’s in it. Now my father is dead, and my mother is aging, and my brother and I are planning what to do after she’s gone. Her will says to split all her property 50/50 between us. My brother is doing better than me financially. He and his wife both have lucrative jobs. While I make good money, my wife definitely doesn’t, and we live in a city that eats a lot of our income. My brother is in a cheaper area. One could argue he’s made better decisions, but the bottom line is that I need that money more than he does. I feel a bit guilty, but can I just take the box before the will is settled out? This box would change my entire life.
—Dad’s Lockbox
At the risk of sounding like a spoilsport, perhaps you and your brother have spent too much time planning what to do after your mother is dead and not enough time planning her care while she is still, at present, alive. It is possible that stealing the money from your aging mother (and it is stealing—if you have to get something by secretly digging it up and never telling a soul where you found it, you can be confident you have stolen it) is not the best use of this money. It’s possible that your frail mother needs the money more than you do right now. You live in an expensive city, and your wife doesn’t make as much money as you do. You’re not facing eviction or crushing medical debt. You just wish you were as rich as your brother.
Imagine the work you’d have to do to keep this windfall a secret for the rest of your life. That means never explaining to your wife where this sudden influx of cash came from or taking her into your confidence and hoping she never tells anyone else, not once, not even in a slightly tipsy moment with a close friend who’s super curious about where she’s been getting all those amazing new clothes. That means figuring out how to report this on your income tax so you don’t get investigated by the IRS. That means hoping your dad really never did tell your brother about the lockbox (instead of, say, telling you both that he hadn’t told the other). That means knowing that if anyone ever discovers what you’ve done, you might potentially face arrest for stealing something that wasn’t openly willed to you through legal channels. That means hoping that you will not wake any neighbors if you go digging through your mother’s backyard one night. If you feel a bit guilty now, imagine the guilt and stress and anxiety that will be yours if you commit to keeping this a secret for the rest of your life.
All of this also presupposed that your dad wasn’t just messing with you, that the lockbox is really as full of cash as he said it was, that you’ll be able to find it, and that the cash inside won’t have deteriorated. I agree that if you take this box, it will probably change your life forever, but not necessarily only in the ways you want it to. I’d recommend you inform the lawyer handling your father’s will about the (possible) cache, look forward to the day when you inherit half of your parents’ property, enjoy what you have, and don’t borrow trouble.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/10/dear-prudence-taylor-swift-straining-marriage.html
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Also, it doesn't matter that he didn't mention his mother? You can love, grieve over and care well for an ageing relative while still facing the reality that they're going to die, and that things will go better if you have a plan for what to do next. LW didn't focus on her because he's not writing an apple pie recipe with 6,000 words of backstory about family memories, he's talking about the pertinent things. Prudie's moralising is just unnecessary here.
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The LW likewise needs to come to terms with their brother having more money, and with that being partly chance and partly choice. If they can accept that and not see it as something that needs to be balanced out or mitigated in some way, they can accept that:
- what's in the box is legally their mother's, as she was their father's next of kin
- she may or may not need it right now, but regardless, she should have access to it
- half of what's in the box would presumably still be a significant sum, if the whole of it would be life-changing
- sometimes life isn't fair