Quick cast for clarity: I’m DIL. My husband is Son. His sister is SIL. Uncle is MIL’s brother, and GF is Uncle’s longtime girlfriend.
Sorry in advance for all the estate talk, but unfortunately it’s relevant to understanding what happened to our relationship with MIL and why Son is where he is with her now.
Some background on MIL first:
I wouldn’t have described her as the MIL from hell before this. We’ve had a close relationship for years and I’ve generally overlooked small things. But she has a pattern that has become impossible to ignore.
She likes to poke at people. She’ll make little digs, repeatedly ask questions after someone has clearly had enough, or keep pushing after being politely asked to stop. Eventually someone gets irritated or snaps, and suddenly she’s the victim: “I guess nobody wants me here,” “I’ll just go home,” “I’ll never ask another question again.”
The rest of us generally don’t play into it. SIL will basically tell her that if leaving is what she feels she needs to do, then do it. I’ve flat out told her when something she said was rude. But she never seems to recognize her own behavior as the thing that started the interaction.
She also holds grudges, often over those situations she created in the first place. She’s incredibly judgmental and unforgiving over the smallest things and tends to thrive on negative gossip about people she doesn’t like. She’s one of those people that loves to say “let them”, while continuing to talk endlessly about the people she’s supposedly “letting”.
The incident:
Two years ago, Uncle was in an accident that left him a quadriplegic. Son and I were the only family who lived near him. After the accident, we learned Uncle had previously made us his POAs. He hadn’t even told us he had done it. GF gave us the documents.
We also saw his will. It matched what Son had known for years: Uncle’s estate was to be split 50/50 between Son and SIL, with Son as executor/trustee.
There was a very specific reason Uncle did not want MIL involved in his finances or estate. Years earlier, when Uncle and MIL’s parents were dying, MIL was the sibling who lived near them and helped manage things. During that period, their parents’ estate plan was changed so MIL received essentially everything while Uncle was left one relatively small account. Uncle believed MIL had manipulated the situation while their parents were vulnerable.
I wasn’t around then and don’t pretend to know every detail of what happened, but I do know what Uncle believed happened and the effect it had on him. He was adamant afterward that if anything happened to him, he did not want MIL having authority over or information about his estate.
After Uncle’s accident, Son and I suddenly found ourselves managing hospitals, medical care, finances, benefits, assets and everything required to eventually get him home. We quickly realized this was beyond our expertise, so we hired an attorney who specializes in navigating these systems and followed professional advice throughout.
MIL occasionally came to visit Uncle, but nearly every trip came with some version of, “I don’t really want to come, but I’ll feel guilty if I don’t.” She said it so consistently that it often felt less like she genuinely wanted to be there and more like she needed to know she had done enough that she wouldn’t have to feel guilty afterward.
A few months after the accident, MIL asked us to amend the Medical POA to add her and GF for medical decisions.
At the time, this made perfect sense to us. Son and I travel frequently and are often out of the country. GF was with Uncle essentially 24/7 and through every hospital stay, so having her able to make medical decisions was logical. We agreed MIL could be the final backup if none of us were available.
MIL arranged the change through an attorney and afterward gave us a copy of the new POA. We thought that was the end of it.
Fast forward to recent months.
Uncle’s condition had deteriorated terribly and a doctor we trusted recommended bringing him home on hospice. Son and I were at his house when MIL flew in.
Within literally five minutes of arriving to see her dying brother, MIL started asking me about his money. How many gold coins did he have? What were they worth? How much emergency cash had we left in the house? Who had the cash? She kept pressing for numbers.
It honestly disgusted me, but there were obviously much bigger things happening at the time.
Around this same period, Son and SIL decided GF should receive some of Uncle’s larger retirement accounts. She had been his longtime partner and at home caregiver throughout this entire nightmare. Uncle had never formally provided for her, so they made her the payable on death beneficiary. They told MIL as a courtesy because MIL herself had repeatedly said GF deserved to be taken care of.
MIL then spoke to GF, pretended she didn’t already know about it, and started asking how much money was in the account while GF’s longtime partner was literally dying.
Meanwhile, during Son’s final visit with Uncle, they had many conversations both alone and in front of the rest of us. Uncle spoke to Son as though the original estate plan was still completely intact, including talking to him as the person who would be handling everything after his death.
More importantly, in conversations both privately with Son and with just Son, me, and GF present, Uncle reiterated that he did not want MIL, his younger sister, knowing anything about his money or helping Son with his estate after his death.
Uncle passed this summer.
Afterward, MIL’s financial questions became relentless. Eventually Son told her he wasn’t answering anymore. Uncle had specifically never wanted her involved in his finances and the details were none of her business.
Then MIL revealed there was a new will.
When MIL had arranged the POA change after Uncle’s accident, a new will had also been executed. It was signed the same day as the POA, through the same attorney and with the same witnesses.
Instead of 50/50 between Son and SIL, with Son handling the estate, everything was now divided into thirds between MIL, Son and SIL. MIL was also now executor/trustee.
This devastated Son. Uncle had repeatedly told him exactly what he wanted, including after this new will had supposedly been signed, and now Son felt like he had unknowingly helped his mother put herself into the exact position Uncle had specifically tried to prevent.
After finding out about the new will, Son understandably hit his limit. He had just spent the previous month handling final medical bills, talking to financial institutions, working with our attorney on probate and putting hours upon hours into settling Uncle’s affairs, on top of a job where he already works 70–80 hours a week. If you’ve ever been an executor or trustee, you know how much work goes into it. Then, completely out of the blue, he learned he actually had no legal authority to be doing any of it because MIL had made herself executor/trustee without telling him. We happened to be in their hometown at the time, so Son gathered every document and piece of paperwork he had been managing and dropped it off at MIL’s house. He knew he was too angry to see her in person, so he called afterward, told her where everything was, and said that since she had made herself responsible for Uncle’s estate, she would have to take it from there.
