(no subject)

[conuly]

Dear Pay Dirt,

My daughter “Isabella” is married to a successful young lawyer and is eight months pregnant with their first child. My first wife and I wanted more children, but it never happened. She lost her battle with cancer when Isabella was 16. I didn’t feel like dating again for almost five years. Over the next few years I saw several women, none very seriously. Then, at Isabella’s wedding in 2019, I connected with one of her bridesmaids, “Madison,” a lovely young woman I’d last seen as a gawky teenager. Isabella was shocked when she found out Madison and I were dating, but didn’t expect it to last long. But I just proposed to Madison, and she accepted. I took Isabella out to lunch to tell her. For a minute she almost had a meltdown, but got herself together and said she hopes we are happy together.

Later that night I got an email stating she’s worried about her inheritance if Madison and I have children. Specifically, she’s afraid my house—a beautiful and unique 1884 Victorian which Isabella grew up in from birth, and is deeply attached to—will go to Madison upon my death, and then to my children with Madison, instead of to her and her children. She feels this would be especially unfair because her mother and I were gifted the house by my in-laws.

So, while she says this is hard for her, she’s decided to disallow me any relationship with her unborn son and any future children of hers unless I either transfer the house to her and myself as joint tenants, so she will automatically inherit my share, or to an irrevocable trust with her and her children as beneficiaries. This would prevent me from making a will, then changing it once she’s seen it. She says it’s fine if I give Madison a life estate so she could continue to inhabit the property, along with Isabella’s family, unless she remarries.

Isabella doesn’t even know that Madison wants children. But she does, and I think I’m up for it. I’m in my early 50s, in excellent shape, and my parents and grandparents all lived to at least 80. But from the moment I learned Isabella was pregnant, I’ve also had my heart set on being a grandpa. Should I do as she suggests? Would joint tenancy or a trust be preferable? My biggest concern is that the value of the house (currently over $2 million) may exceed the whole rest of my estate, especially after raising and educating several more children. And Madison has come to love this house as well. In fact, she claims she fell in love with it the first time she came over, in middle school. What would be fair for everyone?

—Vied For Victorian

Dear Vied For Victorian,

I understand your daughter’s discomfort with the situation—you can imagine how you’d feel if your widowed mother married one of your high school friends—but it’s unreasonable for her to try to extort you with the threat of withholding access to your grandchild if you don’t give her the house. And I wonder if Isabella would have the same expectations if you had married someone your own age and, as such, were not going to have children in the future.

Since you don’t have any children with Madison at the moment, but plan to, I would hesitate to do anything that you can’t modify later if circumstances change, or your future children need things you didn’t anticipate, especially while they’re still minors. You need something flexible.

Isabella needs to accept that Madison is going to be your wife, and that you have obligations to her that are permanent. She is not an interloper, and for inheritance purposes, should be treated the same way you’d treat anyone you married and planned to grow old with.

But understand also that it must be exceedingly difficult for Isabella to have to readjust her relationship with Madison. If she was a bridesmaid, I assume they were close, and it probably feels to her like Madison has betrayed her and maybe you have, too. Isabella may feel like she’s being displaced in your life by someone who was a close friend.

Madison, likewise, needs to understand why Isabella is so attached to the house and try to put herself in Isabella’s shoes. She may have known your family for a long time, but she did not grow up in the house, and cannot possibly have the same attachment to it.

I think your best option here is to meet with an estate lawyer and look at options that might satisfy both parties, with the idea that you want to be equitable. Sometimes a third-party recommendation can mitigate the emotional drama around issues like these, and give you a way to reasonably and truthfully say you’re trying to do what is fairly standard in these situations. Be clear with both of them that you are not going to play favorites, and threats will not change that.

https://slate.com/business/2022/07/daughter-inheritance-house-finance-advice.html

Comments

[conuly]

Oh, geez.

So I am going to ignore literally everything else to say this:

While it isn't necessarily inappropriate for somebody in their 50s to be in a relationship with somebody in their 20s, up to and including marriage, there is one enormous caveat which is this:

DO NOT DATE OR MARRY YOUR CHILD'S SAME-AGE FRIENDS. DO NOT DATE OR MARRY THEIR SAME-AGE CLASSMATES. DO NOT HOOK UP WITH YOUR CHILD'S SAME-AGE BRIDESMAID AT OR SHORTLY AFTER HER WEDDING.

I'm sorry, but no. This is right up there with dating your sister's boyfriend one day after he dumps her. You're entangling family and romance in a way that's bound to leave bad feelings all around. Just don't do it.

Maybe Isabella's request is unreasonable, but you know what? Screw that, given the situation I'm not surprised whatever messy, icky feelings she has are coming out in the form of unreasonable ultimatums.

