Agreed. This case is for the OP to decide based on his take on his history with sib2. Just as you suggest.
At the point in the thread you cite, @DSeid & I were discussing a general moral framework for decision-making in the general case of sensible well-meaning people dealing with difficult people in difficult situations.
Just as a data point: One of my sisters tells everyone what a horrible childhood she had and how abused she was. I lived through that same period of time and never saw a single thing she said happened daily, but whatever.
She got mad at everyone because we were all horrible people who didn’t care how hard she had it and wouldn’t help because we all hated her and lived our lives doing nothing but finding other ways to hurt her. She shouldn’t have to work because she was a woman and a mother, so she used the poor helpless children as pawns to force people like my parents support her. Several of the children were legally taken by their grandparents because of the neglect and abuse.
I broke contact with her many years before my father died. At that same time Dad died, I had a “spare” car. My sister did not have a car or any way to pay for one and said that was why she couldn’t come to Dad’s funeral. I gave her my spare car.
I thought she hated me before that, her hatred increased a hundredfold afterwards. I shouldn’t have given her such a piece of trash, I had ruined her life because she didn’t have a reliable car (it was a reliable car when I gave it to her) to find a job and then I wouldn’t pay for it when she blew up the engine because I didn’t drive a state away to put oil in her car when the light went on.
I had really thought that if I helped her out with a running car, she might have been just a little bit grateful and we might have been able to if not become friends, at least be civil in front of Mom. It just made it so much worse that now I will check to see if that sister is at a family gathering because I know that if she sees me she will cause a big scene and I’m only going for Mom. Having sister loudly melt down because she saw me isn’t any fun for Mom, so no reason to go.
I wish I had never given her that car.
Something similar to this pushed my Aunt to finally end her relationship with my Mom, when my Mom started making up shit that directly contradicted my Aunt’s experience. “My brother was so horrible he pushed you out of the car!”
“No, I fell. I vividly remember opening the door on my own, and falling.”
It just got to the point where my Aunt felt like my Mom was trying to rewrite my Aunt’s childhood to serve her own victim narrative.
However in the OP’s case it sounds like they weren’t contemporaries as children. People can and do raise their children wildly differently, especially when there’s a big age gap.
That is EXACTLY what my sister was doing.
I hadn’t picked up on the OP and sis not being contemporaries, but sadly enough, some dysfunctional families do include one child being the goat with the others helpless bystanders or even participants.
That is the narrative my sister chooses to tell, but it isn’t the one my other sisters or I lived through. Sounds much like your Mom and Aunt.
I always took my Mom at her word about the awful things that have happened to her (some are corroborated and true, but not everything) but as the years have gone on her story has become more and more convoluted and she has begun rewriting my childhood as well. She also talks about perfectly normal things as if they are evidence of her claims. For whatever reason she’s convinced my uncle repeatedly attempted to kill her because she thinks he was a horrible sociopath. I believed that for a while until she started coming up with memories of him also trying to kill my Aunt, and my Aunt is like, “Um, definitely not.” Mom tried to convince me of my uncle’s fundamental evil-ness with the horrifying story of how he once put his his bike in a neighbor’s garage and claimed it was stolen so their parents had to buy him a new one. Can you believe it? An eleven year old child lied to his parents to get new stuff!
We are all just collectively over it.
been there. My sympathies.
Oy. My gosh. Such stories and drama.
This thread is TLDR and I only briefly browsed some posts. But if the OP’s situation is still active then my responses are two-fold:
(a) Sib 2 does not ‘deserve’ a 1/3 portion from the other 2 sibs’ inheritances because that was up to the deceased to decide. If sib 2 doesn’t like that decision then they can take it up with the parents who is, of course, no longer around. Sib 2 made her bed while that parent was alive, and now she doesn’t want to lie in it. Oh well, that’s tough. Suck it up and deal with it.
(b) If sibs 1 and 3 want to give some of the inheritance to sib 2, that’s up to each of them individually and separately, and that has nothing to do with the parent’s passing away. Of course the issues are interconnected but sibs 1 and 3 need to try their best to keep the issues separate. Sib 1 and/or 3 tells sib 2, “Here, I’d like to give you this much, and this is simply a gift having nothing to do with the parent’s passing away. Here you go.”
