Two Sisters Are Supposed To Split Their Inheritance Equally, But One Thinks She Needs It More And Should Get It All
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Imagine inheriting a lot of money from one of your parents. If you were supposed to split the money with a sibling but the sibling really needed the money a lot more than you do, would you be willing to give up your inheritance, or would you still want to keep your half?
In this story, one woman is dealing with this exact situation with her sister. She wants to keep her inheritance, but her sister is trying to guilt trip her into giving her everything instead of splitting it 50/50.
What should she do? Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AITA for not giving up my half of my inheritance from my mother because my sister who’s a single mom of a profoundly disabled child and needs money more?
My (30/F) mother (63/F) passed away a couple of months ago following a sudden & unexpected cardiac arrest.
She owned a very nice home outright & had a fairly significant amount of savings as both her & my father’s retirement savings were in her bank account (my father died 8 years ago at 59 from cancer).
My sister “Meghan” (34/F) is a single mother to two sons aged 7 & 5, both of whom have autism, with the youngest being profoundly autistic & will require round the clock care for life.
Her sister is struggling financially.
She doesn’t work & is reliant on carer payments from the government & child support.
Her now ex husband divorced her because he couldn’t “deal with” his sons, moved to another country (dual citizen) where it’s hard for the government get child support because their government is difficult to work with.
My mother’s will divided her jewellery equally between us & that the rest of her estate should be split equally between us.
But her sister doesn’t want to split everything equally.
Meghan is pressuring me into just taking the jewellery left to me & letting her have both the house & the money because “I need it more because of the boys. You’re fine & can work”.
I want my share & said I won’t be giving it up.
I’m childless & don’t plan to have children. I work in legal for a non profit, & while I am far from “balling” in this economy, I’m able to pay my bills without financial stress.
My fiancee is foreign born (I met her overseas at a concert in early 2018 & we’ve been going back/forward as much as we can ever since, remote work helps a lot) & we are in the process of securing her permanent residency on a partner visa here which is an expensive & time consuming process.
Here’s what OP wants to do with her inheritance.
Receiving my share will wipe out what’s left of my student debt, allow me to take time off work to get her Visa sorted faster & buy us a small but still nice house outright so we can live without the stress of a mortgage.
Not having a mortgage will afford us the ability to live comfortably but not extravagantly, take a holiday every year, & be free of financial stress.
It will also pay for a small but nice wedding & to fly her parents & sister out for it.
Her sister thinks she’s being selfish.
Meghan is furious, saying it’s selfish & I can always get a better job if I want a better life & at least I can work & that I need to have sympathy for her situation.
I don’t want to give up work I am passionate about & that gives me good work life balance to go work 14 hour days in Big Law downtown to service a mortgage.
I also feel like as harsh as it sounds, I shouldn’t have to sacrifice for her choices.
They made radically different life choices.
My fiancee & I have chosen not to have kids, & while I know she didn’t choose to have a disabled son, she did choose to gamble on parenthood (her kids were both planned) & it’s not my fault she “lost” by having a disabled kid & ending up a single mother.
I am legally entitled it & she can’t do anything to try & get it, but she’s told a few people, & a lot of them say I’m being selfish & should give up my share. AITA?
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She’s not responsible for paying for her sister’s life. Sure, it would be a very generous thing to do to give up most of her inheritance, but I doubt that her sister would be willing to do that if roles were reversed. That’s really a lot to ask.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person makes some good points.
Here’s a suggestion of what to say to anyone who thinks she should give up her inheritance.
All she’s doing is honoring her mother’s wishes.
Nobody thinks she needs to give her sister her inheritance.
Her sister is being greedy. If OP can afford to buy a house and pay off student loans with her half of the inheritance, they must be inheriting quite a bit of money! Her sister should also be able to buy a house and have some money left over to pay the bills.
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