[minoanmiss]

OMG I saw that one and just thought "I am glad I am not Isabella" and noped on out of there.

[cimorene]

Yeah, but also, if this house came to Isabella's parents from her mother's side, I think it's actually reasonable for Isabella to have a lifelong expectation of receiving the house. You know, assuming any of them could afford to keep it (probably, bc everything about this letter suggests rich asshole class). That doesn't mean it's necessarily a good way to manage inheritance if he was going to have a younger wife and other children, like... monetarily, and it doesn't change the fact that I'm inclined to read the guy as beyond the pale for dating Madison in the first place, but still. I'm an old house hobbyist, and it's hard to look beyond my empathy for Isabella's attachment to it.

[cimorene]

I feel like I just read the setup to a horror movie.

[melannen]

A gothic is defined as "a romance about a girl and a house", right?

[moon_custafer]

Golden-age murder mystery, I'd say.

[shanaqui]

It kinda sounds like Isabella probably should inherit the house, over Madison; it came from her mother's family, and she's probably always expected it.

It feels like there's half a story here, though. I'd like Isabella's side. It seems like she doesn't trust her father to treat her equally with any new children he might have; why not?

[conuly]

You're not wrong.

[ethelmay]

It would also be interesting to know whether Isabella's mother made a will, whether they're in a community property state, and whether LW's name was on the deed at the time of the gift, or only his wife's. In my state, if the wife died intestate and the house was considered community property, the husband would inherit the other half automatically and absolutely (that is, he could do as he liked with it - there might be a moral reason to consider his daughter's wishes and interest, but no legal reason he would have to).

That actually happened in our family. When Dad sold the house quite a while later, he distributed half the proceeds of the sale to the kids, saying he thought Mom would have left us her half, but it was his idea and he didn't have to do that. By great good fortune everyone pretty much agreed on what should be done re selling the house and splitting up the contents, and there was no family quarrel, which seemed like a miracle as we are a rather large and exceedingly opinionated family. But certainly none of us could afford to keep up the house, and it went to a very rich family who are still there and have done well by it.

[watersword]

I know the ill-advised bridal party hookup is a time-honored tradition, but this feels like a mirrorverse AI rendition of the trope. Further, deponent sayeth not.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[oursin]

I can't help making up the gothicky story in which Madison is marrying OP specifically to get her mitts on the house, because there's something there she knows about and wants and they don't...

Or maybe it's something Isabella told Madison about when they were giggly besties together... and that's why she's so particularly worried.

[conuly]

I had that same thought.

[movingfinger]

I have raised eyebrows at Madison here. Hooking up with the bride's, your old school friend's, father at the wedding is a bold move and the fact that there's a well-appreciated chunk of real estate on the table makes it even more interesting to me.

--Depending on where they live, Madison may marry Dad and get the house or force its sale in the subsequent divorce.

--I don't love the suggestion of a life use arrangement for this. Isabella and Madison are agemates. This effectively disinherits Isabella and allows Madison to trash the house or whatever she likes.

--If the house was a gift from the deceased mother's side of the family, were there terms attached? It seems to me that people who give houses to a couple may do so under a trust arrangement if what they want is stability for the children of the marriage. He doesn't mention a trust, or the late wife's will, or anything.

--I would propose that Dad gift the house on to Isabella now and move out. If Madison still sticks around, great! If not, welp.

--He doesn't need grandchildren if he's planning on having a second family with Madison.

[tielan]

and the fact that there's a well-appreciated chunk of real estate on the table

Oh, good, it wasn't just me wondering about this. I do wonder if Dad might learn some interesting things about his fiancee's attachment to him if he gifts the house to Isabella before his marriage to Madison.

[drglam]

I'd bet money that the deceased mother had explicitly mentioned an expectation that her daughter would eventually get the house that her parents gave her, and remarrying dad is conveniently 'forgetting' it.

[xenacryst]

I really have no advice here other than: you made your bed, have fun fucking in it. (Which is to say, if you didn't see the massive Titanic of Awkward sailing at your Iceberg of Inappropriate three years ago, you're even dumber than you look.)

[melannen]

>>She says it’s fine if I give Madison a life estate so she could continue to inhabit the property, along with Isabella’s family, unless she remarries.

Does this mean what I think it means? Despite all this Isabella would be okay with living in the house with her family *and* her widowed best friend/stepmother? Now I *really* want the novel.

[conuly]

Maybe Isabella and Madison concocted this scheme to get rid of Dad and keep the house, and they're actually sekrit lovers.

Observations

[haggis]

1. The house is entirely a proxy for the LW's affection and attention.

2. Isabella is pregnant with her first baby. She is probably really missing her mum and her dad is wrapped up in a new relationship. That has got to really sting.