Option (b) can of course be done at any time.
Sib 2 is being incredibly unfair to sibs 1 and 3 and that can place a not-unsubstantial amount of stress on them. Sib 2 is acting very selfishly.
My .02. Good luck OP.
First of all, many, many thanks for all the replies. I kept going back and forth on this, and the replies helped clarify my thoughts.
Sib2 contacted me twice since I posted here. Both times she was insulting, and some of her reasons for being given 1/3 of my inheritance didn’t even make sense. All along, I’ve been inclined to give her some money, but each time she contacted me, the amount would drop to zero.
So I told her that. I expected another venomous reply, but she went silent. Not a peep from her since December. It’s been months, so she’s probably given up on any money from me.
Now probate has completed and I sent her a check. It’s far less than 1/3, but still enough to buy a decent car with. I’m sure she’ll be very displeased but maybe she’ll surprise me with a ‘Thank You’. I’d prefer no response at all. For me, the best relationship I can have with her is where we can be civil when dealing with Mom’s health issues. I want no further contact than that.
Thank you for returning to the thread to update us all.
Your reaction there is very telling; your heart knew what to do when confronted by her actual reality, not by the hypotheticals your higher ethics would create between her phone calls.
Telling her was a genius stroke. That clearly afforded her a teachable moment: change or suffer. She chose no change. It’s all on her from there. She almost certainly doesn’t think so, but she would be incontrovertibly wrong in that thinking.
And with this you’ve taken a far higher road than 90% of other folks in your shoes would have. Certainly higher than I would have, and I like to think of myself as ethical to a particularity.
IMO you can be proud of yourself; you’ve demonstrated a generosity of spirit that’s certain to not be reciprocated. And with this you can close your personal book on Dad’s estate with a good outcome and a clear conscience.
Best of luck with Mom when the time comes. Which it surely will.
Thanks, LSL.
One of my reasons for sending her money wasn’t so noble: she won’t be able to claim that we cut her out completely. It’s petty of me, but it brings me some small joy.
Well, I think you did the right thing for whatever reason.
Sometimes leaving a quarter for a tip is the right thing to do. Sends a message.
There’s no guarantee, and in fact little likelihood, that the message will be received, but there’s just no gettin’ through to some folks.
May you have peace with this whole mess. Hope you and Sib1 can keep common cause as you work through Mom’s dotage, medical challenges, and eventual estate process.
I missed all of this back in December, but read 95% of it just now. I would have chimed in that Sib2’s conduct reminded very much of my ex-wife, who has a personality disorder and a similar “perpetual victim” attitude towards life. Such people are surprisingly good at convincing others of their hard luck stories, even more so than people telling of genuine experiences. That’s because living that life requires them to observe and understand how to be convincing; they study the topic and practice their routines countless times whereas most people who’ve actually had hard lives might talk about it a little to a handful of people they trust.
At any rate, in my experience you’re living the high point of this wave; you’ve resisted the big pressures yet also given something small. Hopefully the big demands are over, but…
A) You won’t be thanked for what you did give, unless as a set-up for B
B) You might still get some smaller hints at “maybe a little more?”
C) She thinks nothing at all different about you, good or bad. These things are 100% money grabs.
D) if you give in and do give more, the entire cycle will start all over again.
@Capn_Carl, you handled this very well and your actions speak to the more than fair person you are. Sometimes you do your best and you go above and beyond, while the other party remains unhappy and selfish. Sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh well.” Best of luck to you in any future communication with sib2.
Agreed, except my sister is terrible at convincing others. She’s so resentful that her anger seeps out even when she’s being nice. Sometimes she can’t even keep from attacking insults to her requests. I’ve been thinking of her as an anti-negotiator—much of what she says works against her wishes.
Thanks, Bullitt.
I know someone whose reaction would be:
I’m even more upset at the person giving me a small amount because it means the person (correctly) felt guilty and they still did the wrong thing!
(insert eyeroll emoji here)