So... what if they'd stayed together until the will had been executed, and then they had decided to split up? Since the will was phrased the way that it was, with her name mentioned specifically, she'd get to keep the money as hers (at least in my state, don't know about yours). Not likely that she'd give it back.

So by the logic I've seen here, the only time that she'd need to give the money back is if - as now - they split up in the brief period between the grandmother dying and the will being executed. I don't get it.

The question isn't legal (it seems she's legally entitled to the money), but ethical.

I actually think that if the will had been executed before they split, that the right thing to do is to give it back. Grandma most likely intended the inheritance to stay in her family. As others have noted, she may have split it up for tax purposes. It just doesn't seem right to take what the grandmother intended for her family, just because grandma had perhaps too much faith in the long-term success of the relationship.

In this hypothetical situation, there are other factors to take in account, of course. If, for example, the will was executed and they split five years later, it wouldn't make sense (to me) to return it. OTOH, if they split one day later, it seems dead obvious that she should. Where to draw the line isn't black and white, but it seems to me that even after a few months, she should return it.

* * *

If any part of the justification for keeping the money is that it's a way of getting back at the ex, this decision isn't being made on purely ethical grounds. I'm not saying that other considerations don't count at all, but that the LW should be aware of this.

I kind of like the charity idea that others have floated. That way, the LW gets to keep a clean conscience and also satisfy, in a productive way, her negative feelings toward the ex. And then she won't have any more lingering ties to the ex.

All the men say do the right thing, DO NOT TAKE the money. This is similar to giving back the engagement ring, so to speak.

All the women say take the money and run.

Men versus women.

Simple. Choose which side you're on. The men will hate you, and the women will high-five you for screwing the men over.

If the grandma was still alive when you guys broke up, would she have reconsidered? Think about the grandma. She wrote you in, under the assumption that you and him would be together and forever, after her passing. You know it, I know it, we all know it.

Another poster said it better than I. 10K eh? If you take it, you sure come cheap.

The LW admits she was not particularly close to the grandmother, therefore we can rule out that the grandmother really intended for the LW to have half because she had somehow 'earned' it (either through her super-close relationship to the grandmother, or through the grandmother's knowledge of (and wish to make good for) the hellish time the partner put the LW through).

There is no karma - there is no great wheel in the sky turning two degrees this way or four degress that, deliberately manipulating the lives of others in order to give you what you 'deserve'. Money you earn comes to you by effort; all else is simply luck.

If ythe LW desperately needed money right now, and it was a matter of life or death, or being fed/clothed/housed or not, I'd say keep it and use it to save herself, and then when she has accumulated the same sum later, give it to the ex. But the LW does not need money right now - this little windfall would come in handy but is otherwise not providing some unexpected saving grace. She should give it back. It's the right thing to do.

To the folks who suggest that the grandmother did this for tax reasons, they are wrong. Inheritance tax doesn't kick in for such small amounts. An estate has to be in the millions before this is an issue. The gift tax has to do with giving someone money when you are alive. So if you have millions of dollars and your estate would be subject to estate tax then you can get around that by giving the estate away in small chunks while you are still living.

That said, 5 years is a reasonably long relationship and $10K is not that much money. I think the person who suggested putting the money away into a CD or other timed account made sense. This is not the time to be making these decisions. Everyone's emotions are raw. The peanut gallery has no way of knowing the intricacies of the relationship and should be ignored. My father's parents helped my mother get a divorce and gave her money afterward.

Put the money aside and sort out your life. Who knows what might happen.

'All the men say do the right thing, DO NOT TAKE the money. This is similar to giving back the engagement ring, so to speak.

All the women say take the money and run."

Bullshit. Many of these letters are anonymous. What kind of strange creatures frequent this neck of the woods?

I'm a woman. I wouldn't dream of taking the money. I said so. I said the LW shouldn't dream of taking the money. None of my girlfriends would either.

Basically, unless the LW was in deep trouble - in which case use the money to save yourself and pay it back one day - I don't think any decent person would.

Men vs women? It's amazing how some men out there just can't let go of this one. Brings up too many issues, huh?

hey!

"all" the men want you to do the right thing and those awful greedy women...

PLEASE!!!

im a woman and my first and lasting opinion was LW should give the money back forthwith.

could you please refrain from making stupid, mean-spirited generalizations based on gender.