So after 3 decades DH realises we need to protect ourselves from them

[sandpiper]

I'm not here much these days & living a good life thanks to all the love and wisdom and growth inspired by these boards.
So I tossed up about posting this but I think it's got value as one of those 'good things come to those that wait' type stories.
I've been trying to do the right thing by his awful family since we met, many years ago.
It started with his mother telling me the first time she met me that she hoped he would marry one of the five lovely daughters of her neighbour and best friend (Seriously) with the next 3 decades punctuated by DH being told at every meeting how the five lovely daughters were going. In that time three have been divorced, one has been in and out of the psyche ward and the other has been in jail. And they are all still preferable to me. 
I've consistently tried to do the right thing by his BIL & his wife and children - from a safe distance. Sent lovely presents to the kids every year - never thanked. Had the kids up for visits when they were old enough. Noticed personality problems early on that have become engrained. Told him, and said that we would need to evaluate when they are young adults if they are the kind of people who we can trust to take care of us in our old age. Made a few adjustments to our wills about 5 years ago so that his family couldn't have any control over our affairs but niece & nephew still got the lion's share if we fell off the perch.
Anyway, uBPDMIL died a few years ago, (to everyone's relief) and 92yro uNPDFIL has just gone, under great protest, into a nursing home. The care for his parents fell to DH & putting his estate in order to have his apartment sold has fallen to me, because of DH's interstate work commitments.
So I'm the dumb muppet who got landed with the job of putting the property up for sale. I spent three days scrubbing mould off the bedroom walls before I admitted defeat and called in the real estate agent's team of heavy duty cleaners. They were horrified & so was I - it was the first time I'd set foot inside FIL's as they'd made it clear I wasn't welcome, and I decided (thank you, members here) to take that as a gift.
Anyway, over the last few weeks we've seen the kind of behaviour from BIL and his wife and children that has made us realise, we cannot have these people responsible for our care as we grow old and frail, and we absolutely cannot let our loved ones deal with them if there's a bequest from our estate. Adult niece has been badgering me, trying to claim the furniture (the agent said to leave it in place till it's sold, and as it will likely be sold as a holiday letting, the buyer will likely want all the white goods) by pushing me around and last week - by stealth. She tried bullying me into giving her the key because she needs a bed for the night for work-related reasons (hello, tax-deductable hotel room - how dumb does she think I am?). I told the agent not to let her in unless they wanted to find the place stripped like vultures on road kill the next time they opened up. I explained why the agent needed it empty (older buyers worried about covid who felt safer with it uninhabited) and she didn't even respond. We never hear from her unless she wants something and even her own parents & brother admit that she's inherited her grandfather's personality.
In the end I had to block her, I have enough to deal with without dealing with the entitled badgering of Little Miss 'I Want'. Pester Power is something her parents should have stamped out of her character before it was formed, but instead, it's one of her leading traits.
Because DH was away for work, I had to use our bank account to pay for everything that the flat needed. (Cleaners, carpet cleaners, plumber - there had been a toilet leaking since last October, no wonder there was caked on mould everywhere) So, bearing in mind that DH has done all of the running around to care for his horrible parents for years, because BIL's family lives interstate, this little barb came through from SIL on Friday when we said we'd need to get that refunded from FIL's account. 'Make sure you keep the receipts.'
SIL has not lifted a finger to help and, lucky her. I wish I could sit back and ignore it all, too..
I have an issue with SIL because she set us up for financial difficulty at the start of our relationship. DH & his brother bought an investment property together for five years, with the agreement that we'd all work hard to pay it off and then sell it and split the procedes. I managed the tenants and cleaned up & got all the **** that went with that. 9 months into it SIL announced that she'd *surprise* ! Gotten pregnant and couldn't meet their contributions for the next four years. So we had to carry them. Then she complained at the point of the five year sale that her share wasn't the same as ours and DH had to show her all the paperwork explaining that she'd contributed significantly less than us.
SIL has an excellent understanding of money so that was purely her trying to take advantage of us and playing us for suckers.
So the 'make sure you show us the receipts' took me straight back to that moment of SIL the grifter, sponging off us and thinking we were too dumb to notice.
So that tipped me right over.
And thankfully, DH agrees.
The amount of money that we've had to outlay, running round after his parents as they grew old and crazy and frail...OMG. 'Show us the receipts'.
Any decent human being would be thanking us for not having to deal with those two awful, abusive people as they grew old and got even worse. A decent human being would send flowers to say thank you.
But SIL can only view the maintenance to FIL's property as a loss to her inheritance.
'Make sure you keep the receipts.'
If it was left to them, the property would have been sold with the mould in situ, the toilet leaking, and would not fetch the price that it deserves.
Thankfully the agent saw it as it was and as it is since I've done the work so he knows that I'm the 'organiser'.
We've emailed our legal firm that it's time to change our wills and ensure that his family have no place in our care and no claim on us when we are gone. We have nieces from Family of Choice - who love us and can be trusted to behave with ethics, empathy, and integrity.
We're not going to tell his family about this change.
One of my girlfriends thinks an explanation is deserved and I said 'No, they have no claim on us and if we die in a fiery crash, they can look at the date that the new will was written and that might give them a clue.'
His nephew & niece are very well provided for and want for nothing, so all we are really doing is taking care of loved ones who don't have that level of privilege.
This has been a long time coming and over the decades I've often wondered if DH would ever really see the light but Hallelujah, it has come.
I feel so much safer knowing that BIL's family will never be able to leave me in a mouldy apartment with a leaking toilet, and then tip all of my valuables into a dumpster (things that they could have given to a charity, but that isn't even in their psychology).
I get that FIL was and is horribly abusive but that is no reason to allow them to push you so out of shape that you become just like them.
Anyway troops, if you have read this far, thank you.
I'm still pinching myself that DH has actually seen the light and finally accepts that we need to protect ourselves from these people. OMG, what a set.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Sandpiper,

