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Kathryn, I wanted to thank you for being so open and willing to share your experiences, this latest revelation of yours has opened my eyes to just how blessed I really am.
I agree. I can not ever picture my parents doing something like that in a million years. They would rather die than deliberately do anything that would cause emotional, physical or financial pain or harm to one of their children.
And, thinking of my own adult children, to lie and "con" one or both of them about something like that for decades is completely unimaginable.
I know that there are cruel and evil people in this world, and it is so sad that two of them decided to have children and treat them that way.
Kathryn, I know what a shock the Wills must have been for you but really, they are a gift. It frees you from having to give your mom so much time and attention.
I had something similar happen in my family except I learned of the deception years before they died. It took some (a lot) of mourning for the family I thought I had and the love I had always wanted and worked to get it for my whole life. I had to give up on all of that and it wasn't easy. It was painful but the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. I no longer had to be nice to mother, father, or brother who was involved in the conspiracy and deception. I was to learn the truth when my parents died and I read their wills. Fortunately, I figured it out a decade before they died. Then somehow I became the bad guy! They were all furious with me when the reality was I was the victim of their lies and deception. It took a while but eventually, I didn't care. I cut them all loose and it was truly the gift of liberation from my whole dysfunctional family. My brother continued to insist I had to 'change back' and do what the family wanted. Everyone was mad because I would no longer follow the program and the role they had established for me.
The problem wasn't their actions, but, like you, it was the lie and the coverups. In politics, cover-ups are always the worst part of any actions. Maybe it's the same for all life events, it's the lies and cover-ups that hurt us.
As painful as it was initially, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My parents are gone now and my brother has established the exact same dynamics in his family. He couldn't have duplicated our family of origin any better if had he a roadmap and an instruction sheet. It's so sad for his kids to have to go through what I went through. But his daughter realized at a very early age what her family was all about and she's been in therapy for years. Of course, her family is desperate for her too to 'change back'. It won't happen. Once we see the light there is no going back. I am so glad you have seen that light and freed yourself from their crazy grasp.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Thank goodness your niece has you in her life - I hope you are able to spend some time with her. She is going to need you.
I figured out about 25 years ago that my parents and family of origin were completely jacked. I actually went through the therapy, called their hands on it, established healthy boundaries, etc. and had some decent results - I thought. I mean, my dad responded very well - it seemed. By that I mean, the family secret (my mom's mental illness and my dad's enabling of it) was at least out in the open and he seemed to be genuinely sorry for the pain he had allowed and even enabled over the years. He was very affectionate toward me - always bringing me little gifts, calling me, emailing me - my gosh when we lived overseas he would send me a PACKAGE at least twice a month.
But he and my mother were a bad combination - and very money hungry. I won't bore you with the details but they were the recipients of at least five inheritances over the years, and two of those they fought for (and I don't think they were entitled to). My mom was the recipient of three of those five inheritances and one was a huge chunk of change early in their marriage - so I think my dad justified doing smarmy stuff with their money and property because of that - because of "her" initial investment into their financial portfolio. I think she held that over his head and I think he held the deceitful promise to me over my my head.
UGH.
Anyway, in spite of his lip service, I've had a bad gut feeling for years about both of them, even though they both reined in their blatant disrespect for me and seemed to, for the most part, "respect my personal boundaries." I still saw cracks in that veneer but I desperately wanted them not to be there. That was my mistake.
But just knowing the full truth is very, very freeing. It verifies my hunches. It allows me to make better decisions because decisions based on truth are the best ones.
So I'm hoping you can be there for your niece. I think if my grandmother had lived longer she would have been that sort of person for me. She was my dad's mom and before she died, she was dropping hints at me - heavy hints - about his true nature and the ugly side of his marriage to my mom. She was trying to tell me and I wish she'd been more forthright but maybe I glossed over things in my mind, I don't know. I've also had several of my aunts over the years (on both sides of the family) drop hints to me. When the dust is all settled - all the probate, all the sale of property, etc. I am going to tell my aunts that I know the full scope of everything so they will understand my emotional distance with my mom.
I'm sure they WILL understand.
Your niece needs you and I bet you will be there for her.
PS. Can't the accountant just do the taxes & estate & everything and leave you completely out of it?
Can't someone else handle selling the house and leave you completely out of it?
Can't someone else handle everything else in the future after this mean, mean trick?
