Spoiled Children of Divorce

Fighting over the Will of a dead parent is a big deal in any family.  It often tears people apart.  At any rate, death of a parent can bring out an interesting side of siblings that one never knew was there.  Grief counselors will explain that a death can rearrange entire family relationships all over again.

I’ve written some posts about dealing with sick and dying parents who are divorced but haven’t published them.  My parents were both dying from Lung Cancer at the same time.  That was hell.  Two completely different households.  When a parent is single the kids have to take over.  The other parent is off having a good time.  In my case my Mother got sick first.  My Father got sick a couple of years after.  They died within a year of each other.

But the classic awful story of inheritance is of the Step-Parent who takes all the money.  I know this because it happened to me.  It was clear that this would happen so I never fought.  My Step-Mother had been kicked out of a Country Club by the wives who were tired of watching her go after their husbands.  Then she kept coming over to my house, supposedly to pick up her daughter who was my friend.  Money was pretty much the only thing that this woman wanted.  My Father’s extremely successful business failed after he got involved with her.

Because this happened to me I always hear stories the greedy step-parent stories.  They are told quickly and efficiently.  Having a step-parent in the family always seems to add that detached, efficiency thing to all emotional relationships.  Step-parents can take advantage of this situation very easily and in my experience they generally do.  The biological parent gets tired of hearing about how manipulative his kids are and how they never call for anything but money and eventually sides with the Step-Parent.  So, this is a very common story.  The illness and death of the parent can be devastating.  And the strange and unusual loyalties within the family and of feeling loved become even stranger through the intense feelings of the grieving process.  I suppose if a child is used to being batted around back and forth through court proceedings and alimony and child support trauma another fight in this regard may not affect some kids.

My advice is:  do it.  Fight.   The parents’ possessions are their last message to you.  The Lawyers like to watch this stuff happen.  They wil fight in the Divorce Courts for years, but they like to let the kids know that they don’t deserve any possessions of their parents.  They bring up the Spoiled Child image.  Call a zillion lawyers if you have to to find one that will find the loophole in the law.  Don’t worry about the lawyers who humiliate you into meekness.

Inheritance actually gets more complicated than that.  My Father had been prominent in his field and I googled his name one day a few years ago to see if anything had been written about him.  I found a website asking for information about him.  I could only add a bit of information.  All of his papers had gone to his wife and had probably been used as fuel for a bonfire at a beach party.  Most of his work is now lost.  Since most of my childhood experience of him was as the workaholic father who never came home this is strongly embedded in my love for him.  His wife only wanted the money and the prestige and the long trips around Europe.  I assume that his work failure after his involvement with her was an embarassment to her.  Actually, I don’t think she probably gave any thought to it one way or another because she was so selfish.  I’ve also found that my ex-step-brother runs a pawn shop.  No doubt the jewelry that was left for me by my ancestors in a safety deposit box were his first sales.