'AITA for excluding my son's child from my will unless he gets a paternity test?'
"AITA for excluding my son's child from my will unless he gets a paternity test?"
Relative_Goose9888
I (61M) have a two children Adam (33) and Sarah (29). This post is about my son Adam. Adam got married 6 years ago to his wife Jen. About 4 years ago, Adam and Jen separated because Jen cheated on him. She later told him she was pregnant and didn’t know if the baby was his or not.
Adam was planning on going through with the divorce and getting a paternity test when she gave birth, but he changed his mind when she gave birth. He decided he wanted to give her another chance and make their marriage work.
He also decided not to get the paternity test because he thought it would create tension and resentment if he knew for certain that the child wasn’t his. Let’s call the child Billy.
Their marriage has still been a shit show since. They break up and get back together every other day. He considers Billy his own son sometimes but other times he calls him Jen's son.
They’re very dysfunctional and the entire family have told them to keep us out of their marriage. They would complain about everything to us when they had no intention of changing anything, so there’s no point of them wasting our time with their constant complaints.
Every year, I update my will. Not drastically, and sometimes I don’t even change much at all, but I go over it with a lawyer and make changes if I want to. Adam knows this and randomly asked me a few days ago if I possibly added Billy to the will.
I said I hadn’t even considered it because I’m not sure if Billy is even my actual grandchild. Adam said any child he considers his son is automatically my grandchild. I said I don’t agree with that under these circumstances.
If he had met Jen when she already had a child and decided to be a father to the child, I would consider that child my grandchild if they got married. But Jen cheats on him, gets pregnant and we don’t even know if the child is my sons or not, and I’m meant to just roll with it?
I said if he does a paternity test and finds out that the Billy is actually his, I’ll put him in the will. But right now I won’t. I actually adore Billy, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve seen him a handful of times in his entire life.
He is mostly being raised by Jens parents who live in another city. My son isn’t really raising him, and neither is Jen. They send money to Jens parents to take care of him and visit them a couple of times a year.
With the addition of Adam and Jen's relationship being extremely unstable with them breaking up every other day, I don’t want to get involved in any way, and that includes adding a child I’m not even sure is my grandson to my will.
I said I can contribute to his life financially in the form of paying for school and anything else he might need, but that’s all I’m willing to do in this current situation. My son is very upset with me.
I told him that I can remove part of his inheritance and make it Billy’s inheritance if he insists, but he didn’t want to make that compromise so I told him that the discussion is over and he can’t tell me what to do with my own assets.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
dijetlo007
NTA. It's your money, you can do as you like. Adam could give any portion of his inheritance to Billy of his own volition if he so choose, he doesn't need you to codify it. Good Luck.
Recent_Data_305
OP could easily live 30 more years, give or take. Adam needs to worry about taking care of himself AND Billy instead of planning what happens to OPs money.
OP - Tell your son that you update your will annually, and as you told us, he doesn’t seem to be a real parent to Billy. From what you wrote, if he had an active father/son relationship, you’d see things differently. I hope Adam grows up. 33 years old and not acting like a father to a child he calls “son” - that’s where T A H is here.
Carolinamama2015
NTA. He's not even raising his so called son his in laws are so why is he all of a sudden caring what Billy gets left?
Sunnycat00
NTA Why is this even an issue? If he intends to give part of his inheritance to the kid, then he can just do that himself. I would be more concerned with how to keep that from happening.
The OP responded here:
Relative_Goose9888
He doesn’t intend to give part of his inheritance to his son. He wants me to allocate other assets to Billy. So he keeps his original share and Billy gets something else.
Medical_Gate_5721
"I'm leaving you something. If you choose to share with him, that's great. You have my approval."
Dachshundmom5
"He is mostly being raised by Jens parents who live in another city. My son isn’t really raising him, and neither is Jen. They send money to Jens parents to take care of him and visit them a couple of times a year. With the addition of Adam and Jens relationship being extremely unstable with them breaking up every other day."
You're NTA, but your son is a piece of trash. This poor kid is growing under a tidal wave of instability with a maybe Daddy who's not even half in and half out. He's a couple of times a year, dad? Which isn't to say the mom is better.
They are both awful people treating an innocent child horribly. I'm kind of surprised you would leave money to your son to become back of his bad choices. Why on earth should he inherit anything?
If anything, I'd leave it in a trust to the poor kid that will need a large fund for therapy as he grows up. The guy who wants to take from his sibling to give to a kid he doesn't even parent is not a good guy here. More likely, he wants to get Billy inheritance that he will then control as his "parent."