Just saw this.
I am just going to send the accountant a folder of IRS forms (all that stuff you get in February) and the closing docs from their rentals they sold this past year. I just sent him an email saying that was going to be the extent of my involvement.
No one else can really "handle" the sale of the house but I am going to list it and it should sell quickly. I told the realtor to list it at a bargain price. It's in a popular residential area so this should be fast.
Not sure what I intend to do with the land in the other state, but there are two buyers who want it. If it sells then I don't have to worry about paying the bills and all that (someone has to do it - and neither of my brothers are able to do it, so we just need to sell it). As for all the contents in the barns and houses on that property, I've already talked to the potential buyers and they are all willing - in fact, eager, to buy the property lock stock and barrel. That would keep me from having to sort through tons of stuff.
That was perhaps the biggest issue to me - the sheer amount of THINGS spread out across all this property. Now that I truly don't feel any emotional attachment to "family heirlooms" and I really don't care whether or not my mom's feelings are "hurt," I am just going to do whatever it takes to get rid of all this stuff expeditiously.
I am going to just try to clear out all this stuff and my completion goal is the one year anniversary of my dad's death - October of this upcoming year.
Between now and then I'm going to step back and be less involved. Once all that's sold, I can REALLY be less involved.
The bolded part is the silver lining in this, Kathryn. Clarity. You have it. I am so sorry you had this shock, but glad you are already focusing more on YOU.
Thank you!
My husband is so relieved. He had had suspicions for years but didn't want to confront my parents or me. He loves this clarity too.
He called me last night and had an idea for a little trip to the Smoky Mountains and wanted to discuss plans and dates. This would be in just a few weeks. We are already making plans to move forward together. I'm very happy!
Kathryn, it's not unusual for parents to split their Will so that each child gets an equal amount. I know you know that. I don't think your parents expected you and your brothers to share the land, but share whatever it's worth. The land has value and that's what they wanted to share that with all three of their children. I am assuming the rest of their Wills is the same way, split three ways. They may have believed that making it all even Steven among the three of you that would prevent any fighting or resentments among the siblings. I've heard that from so many parents. No matter which child lives closest, or provides them with grandchildren, or anything else, parents want to make sure each child gets an equal amount.
The problem is they lied to you for all these years. That's just awful. It's bizarre they left you one acre in the middle, an acre you can't even use! What the heck is that about? When they said you would entire the land, you know they didn't mean one acre in the middle! How did they live with themselves, knowing that you would find out when one of them died? I can't imagine doing something like that to one of my children. The guilt would kill me.
I realize I could be way off on all of this, it's just the way I see it. Forgive me if I'm wrong and/or way out of line.
No, you're not out of line.
Listen, when my parents were working on their wills, revising them because my one brother was so seriously mentally ill they knew they had to set up a trust for him, they actually wanted to leave my estranged brother completely out of the will and I was the one who talked them out of it! I was the one who told them to divide everything up 1/3 1/3 1/3 when they weren't going to!
But this land in this other state was a different matter. It has been in our family for 120 years. They did want to divide it up in three equal portions - well, two because they wanted to leave my other brother completely out of it (grrrr). I was FINE with that till my brother got so crazy that I didn't want to share a property line with him. At that point, I told them I would rather not inherit ANY of that land than share a property line with him. But as luck would have it, under the terms of his disability eligibility, he can't own that much land anyway. And this was the property he had had his last and most severe mental breakdown on, and had actually smashed windows, doors, and vehicles up across this whole property, and assaulted the caretaker and was subsequently charged with numerous felonies. So long story short, no, he couldn't own this property and my other brother hadn't stepped foot on it in 20 years and was not the slightest bit interested in it. (He "knew" I was inheriting it - yeah, right - and was completely cool with that.)
Anyway, regardless of the division of the property or not - I get that and was fine with that - the PORTION they told me for decades that I was inheriting was at one end of the property and is a beautiful piece of land. This is where they wanted me to build a vacation home just a couple of years ago - on land that I was told I was going to inherit. Not this weird section in the middle of the property which I never wanted and they knew I wasn't even particularly interested in.
