Letters to the Editor
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No brainer
And anyone that needs more than one second to figure it out has no brain. She keeps the money, period. God some of you people are stupid
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Off Topic a Bit
But Patrick (upthread) said Ken Lay was innocent in the eyes of the law.
No Patrick, Ken Lay is a convicted felon, died a convicted felon & will now & forever be a convicted f**king felon. He was about to head out to prison when he died because he was convicted, by a jury of his peers, of a felony.
A slimey, pile-of-shit, convicted felon.
LW--I changed my mind--take the money & have some fun with it. Life's too short to worry about a small inheritance like this. Granny must have liked you to name you in the will. & if it was a mistake that you got the dough, heh, tough shit. Sometimes you get things in life you didn't earn, sometimes you don't get things in life you did earn. It all evens out in the end.
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I have a hunch...
That if it was guy writing in who claimed his ex treated him badly a lot of people would be calling him a greedy opportunistic bastard.
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The gender wars come out, even when the LW never says
Good 'ole dependable Salon.. boys on one side and girls on the other and everybody throw rocks and start screaming. Nothing makes me happier to be gay.
And slightly more on topic, the word "partner" generally isn't used in this country to refer to heterosexual relationships, even if it is in the rest of the English speaking world. Reading too much into it, I'm sure, but I also assumed the LW is a man. Makes it that much more spicy! ;)
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I haven't read all the letters
I haven't seen this mentioned, but in a legal no fault divorce aren't the assets split evenly? If so, she would get half the inheritance in the divorce. Secondly, weather for tax reasons or not, the inheritance is in her name too which means she can keep it.
The LW did not say her and her ex are divorced, just that she left him. Which means they are only seperated and I believe any windfall during the seperation counts too. I recall reading a story about a couple that was legally seperated when one member won the lottery. The lottery winnings in the end were considered part of the marital assets and had to be split between them.
Of course she has a right to family money, she's family. A spouse is as much a family member as a child is, just because so many people throw their non-blood related kin away doesn't mean you aren't family. They just become a member of your family you'd rather do without. Since you can't know what the grandmother would have wanted if a divorce had happened while she was alive, you don't rethink her wishes, you honor them.
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give the money back
i'm in the army and so is my soon-to-be-ex. she got paid $250 a month from being seperated from her spouse (a normal army benefit) ... including the year plus in which we've been trying to get a divorce. in my mind, she stopped being entitled to that money the day she said she wanted a divorce. she should give it back to the army and the people of the united states of america.
now, legally, does she have to? no. should she? yes. the intent of the benefit and the law authorizing it is to make life a little easier for spouses who are seperated. not to give money to people who are legally married. laws are laws, of course, but that's why there are judges and juries -- to judge the extenuating circumstances.
what's right is right is right. the laws are in place to codify that and to help people that are getting screwed, to do right -- however, laws cannot forsee every possible situation, which is why there are judges and juries to interpret those laws to a given situation.
so what's right here? make it as simple as possible. grandma gave the money to the letter writer because he or she was involved in a relationship with her relative. if she had never been in that relationship, she would not have gotten that money. if grandma had died in a year or five or ten or fifteen years, cut all ties with the family, etc., it's probably safe to say he or she would've been removed from the will.
grandma inconveniently died a little too soon but the fact remains that she left the money to someone who was, while not yet legally, considered part of the family. for right or for wrong, you've opted out of the family. this is part of that.
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Okay now I've read the letters
Including the one from the letter writer. Well, my .02 is since the money was left to you, in your name when you were never married to her grandson, then that means she was feeling generous. Nice of her, say thank you to heaven and do what you will! Even though you didn't know her well maybe she really liked you. Or maybe in her mind a few stable years with one of her grandchildren is deserving of a cash gift.
If the grandmother had only wanted you to have the money only if you stayed permanently she could have had a clause like LW receives 10 grand when she marries so and so or if they have kids. What if, not a question to be asking. Just what is.
I find it more unethical to assume that the grandmother didn't know what she was doing and giving the money to her grandson or that if she had had more time she would have changed the will. If she wanted it all to stay in the family, she would have left it to family only.
For instance, I know that my husbands family has a home and some assets that they will bequeath to him when they pass away. Not me, my husband. I am not named in the will, he is. So I only get stuff if we stay married. But recently due to issues with his brother and his wife, they are now considering leaving everything that they were going to give to him, to me, because they can't bear the thought of his wife getting any of their hard earned assets and her family has plenty of money and property to will to her. So they've been telling us they may change the will to name me and leave out the son. They are thinking he'll get plenty from his in-laws and my family has nothing to give to help us out in the future.