3. First pregnancy is also a period when everything feels uncertain and Isabella clearly wants to nail things down. It's also a time when you have limited emotional bandwidth for anything other than the baby.

(2 and 3 are based on my experience, other people may feel different.)

4. Both LW and Isabella are communicate by issuing ultimatums. That's not going to resolve the situation.

I think if LW doesn't put some serious effort into restoring his relationship with Isabella, it is going to break down irretrievably.

Re: Observations

[watersword]

Both LW and Isabella are communicate by issuing ultimatums. That's not going to resolve the situation.

Bet you a dollar she learned it from him.

[ethelmay]

Someone with his apparent class expectations who does not expect to have much more in his estate than an expensive-to-live-in Victorian house (there is no such thing as an 1884 house that isn't a money pit) cannot afford to have "several" more children that soon before retirement. Unless Madison has a bunch of money (likely) which makes it moot how much his estate is anyway. That said, if Madison is going to live in this house for say twenty years, and during that time a bunch of her money is going into keeping it staggering along (way more than she might have spent on an ordinary place), she'd have some right to an interest in the house as well.

Are the in-laws still living? They could well be based on the ages, but he speaks as if they're not.

Difference between wealthy and rich

[librarygeek]

For my subject line, Grandmother (maternal) always made a difference between wealthy *having* class, and rich just having money. If LW has a beautiful 1884 Victorian and yet thought starting a romantic relationship with their offspring's bridesmaid AT THE WEDDING, he lacks ANY class. Ahem.

Otherwise, I'm rather glad my father lost the 1925 built family house before Mom passed away. I don't have to talk to my father's second wife for anything, now that Dad died this April.

[castiron]

I agree with the general "ick" of the situation, but this is what particularly jumped out at me:

But she does [want kids], and I think I’m up for it. I’m in my early 50s, in excellent shape, and my parents and grandparents all lived to at least 80.

LW, I know someone who had his first kid at 49 and his second in his early 50s. While he loves his kids, he would be the first to say "are you out of your freaking mind????"

You may well be healthy (for now), but your body is aging nonetheless. You won't have as easy a time wrangling your theoretical kid(s) in your 50s and 60s as you did wrangling Isabella when you were in your 20s and 30s. You'll be 70 or older by time your younger kids graduate high school (and have you thought about what post-secondary education is going to cost by then?). Yes, fertilizing an egg may make you feel you haven't lost your youth and virility, but you need to do a lot harder thinking about kids (preferably before you and Madison go through with the ceremony) and the reality of being an aging parent.

(Also, if you do decide to go through with it, which I figure you will because you had so little judgement as to take up with a close friend of your daughter's, get used to the idea that when you're out with the kids, strangers will say "aww, your grandchildren are so cute!")

[conuly]

I do not believe for one minute that a. he did a fair share of the hands-on childcare when Isabella was little or b. he intends to do his fair share with future kids. I'm sure he *believes* he did, but he's certainly wrong.

[naath]

no one has ANY RIGHT AT ALL to inherit anything, absent a contract. Why are people so stupid about this. The father is being kinda jerky, but Isabella is being a grasping little shit, although that does not change that she ought not have to associate with folk she does not like for whatever reason, even her step mother. Family can be wonderful, but can be vile, go ahead and cut them off, but expect reciprocation and no money

[chelseagirl]

This is pretty much exactly a subplot of Jane Austen's Persuasion, where William Elliot, cousin and heir presumptive to Sir Walter Elliot, marries the younger woman who's been cozying up to Sir Walter, to make sure she doesn't have children with Sir Walter . . . . Except in this case the Sir Walter marries the younger woman, and Isabella is powerless to cut him out.

I am totally on Isabella's side. She's had this expectation her whole life, and now it gets upended?

[frenzy]

I think its weird that society has decided that fertility lies solely on the birthing person. Like BUDDY its p bold for you to just assume at 50 your sperm is still the cream of the crop. But this guy seems to be GREAT at shitty bold assumptions.

[bonibaru]

My father married a woman close in age to his daughters 3 weeks before he died AND left her a life estate so she could continue to inhabit the house.

She basically let the house run down since she really couldn't afford to keep it up after he passed. She got around the marriage caveats by just living with her boyfriend & his kids without getting married. We were not allowed to go to the house and had to take her to court for access and finally to get her to leave voluntarily (after we offered her cash to go). It took 10 years and cost us nearly $80k to get her out of the house which then had to be cleaned, repaired, etc. It has been a nightmare.

Life estates must be carefully considered and carefully drawn.

Please, older men, stop marrying women the age of your own children.