But you know what - THAT is the section my dad inherited. The rest of it, he and my mom bought together. THAT is why that section was left to me - because my mom wasn't "about" to leave me anything without "making sure it was fair." (What that has always meant to her is "Kathryn gets screwed but that's OK - she'll get over it.") I believe my dad "stuck up for me" in his weird way and said, "OK - have your way. You can have some say in OUR land but not in MY land." And that's why that weird section was left to me.
That being said, THEY SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME RATHER THAN DECEIVING ME FOR YEARS AND EVEN ENCOURAGING ME TO BUILD ON LAND THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WOULD NOT BELONG TO ME. THAT'S what makes me so mad. I really don't care how much or how little property I may "get" one day. It's the ongoing deceit that rankles me.
I've looked closely at the dates of these documents. Yep, they were lying to me all along and they knew it. They both were.
I'm a very fair minded person. I don't want to be treated unfairly or treat others unfairly. I am also very reasonable. THEY are the unreasonably, unfair people. I think they didn't tell me any of this because 1) it was against the legal advice they had received, and 2) they knew I'd ask pertinent, objective, reasonable questions and they didn't have reasonable answers to those questions and by golly it was their land anyway and don't they have the right to do whatever they want with it?
Of course they do. And I have the right to make fully informed decisions and to expect honesty from my parents. It's a two way street and they just wanted a one way street. They wanted to lie to me for years and meanwhile use my services. My mom still wants that - desperately.
Kathryn, I wanted to thank you for being so open and willing to share your experiences, this latest revelation of yours has opened my eyes to just how blessed I really am.
Thank you. I'm past the hurt now (let's just say I'm so used to being hurt by them that I find it easier to shrug it off now) so it's not hard to talk about.
My husband is sort of in awe. See, here's how my personality plays out:
I am VERY tolerant of other peoples' oddities and weird personalities - probably too much so. I give people a lot of room to be weird.
I don't get mad easily. Now - I know what makes me mad, and I communicate that - but I think because I am so calm when I'm communicating it, that abusive or rude or inflammatory people don't take my calm warnings seriously, maybe because I'm not screaming or crying or throwing things when I say to them, "You are treading on thin ice with me. If you continue to do (fill in the blank) I am going to (fill in the blank - along the lines of Hasta la Vista baby)." Anyway, so often the most inflammatory, wild eyed people in my life apparently don't believe me when I say that, because I'm so patient up to a point.
But I am VERY clear with people - if they are listening. I always say, "Here is my boundary. Here are the consequences of overstepping it." That is why my dad toed the line with me but didn't actually step over that boundary to my face. He and my mother sneaked around behind my back to screw me over, all the while lying to me and smiling to my face and "bragging about me to everyone," yada yada yada. So while I had a hunch that things weren't as they were portrayed, I didn't have any real proof. Meanwhile my parents were genuinely becoming more and more sickly and needy and I would have felt more and more like a jerk for not helping them.
Anyway, you know the rest of the story, but what my husband has never seen in me, because he's never mistreated me, is the coldness of my feelings once I know I've done my best and the relationship is unsustainable. He has truly never seen this side of me, because it doesn't come out often. But that's where I am now. I have warned him that I've got that side to me - that once I've done my best and I know the other person is simply determined to mistreat me, I have absolutely zero problem disengaging. And there's not a lot of grief at that point because I've ALREADY grieved and poured my emotional energy into it. I'm done.
That's where I'm at now. I'm done. The only regret I have is that I wasn't able to tell my dad that before he died.
I know that sounds cold but I truly, truly don't care. I don't feel cold - I feel free!
For people without such parents it must be unfathomable to learn that such calculated deceit could be perpetrated tiward their own daughter. That is the ugliness of it. It is cold. It is oh, so cold. And I know it oh, so well.
My husband is so relieved. He had had suspicions for years but didn't want to confront my parents or me. He loves this clarity too.
He called me last night and had an idea for a little trip to the Smoky Mountains and wanted to discuss plans and dates. This would be in just a few weeks. We are already making plans to move forward together. I'm very happy!
I agree. I can not ever picture my parents doing something like that in a million years. They would rather die than deliberately do anything that would cause emotional, physical or financial pain or harm to one of their children.
And, thinking of my own adult children, to lie and "con" one or both of them about something like that for decades is completely unimaginable.
I know that there are cruel and evil people in this world, and it is so sad that two of them decided to have children and treat them that way.
I can't imagine that there is anything ANY of my children could do that would cause me to treat them so callously and cruelly.
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