This is a doozy, family drama
Throwaway account. This is long, but I really do need the advice.
Three years ago, my FIL passed away while my family was in Florida on vacation. We took one day to really feel the pain, mourn, cry. Then left early and made the 10 hour car ride home. Where my SIL drove 4 hours to our area to help sort everything out, typical things a family does after a death. It is important to note that my husband didn’t have the best relationship with his father, since he abandoned them all when he was a child and let them struggle to the point of homelessness. But, nonetheless, my husband helped fund his life when he was elderly and disabled, bought him a condo, paid the HOA fee, phone bill, electric bill, paid for half of the car he was driving (his sister paid the other half), and even paid the life insurance policy for many years (ah yes, that will be coming up soon). My FIL paid the mortgage, it was around $400 a month, less than half of what he would have paid literally anywhere else where we live (Asheville). My husband probably spent $150,000-$200,000 taking care of him. Which was never a problem… until…
When we arrived home, everyone was distraught. His sister was there. We were all trying to comfort each other. Then while sitting in our driveway, my sil mentioned that the life insurance policy had lapsed and that they would not be receiving any money ($75,000 each). Immediately, I thought “there is absolutely no way they wouldn’t have asked my husband to pay for it if they couldn’t, they always ask him for money. She’s lying”. But I didn’t say anything. I found out later my husband had the same thought.
Worth noting, my MIL has the same set up that my husband provided his dad. He bought her a condo as well. That she still lives in.
SIL then planning a memorial without my husband’s knowledge, complete with inviting people and allowing another family member, who was unaware that my husband wasn’t privy to anything about it, to book a venue. This memorial was originally intended to take place in the fall of 2023, as the obituary (that SIL helped write) stated. Instead, it was booked on a weekend that my husband had offered to buy plane tickets for both his sister and mother to attend the wedding of a relative in Chicago. The memorial took place several states away from where we all live. Me, the DIL, along with our two children, were excluded from the memorial, as we had not planned on attending the wedding in Chicago. We were only told about the memorial after my husband had purchased his and his mother’s plane tickets, with a return trip scheduled for Sunday (when the memorial was set to take place). We had to change the plane ticket so my husband would be able to attend the memorial.
Things were moving along, my husband was the executor on the will. But my SIL went to the condo, that we owned, and was taking anything of value/anything she wanted without discussing it with my husband. He tried to stop her, to ask for her to talk about it first, and it ended with her being incredibly mean to him (she was always mean to him since they were children and never liked me either- she didn’t like any of his partners or friends). I went over to speak to her asking her to slow down and talk to him, she chewed me out and said it had nothing to do with me (we were married idk) and that she no longer had a brother. I was mean back and she left- with everything of value, my FIL’s phone, the will, and the car my husband had paid half of. That was the last time we saw her.
After that we started asking for the phone back, since we owned it, were still making payments on, and to turn it back in to the carrier so we could stop paying for it. After three weeks we finally got it back from the MIL from her daughter giving it to her, and it had been erased completely.
It was at this point we decided to call the life insurance policy and ask if the policy was still active. It was. She had lied. And my husband had been removed as a beneficiary.
After that, all bets were off. We were able to recover a lot of what was deleted on the phone and spent days reading through texts between them. Talking shit about us, our young children, my MIL, even disparaging comments about the food served at our house when we hosted every holiday, and seeing the proof of when they changed the beneficiaries. It was so hard to read, broke our hearts, and really impacted the grief my husband was going through.
SIL blocked us immediately. She lied and told MIL we blocked her. And we’ve been no contact ever since. She has never once reached out trying to repair anything, apologize, nothing. It’s almost been 3 years.
Now to our current proble:
Through the years, my MIL has obviously picked a side to be on, even though she pretends she’s not on anyone’s side. Oh and fun fact: she had known there was conversations about removing her son as a beneficiary. They had long since divorced and she “thought they wouldn’t really do it”. But she knew about it over a year before. As any mother would do, I guess, she’s hoping for some kind of reconciliation. But she always tries to place the blame, for all of it, on my husband. And she regularly tries to provoke him, gaslight him, and hurt him. We don’t want a relationship with his sister anymore. I think that’s mutual. Unfortunately that includes our niece as well. SIL betrayed my husband and lied about it. We could have had a relationship with her if she hadn’t lied. But for a while, the pressure from the MIL was really wearing on us and we were upset by her regularly. She makes it seem like a much smaller deal than it was. But I have two siblings and quite frankly I would rather die than betray them. I would absolutely never. Oh and another piece of information, one time my FIL hinted at removing SIL as a beneficiary from the life insurance policy and my husband said no immediately. Guess SIL was the weak link.
And truly, life has been so much better without her, for my husband, but also for me. We don’t want to reconcile. There’s nothing she could possibly do to fix this. We have also never had a single conversation with SIL about any of this. She blocked us right when we found out. Not a single word.
So the pressure from my MIL is obnoxious and triggering. She then made SIL executor on her will, but listed every SINGLE item in her condo in the will. Down to the dang Tupperware. She minimizes everything that we’ve gone through. It’s absolutely triggering. And we’ve had some not very nice conversation with her. It’s very obvious they talk shit about us too. We live 2 miles down the road from her but somehow she sees her daughter who lives 4 hours away more. Mostly to do SILs LAUNDRY. We had paid her phone bill for YEARS and suddenly she switched to her daughter’s plan. While we were still making payments on the other. I swear it’s so we can’t read their conversations and my husband be heartbroken again. And she didn’t tell my husband, she just sends a text saying here’s my new number. Erased everything from her phone too before giving it to us. She received a mug from her daughter recently that she got all teary eyed in front of us for. The cup misspelled two of our children’s names. She had known those girls. She never met our youngest. She swears it must have been an accident. My SIL is a bitch; not an idiot. It was intentional. We never once asked MIL to pick a side, it’s her daughter and we don’t want her to not have the relationship with her. We simply don’t. She removes the blame from SIL completely. She stood there on her daughter’s side while she took everything from the condo. I KNOW the SIL is enjoying the regular arguments that come out when MIL tries to get us to forgive her. She never apologized, never will, what are we supposed to do?! It’s insulting to MIL that she defends her bs daughter considering all the shit SIL said about her to FIL. She twists the words we say. She puts my husband down. And she lives in the condo we own, asks us for money (ask your daughter who stole $75,000?!?). She won’t even think that his reaction to all of this is 100% justified. I will never fix a bond that I didn’t break. She even brought my husband’s uncle into this, alienating him from more of his family! I’m SO TIRED.
What would you do about the MIL? I didn’t say everything that’s happened, but it’s a lot. She text my husband this morning something we have zero clue about? Started stirring the pot again. And it really ruined our day. She’s just regularly baiting him. He’s been through enough! She won’t even acknowledge how hurt her son is. She’s mean to him. I don’t even want her living in our condo anymore if she’s going to regularly abuse my husband. Zero accountability.