Dear Pay Dirt: I want to disinherit my stepson in favor of his former mistress

[minoanmiss]

My late husband was quite wealthy, but he passed away unexpectedly shortly after retiring. He left a small-ish (but enough to pay for Ivy League college and grad school) portion of his money in a trust to his then-teenage son. He left the rest of his money, shares in his company, and other assets to me. I have always felt guilty about getting so much when my stepson should have gotten more, so I have always helped him out—putting more money in accounts for him and his family, buying him his first apartment and house, paying for his wedding. This meant my stepson has lived a luxurious lifestyle while working at a job he enjoys and earning a low salary.

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My stepson had a monthslong affair with a woman he copiously lied to and left her after she got pregnant. She tried to reach out to him, but he ignored her. His wife called her up and cursed her out, apparently calling her several slurs. She finally reached out to me, and after attempting to reason with my stepson (only to be met with rudeness and aggression), I put her in contact with my stepson’s uncle and cousin, who both did tests showing her son had great-uncle/second cousin relationships with them. But because my money has let my stepson earn such a low salary without consequences, she fears he will not be able to pay enough child support, and she is worried she will be let go from her job.

I am furious with my stepson and his wife. I want to pull my financial support from them permanently and give it to his son and former affair partner. My stepson and his wife both have multiple degrees and haven’t worked much because of my support—they could get good jobs if they wanted to. My other step-grandson’s mother has been working at a hotel and lives in a cramped apartment. I want her and her son to have access to the private schools, clothes, cars, house, and money I have guiltily given to my stepson and his wife, but I also want to provide for their son separately, so they can’t access it. What do I do? How should I begin this process and make sure nobody uses the money unwisely? I haven’t consulted anyone yet, and I am not even sure if I should go ahead with it or not.

—Furious Family Bank

Dear Furious,

Your compassion toward your son’s affair partner is admirable, and reasonable given your son’s behavior. If you haven’t already, you should talk to your son about the consequences of what he’s doing. There is a child involved, whether he likes it or not, and that child is going to grow up knowing who his biological father is, and his impression will either be that his father is an irresponsible, selfish person, or that he took responsibility for his actions and did the right thing when the occasion arose. It’s not just about his relationship with his former affair partner; it’s also about his relationship with his own child. You can also emphasize that you were under no obligation to help him out the way you have, but you did it because you felt it was the right thing to do, and fair. He needs to put aside his obvious anger toward his affair partner and consider that this child is not at fault and punishing him or her by withholding support is cruel and wrong.

If he can’t be persuaded to do the right thing on his own, I think you could make an argument for using some of the money you’d normally give him to make sure your grandchild via the affair is taken care of. I don’t think you should completely withdraw support from your stepson because that would likely go against the wishes of your late husband, but I doubt your late husband would want to see a grandchild of his, whether via marriage or not, suffer either.

If you decide you are going to support your other grandchild, I think you need to put more rigorous boundaries around what’s expected of you with regard to financial support and make sure your own will reflects your decisions about how much support you’ll provide and to whom.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I want to hug LW and commend them, and bring a toy for the child. Meanwhile, did the columnist actually read the letter, or just skim it?

[angelofthenorth]

I'm wondering if the father knew exactly what his son was like, or showing signs of, and that's why he left his money as he did.

[heavenscalyx]

Dump the stepson and his hateful wife, put money in a trust for their kid with a different manager and strict constraints, and then drop the rest of the money on the ex-girlfriend and her son. How hard is that? There have to be competent probate lawyers where LW is.

[conuly]

Put together a very small trust for stepson for the future, a "spendthrift trust" that allows him to live at exactly 100% of the poverty line for one person if he has no other income.

Put the rest in a trust for his son, who is at least as entitled to inherit from his grandfather as his deadbeat dad is.

[melannen]

LW, you sounded like what you really wanted was practical actionable advice, so:

You need to look into trusts (not administered by the parents!) for all of your grandchildren. And look into paying tuition directly if you aren't already. And then, just as a starting point, you need to figure out what child support for the new baby would be if your stepson's assistance from you/general standard of living was factored in, and take that out of what you give him to give to the mother instead.

Then you need to have a long talk with the stepson and his wife about what you are doing and why and what their future financial planning needs to look like, because no matter what it's not fair to their family to suddenly cut them off, but also that doesn't mean you have to pay out for them forever, or that they should rely on waiting for a predictable inheritance.

And then you need to take the new mother out for a really nice dinner, throw her and her family a really classy baby shower, make it clear to any other relatives or relevant people that as far as you're concerned she's part of the family, and make sure she knows she has your shoulder to lean on if she ever needs it.

(And then maybe also make sure the wife is aware that if she's willing to get over herself enough to learn to treat the other woman as a person and dump the stepson you will be there for her kids too, though I wouldn't hold my breath.)

[green_grrl]

Right? “ I don’t think you should completely withdraw support from your stepson because that would likely go against the wishes of your late husband” skips completely over the fact that late husband left a education account and that’s it. Buying houses is quite generously above.

[green_grrl]

Yes! The specific question was, “What’s the next step?” and the answer is to consult a trust attorney. I really like your recommendations for dividing out the money, too.

[melannen]

Yeah the financial discussion with the stepson may end up having to be via registered letter, but setting a reasonable timeline for them to do things like change jobs or sell a house they won't be able to pay a mortgage on is more than fair.

Also: while you're looking at trusts, maybe look at an educational trust for the baby's mother too! Dropping a huge amount of money on her right now may not be the best choice - you don't know her very well yet, and she's going to have a hard enough row without people thinking she was just in it to extort grandma or her own relatives leaning on her for money, and also suddenly shifting wealth classes is *tough* on top of everything else - but making sure she knows she has rent, groceries, health care, and college tuition for both herself and her kid if they need it would already be SO MUCH, and then you can talk about more as the kid gets older.

[mommy]

I like your advice, particularly regarding financial planning discussions. Lawyering up is just the first step. Hard conversations are the second.

[lemonsharks]

I wish more people in the world were like LW and I also wish pay dirt had told her "Trust attorney. You. Now."

[jadelennox]

The LW is extremely clear that the late husband didn't leave the money to the son, and I suspect the late husband knew perfectly well who his son was. Also, I don't trust the columnist for pointedly reframing "stepson" to "son", which is clearly not LW's relationship with this asshole.

(Also, whoa, if enough to pay for Ivy League college and grad school is "small-ish", then he really is quite wealthy, omg.)

[mirlacca]

My only problem with this is that if she's going to treat the son's mistress as "part of the family," she ought to be prepared to discover he also had a half dozen or so other mistresses she never knew about. A guy who screws around on his wife rarely does it only once.

[mirlacca]

This, exactly.