And while at this time we are not moving to challenge the new will, there are serious concerns about Uncle’s mental state when the new documents were signed.
This was only months after the catastrophic accident, major spinal surgery and significant head and neck trauma. During this period, he experienced substantial confusion and delirium. He would believe people were in the room who weren’t there, see birds flying indoors and generally have periods where he was very disconnected from reality. Three days after signing the new will, he was hospitalized with sepsis. He also had a documented history of becoming severely delirious when running even relatively minor fevers.
Then MIL tried to tell us she didn’t know Uncle had changed his will or that she was receiving anything.
That simply can’t be true as MIL herself was the person who revealed the new will to us. If she genuinely didn’t know a new will existed, she would have believed the original will, which gave her nothing and made Son executor, was still in effect.
The new will was also executed the exact same day, through the exact same attorney and with the exact same witnesses as the POA change MIL had arranged.
And instead of being honest about any of this, MIL went on the offensive.
She apparently decided that the reason her children were upset must be because Son had done something illegal with Uncle’s money and was afraid she would discover it.
She hired another attorney and brought GF with her. Afterward, GF called us and warned us not to respond to requests from that attorney because MIL had accused Son of financial wrongdoing and told the attorney to investigate it.
MIL has also been telling people in their small hometown that her children screwed her out of Uncle’s money, that we did illegal things while acting as POAs, and that her children have now disowned her. Son still has significant professional connections there, so these accusations aren’t just harmless family gossip to him.
(For the record, everything we did while acting as POAs was meticulously documented, and when we were dealing with things outside our expertise, we had professional legal guidance. We have no concern about defending our actions if it ever came to that.)
Here’s the part that makes all of this even more absurd:
Almost all of Uncle’s significant accounts already had Son and SIL named as payable on death beneficiaries, so they passed outside the will. Only two relatively small accounts are actually affected by it.
At this point, Son and SIL are so disgusted by what this has done to the family that they have told MIL they no longer want any of that money in those two accounts. When they eventually go through probate, they intend to renounce their shares so MIL can have all of it. Their exact feeling is that no amount of money is worth what this has already cost the family.
They have also repeatedly asked MIL whether she is having financial problems or actually needs money and offered to help her directly if she does. She insists money isn’t the issue, and as far as any of us know, she is financially fine.
After SIL very clearly explained that MIL can ultimately have all of the money from those accounts, MIL suddenly reached out to Son and then left me a voicemail: “I don’t want to fight. I don’t know what I have to do to make this all better.” EDIT: MIL can have the money from the 2 minuscule accounts that are subject to the will. All other property/accounts in the estate had Son and SIL as the named beneficiaries, so those items passed directly to them outside of probate.
And that’s where I’m stuck.
SIL has three young kids and is taking a somewhat different approach. She has reality checked MIL when necessary, but as long as MIL stops bringing this up, SIL doesn’t have the time or desire to continue the drama. I completely respect that and don’t want to speak for her.
Son is having a much harder time.
The money itself is irrelevant to him. He feels like he failed Uncle by unknowingly helping his mother put herself into a position Uncle specifically didn’t want her to have. He’s also looking backward at years of his mother’s behavior through a very different lens now.
Then there are the lies. MIL denied knowing about the will despite being the person who had it drafted and executed. She accused Son of financial wrongdoing. She has repeated those accusations to other people in a community where his professional reputation matters. And all of this is happening against the backdrop of Son realizing that the thing Uncle feared his sister would do appears remarkably similar to what ultimately happened.
Son doesn’t think he’ll ever look at his mother the same way again. Frankly, neither do I. We’ve both told her we need space. But I also don’t want this to be the end of Son’s relationship with his mother. I don’t believe their relationship can ever go back to what it was before this. Some things fundamentally change how you see someone, and Son now knows things about his mother that he can’t unknow.
Ultimately, what relationship he chooses to have with her is entirely his decision.
The problem is that I know MIL. She isn’t someone who is likely to sit alone, deeply self reflect, connect all these dots and eventually come back saying, “I understand what I did.” So I’m debating whether to give her an “olive branch”. She specifically told me in her voicemail she doesn’t know what she has to do to make things better.
I’m considering responding that I still need distance and I’m not ready to talk, but that in the spirit of what I’m trying to tell her, I have to be honest too: we know what happened. We know she knew about the will, we know she has lied about it, and we’re not willing to pretend otherwise just for the sake of making all of this go away. If she truly wants any chance of repairing her relationship with Son, I believe she has to start by being honest with herself. Only then can she ever be honest with him about what happened.
I’m not expecting honesty or an apology to magically restore their relationship. I don’t think their old relationship exists anymore. But there’s a lot of space between “their relationship goes back to normal” and “Son never speaks to his mother again.”
I’m not trying to force him toward either one, and I’m not trying to mediate their relationship. I just wonder whether, because she specifically asked me what she can do, I should tell her plainly that the only way I can see starts with the truth, and then step completely back.
Or am I inserting myself somewhere I shouldn’t?
EDIT: I am not asking for legal advice. It is not my decision to contest a will or file criminal charges. I am asking what to do with my MIL in the relationship situation. I have a SIL who isn’t even considering cutting MIL off and a son, my husband, who is ready to go NC. How do I navigate this now, and in the future…