Dear Moneyist,
I’m an upper middle-aged male and seven years into a happy second marriage to my early-senior-aged wife. My first marriage ended after 30 years and produced four children, all now adults. The divorce went quickly. The equitable distribution was a bitter, expensive two-year process leading to a significant estrangement from two of my children. The other two are kind to me, but only one of that pair is kind to their stepmother (who has been kind to those who’d let her).
My will leaves my retirement savings, work pension, and any additional savings and property to my second wife. She’s not in the best of health and wouldn’t do well on her current Social Security award. At the time I made my will there were significant reasons to disinherit my children by default: Three were quite hostile to me, and the fourth had difficulties with managing her mother’s manipulations and greedy demands on her.
I’m reconsidering this stance.
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I’m feeling some sense of recognizing them in a final estate. This could best occur by designating them as beneficiaries to one of my life insurance policies. It would also be a discreet (and discrete) method that would avoid probate and keep some hostile adult kids from their scorned stepmother.
However, I don’t want to sneak behind my wife’s back to do so. I also don’t like the discord in my marriage this would bring. But there’s no way I’ve found to square this circle, apart from just waiting. And I find it ghoulish to mentally calculate on my wife’s passing as necessary to bequeath without noise. I also need to admit most of my adult kids continue to be estranged and nasty, despite my reaching out.
That leads to another question: if I bequeath, do I do so evenly? Or proportionally, recognizing those who’ve tried to maintain a relationship?
Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
This is the second time this week that I have received a letter from someone who wants to leave something behind for their children. I’m sorry you’ve fallen out with your children or, at least, they have fallen out with you and I take my hat off to you for wanting to leave them something.
That’s a good instinct. At some point in their lives, they will remember the good times, even for a moment. This will be a testament to the fact that — despite everything that went down — you are still their father. In that spirit, follow your gut. Include them in some way, and do so equitably.
Also see: My husband is either giving $300,000 to a religious cult, being blackmailed — or plotting a divorce
As for your wife? Even if you decide to do this quietly, it will always prey on your conscience and, if you predeceased her, she would find out after you’ve gone. That may leave her with many unanswered questions. That defeats the purpose of doing this good deed in the first instance.
Include her in the conversation and on the amount you decide to leave them. Preface any discussion by telling your wife that she need not worry about her own financial security. She may or may not agree, but I’m betting that your transparency and open heart is what drew her to you in the first place.
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