A man believes his grandmother's will should be changed in favour of his aunt. Mariella Frostrup says this is about his father
The dilemma My gran is 90 and she has told me about her will – 50% goes to my aunt, her main carer, and the other 50% is between me, my brother and my dad. When my mother died five years ago, she left an unsigned letter asking her solicitor to change her will so that 75% would go to me, 25% to my brother. My dad, we believe, destroyed this letter in order to take the money himself, which he did. My argument isn't about money – I'm successful and happy – but my problem is that my mum's dying wish for her children has not been met. I want to convince my gran that she should change her will so that my father's share goes to my aunt (who has MS, has to drive every day to visit my gran, gets few benefits and has been a full-time carer for my gran since my mum died). She deserves a break – my dad would spend it on cigarettes, whisky and petrol, just like he has done with my mother's money.
Mariella replies Whoa, let's take a step back. You may be successful, but I'm not convinced you're happy at all. This isn't a letter about money but about the weaponry you have at your disposal. Where's the sense of sadness at your mother's passing or your grandmother's presumably imminent demise?
Instead of thinking about things of real value, you are caught up in a fiscal fiasco. As we both know, an unsigned letter is not worth the paper it's written on, so instead of harking back to a perceived past injustice, let's look at the situation as it stands.
First, you are neither her carer nor the beneficiary of more than a small portion of your gran's estate. So why are you so hung up about it? There's a very simple way to ensure that your aunt who has MS is properly rewarded, and that's to give up your share of this coming inheritance. If you feel so strongly about your aunt being taken care of, pass on your portion and try to convince your brother and father to do likewise. I suspect you'll be outraged by that suggestion.
Mentioning the 75% you lost out on when your mother died suggests that either the money does mean something to you or your emotional temperature is attached to figures and not your feelings. Your letter suggests you feel short-changed, both in terms of what you say was designated yours and also by your father, who is more focused on his own vices than his children's virtues.
The long and short of it is that you are not holding the purse strings, so it's not in your gift to dole out and withhold as you see fit. Instead of worrying about who your grandmother leaves her savings to, how about re-evaluating your relationship with your dad? It appears that he has let you down enormously and instigated what feels like a compulsion to punish him with whatever tools you can lay your hands on. Ultimately, as you say, he'll spend his money as he sees fit, and if he doesn't get this lump sum he'll still continue in similar dysfunctional vein.
Maybe it's time for you to take stock of what you really value instead of firing off like a machine gun in all directions. If it's money you're sore about, then you need to admit that to yourself, not least so you can stop your saintly aggrieved stance in time to address upcoming monetary matters. My feeling is that the money isn't the issue here, except as a way of trying to exert control in what looks like a long family tradition of using purse strings to make puppets of you all. If you are after the emotional high ground, all you need do is transfer your inheritance to your aunt the moment you receive it, but don't do so in the expectation of forcing others to follow suit.
Perhaps there are also unresolved issues between you and your brother. Start thinking about how to address those challenges. Having money to hand down is an all-too-rare privilege. You should be expressing gratitude for a place on that food chain, not concern about who deserves a share of an inheritance that isn't yours.
To have the potential for happiness you need to break from this unsavoury family tradition of working out loyalties in sterling percentages. I'm not sure why your mother would have opted to divide her estate so unfairly between her two children, but thankfully she failed to endorse that choice. Why it should continue to prey on your mind is a question you'd do well to answer.