Hello everyone,
My dad passed away in November suddenly of a stroke. My family dynamics have always been complicated (to put it mildly), and this his been exacerbated by my dad’s death.
Who else has experienced this and can relate?
My parents split up when I was 17 and my mum moved out of the house to live with her new partner that she was seeing behind my dad’s back. Their marriage was never happy and I was never close to my mum, she was very cold emotionally. I had brief contact with her after she left but she had made no effort to contact me in the years since.
I have an older brother and he and I both stayed with my dad in the house we grew up in. My brother moved out a few years ago and lives with his partner about 20 minutes away. I have stayed in the house and now live alone since my dad passed away.
Unfortunately, my parents never divorced. My dad wanted to protect us - if they divorced my mum would have got 50% of everything - the house, his money, etc. We could have been forced to sell the house and move somewhere for half the value of our home, which in my area is impossible. My mum still owns 50% of the house under tenants in common. My dad owned the other half, which he has left to me and my brother in his will. This means she cannot sell the house without our permission and vice versa.
My brother has been in sporadic contact with my mum since she left. I am not particularly close to my brother. He told our mum that dad had passed away. My mum has been in contact since then to check if I am ‘okay’, but I think she wants to see if I wanted to sell the house, so she could get her half, and if my dad ‘had any surprises in the will’, as she put it, which he didn’t.
I have two half-siblings from my dad’s first marriage. My half-sister and her husband have offered some support, but they live out south on the coast and I am up in Hertfordshire, so we are not near each other. My brother, who alongside me, is also a executor but has made barely any effort to help - he doesn’t like any kind of responsibility and is happy for everyone else to deal with the difficult stuff. The other executor is my paternal uncle but he lives in Scotland and is in poor health.
Therefore, I feel like I am doing EVERYTHING! I have not dealt with a will before so this is all new to me. The bulk of the work is done, but I feel like when issues arise from it, I am always the one who has to sort it out. It makes me feel alone.
Is anyone in the same position where they feel they have had to deal with the will alone with no help from their family?
How do you deal with complicated family dynamics?
Apologies for the rant, and thanks for reading this! 