Hallelujah is right.

Some folks with PD parents (maybe most?) never get Out of the FOG, so here's to your celebration that you and DH can now live with this relief that you are detached from those miserable, damaged people. Better late than never! Enjoy the emotional freedom!

Trees

[notrightinthehead]

I am so glad for you! Hopefully it will all go as planned and you won't have to deal with them in the future.

[sandpiper]

Thanks for your kind replies.
I slept well last night after seeing our legal firm. Our new wills have been sent to us so we can review them and we've got an appointment to go in and sign them together next week.
That is such a relief.
The difference between BIL's adult children and the adult children of our friends' is just staggering.
They aren't malignant narcissists but their first thought is always their own self-interest, and the concept of taking care of others around them isn't even on the radar.
We aren't cutting off the relationship with them, but the reality is that we never hear from them unless they want something, and efforts to establish a reciprocal relationship haven't met with much interest, because we just don't have anything they want.
It's so sad to see them turn out that way, but PD family do have a way of making that damage ripple down through the generations.
It is such a relief to know that we've changed our wills and the people who end up taking care of us actually love us, love our pets, and have been raised with a strong ethos of caring.

[moglow]

Lessons learned indeed. Mommie dearest seems to think our "obligations" to take care of her are to be bought by promises of her house and treasures. Offended that no one is stepping up to that bait. I remember back to when her eldest sister was failing and all the many visits mother made, only to sit and complain at her house that no one was paying attention to or doing for *her*. I also remember her deep offense when told that sister's four daughters would inherit whatever was left of her money, NOT mother. "But I'M her SISTER!" doesn't bear much weight when she has children who legally do come first. Md then tried to drive wedges between her sister and her daughters [successfully it appears] where mother's "favorite" did come out on top. I suspect the favorite divvied out things to mother that should rightfully have gone to her own sisters. But that's just a suspicion.

She even commented years back when two of my brothers were in a bad auto accident together, that it was a shame [big box store she worked for] truck wasn't the one that hit them - she'd have been "in the money!!" Said it. To them. Just days after the accident. Thankfully adrenaline was still running high and they weren't nearly as offended as I was! She didn't see the blessing that her sons had survived what could have been so much worse, she saw $$$ and how she could get her cut. [Later she actually did ask how much of a  settlement they got etc - NOT how are *they* recovering, lingering effects but money.]

I'm glad for y'all Sandpiper, that it's easily and painlessly resolved, all those questions wiped away with a stroke of the pen. Scary to think one's dependent on those who can only be bought, the lack of care and compassion is staggering isn't it.

[Cat of the Canals]

One of my girlfriends thinks an explanation is deserved and I said 'No, they have no claim on us and if we die in a fiery crash, they can look at the date that the new will was written and that might give them a clue.'

Totally agree. Your friend probably means well, but my guess is she has no experience dealing with PDs. It doesn't sound like your IL's deserve much of anything. You don't owe them a thing, and I'd predict any "explanation" they were given would be interpreted as a signal to start an epic war of DRAMAAAAAA.

