unusual family

Jealousy and pettiness is a very sad thing indeed in family. Step, blood, or otherwise, family is what's supposed to be important. Parents are supposed to take care of their children until they are no longer capable, then the kids take care of the parents. That's how it's supposed to be. And brothers and sisters should stick together. We all have our disagreements, there is no getting around that, but family is family, and I for one, may not see eye to eye with my siblings all the time, but I'd be the first one there anytime any of them needed me, whether they had upset me or not, cause that's what a family is supposed to be. Money cannot buy everything and anything that can be bought, you loose eventually. Family is the one thing that is supposed to be there through anything and it's sad that it isn't like that for everyone.

Sounds like a whole lot of drama, I'm thankful that I don't have that kind of tension or drama within my family. At the end of all this they are going to end up hating each other, so not worth it!

How could someone treat their child that way? If they're so worried about her having epilepsy, they could set up a trust with a guardian (that everyone trusts) to give her money to live off of and help her to pay her expenses. My parents are both deceased. My mother went in 2002, after a short illness. She had been unable to sign her name for 7 weeks, in effect, locking my father (and anyone else) out of the money that my father needed to take care of bills, like her car payment. Ten years prior, I had been reading a financial magazine and in it, they suggested talking to your parents about their wills. My mother got so angry and hostile with me, and then snapped that it was none of my business. Turned out my mother had not updated her will since I was a toddler and my sister an infant. So after everything was said and done, my father took some steps to ensure that it didn't happen again. He added me and my sister to each bank account (personal and business), and added us as officers of his business. He also claimed that he was rewriting his will, leaving me a third, my sister a third, and my daughter (his only grandchild at the time) a third. But he never rewrote his will, and he decided to move from NJ to NC at the beginning of the recession. The following year, he had a massive stroke and passed away. To this date, my sister and I have received maybe $300 each (Social Security and an old insurance policy). The house in NC was taken in foreclosure; the house in NJ just sold in January after languishing on the market for more than four years (and suffered damaged when it flooded); and the contents of his NC home were sold at a yard sale. We currently own the remaining stock from his marina, and it is being sold, slowly. I think we've seen $400 from that, combined. My mother and father were so secretive that they've hurt us as adults. And because it was in NC and I lived in NJ at the time, I have some pictures, but no other memories from my family. I hope that I'll have something to leave my daughter. I really have to write my will, but I've got to find the things I plan to leave her. I'm just going to have to write it to make sure that whatever she receives, that her father cannot get to it. I just can't believe that had happened to me, and I'll be damn sure it doesn't happen to my daughter.

My husband was screwed that way by family or step family actually. His Grandmother remarried after being widowed before my husband was born. He was very close to his step grandfather who he never thought of as a step. His Grandfather loved him and in fact out of all the grandchildren (blood and step) ours was the only wedding he attended. (he was a difficult man to deal with). When my husbands grandmother passed the sons (blood and step) fought over the money. The cash left in envelopes for the grand kids all disappeared. Mind you neither of these two men had spoken tot he woman in years. They then did little for his grandfather. We where the only ones he spoke to on a regular basis and he left money to my husband. When he became ill his children banned my husband from the hospital. They obtained power of attorney and changed his will not only leaving my husband out but their own children as well (nice people right?). Worse for us was not seeing him and finding out in the paper a month later when they put int the obituary that he had passed (they instructed the hospital not to give us info), they had waited a month to post anything so we wouldn't find out until after the will was done with.

It's sad when the very people whom you should be able to trust are the very ones who hurt you. They're supposed to be family; can't they all share or have an agreement of some sort without "blackmail"? By the end of the day, they will have nobody to depend on but each other because they're still family. At this point, she should protect herself, it's her right and she owes it to herself. Consulting a lawyer might help.

Some people are uneducated about life and business, but in your discussion i detect greed and jealousy. The father wants to be in control and so does the brother, as long as she lets them push her around they will. The other thing she could do is walk out and leave them hanging like they would do to her.perhaps she should go to a lawyer, and find out what her rights really are. I don't know why people are like that.