Internet hails man's decision to will his estate to daughters and not his ‘wonderful wife’
A husband's revelation about willing his estate for his children rather than his wife was well-supported by internet users. The scenario was posted by Sorry-Sky4531 in the popular Reddit' subcategory 'Am I The A**hole?' where it received 3K upvotes and nearly 800 comments.
In a Reddit post titled, "AITA for willing my estate to my children rather than my wife?" The original poster, 32, who has a 30-year-old wife and two young children, describes the scenario, "I receive monthly royalties from a few very popular novels written in the 1990s. The author is a late great-uncle of mine and I happened to inherit part of his estate after his death. I won't disclose how much the royalties amount to as that may narrow me down, but I will say that it is comparable to what my friend earns as a physician."
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'She can keep all of the community property'
The OP continued writing, "I haven't been spending any of the money I've received in royalties but have instead just invested it for my childrens' benefit." "In my state, the law dictates that I can will half of the community property and all of my separate property to whoever I want without needing to be concerned about an elective share claim. I've decided to will my separate property -- the book rights and the separate investments -- to my daughters. She can keep all of the community property," he added.
The OP continued by claiming that his "wonderful" wife was adamant about keeping her inheritance private, so he did the same as per her request, "My wife is a wonderful woman and we've built a great life together. But prior to me inheriting my great uncle's estate, she had insisted on keeping her own inheritances separate. Since she set the standard, I don't feel like deviating from it now that it would be in her favor to do so." He wrote the will in such a way that the inheritance would not go out of his family, "Not only that, if my wife remarries, I wouldn't want her new family -- any other children she may have -- to inherit the book rights. I want them to stay in my family. I wrote up and notarized my will the other day and gave her a heads-up about what would be in it. But she's been upset with what I've done."
Verdict is in
Many Reddit users supported the OP for his decision, while one wrote, "She gets all community property. She has kept her inheritance separate from your shared monies. The kids, I assume are both yours & hers. You told her about it when you did it, you didn't lie/keep it from her. You've done all this to benefit her children. I'm not sure what her problem could be, honestly. NTA."
Another supportive user chimed in, "Yeah, I’ve seen so many posts on this sub and others about kids getting screwed when their parent remarries after the other parent’s death. Grief does funny things to people, you hope your spouse does the right thing but you never know. Even something as simple as an heirloom cookbook has put families in turmoil on this sub lol OP did the right thing, and if I was his wife I’d wholeheartedly agree with it."
Someone wrote, siding with the OP, "It's not really comparable to a prenuptial agreement. He's not planning for the marriage to fail. He's planning for his death. Assuming she remarried, which she would have every right to do, he wants his family's royalties to stay with his daughters. I don't see the issue here."
This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.