[moglow]

Why do they "deserve an explanation" of what you choose to do with your life? Are they interested or involved in said life? Have they ever been?? Their whole attitude of entitlement is what got you where you are. Blood is not always thicker than water, dear friend, but thank you for sharing.

[sandpiper]

Cat - exactly. 
Mo - thank you. And yes, agreed.

There's no point explaining much of anything to them because it simply does not compute. There is no knowledge of wrongdoing and no potential for growth because they are hard-wired to view those around them as an endless source of narcissistic supply. I think they just get confused when you try to explain things like ethics, integrity, empathy, duty of care. I've seen DH's niece tune out when I've tried to talk to her about things that just go right over her head. In the mind of a PD, they only have one duty of care and it's to themselves.
I must say it's been fascinating watching DH's niece grow from an infant an develop the narcissism from such a young age. It's really made me wonder how much is determined by genes. It is creepy, it's very reptilian, how little genuine attachment they have to you, and watching them line you up for the next con.
DH and I were able to compare texts, where she said to him that she just wanted to get the beds out of her grandfather's flat. Foolish of her to do that from her sun lounge in BAli, when I questioned the flying monkey who was doing her bidding, the FM replied by text 'No, I don't want the beds, just the white goods.'
I've taken screen shots of all those conversations and I'm going to ask my legal team if I should keep a file of these things so that I can prove that she tried to con us into stealing her grandfather's white goods.
I think if she does want to contest our wills down the track, I owe it to our FAC nieces/beneficiaries to have some evidence on hand showing that niece has a track record of engaging in deception to achieve her own ends and we had good reason to believe that she does not understand the concept 'duty of care'.
It's a good feeling to have legal protection from that.
The FOC niece who we've named as our executor has heard many a tale from the Dark Side over the years. She's smart as a whip and DH's grifter niece will be no match for her.

The sense of peace and safety that I have from seeing our new wills drawn up & the locusts removed from our affairs is just blissful.

And no, I don't see the need to share that information with them. It would just create drama and one of the most important things I've learned here is, make yourself extremely uninteresting to them.
And the other thing of course is, block caller.

[Poison Ivy]

When I was still married (but the marriage was falling apart), I indicated in my will that I had intentionally not left any property to my husband. I figured that would help if there were any claims made after my death that "she forgot to give him property."

[treesgrowslowly]

Sandpiper,

Just replying to what you wrote about watching your niece develop her narcissism. It is sad and scary to see, I totally agree.

I've been watching Dr. Ramani videos on how narcissism develops. I personally believe there is a lot that researchers will discover in the future, about how the brain develops when there is this deprivation of empathy and healthy attachment.

It is very good for you to take screen shots and keep the evidence of their attempts to deceive and manipulate you.

Trees

[sandpiper]

Treesgrowslowly - thanks. I will have to look out for those videos. Honestly, I don't think BIL's children ever had any hope given the personalities of their parents. BIL is understandably very damaged by the abuse from both his parents. His wife is a very charming con artist who played us, early in the relationship. I've made sure that my FOC know what they did and one of my FOC nieces is a lawyer so she will know exactly how to deal with them if they try any grifting when we are vulnerable or after we are gone.
I didn't ever see any point in confronting BIL & SIL about how they took advantage of us financially, because people like that are never truly sorry for playing you and any remorse they offer is purely for show.
Lesson learned.
We sign our new wills on Friday.
We won't be telling anyone in his family about the alteration.
I'm still just furious about niece's attempts to remove the white goods from her grandfather's property.
I think what infuriates me most is that she is still doing the thing she used to do when she was a child, and she tried to play us off against each other. When she was a kid she would ask him for something if she knew that I'd say no and now that she is an adult she is still freaking doing this.
I hate that I am cast in the role of being the bad guy - again - just for doing the right thing and trying to protect my loathsome FIL from being fleeced by his grandchild.
But the reality is that the apartment and everything in it belongs to her grandfather, and we have a duty of care to him, not to this over-indulged egocentric granddaughter.
PoisonIvy - FOCniece 2 is a lawyer. She has one of the sharpest minds that I know and good luck to anyone who tries to mess with her, either when we are frail, or after we are gone. It's a source of wonder and entertainment to our friends that they managed to produce a daughter who is so much like me, in spirit and character. When I was recounting the latest tales to her sister and I said how my head had nearly exploded at the 'make sure you keep the receipts' directive, and I'd said 'Seriously, you pack of grifters,  Invoice This.' (Re: the removing them from the wills) Eldest FOC niece laughed and said 'That is exactly what my sister would have said/done.'