Father defended after removing ‘disrespectful’ son from will

‘We had a good relationship, the problem came when his wife wouldn’t follow the home rules,’ dad says

Brittany Miller
New York
Tuesday 12 December 2023 14:47 GMT
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A father has threatened to take away his son’s inheritance — because his daughter-in-law won’t follow the rules he has set down for behaviour in his house.

In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?”subreddit, the father explained that his son and his wife were currently staying while their house was undergoing repairs.

“Before living together we had a good relationship, the problem came when his wife wouldn’t follow the home rules,” he wrote in his Reddit post.

He said the regulations were “simple”, including cleaning up and keeping the noise level down, but that the largest one was to not have any alcohol in the home due to his wife’s “trauma” with it. Both his son and his daughter-in-law were informed about the drinking dictum, he said.

For the first couple of weeks, the arrangement was working out well until the alcohol rule was broken. “We couldn’t prove it at the time but we were sure they were drinking,” the father wrote. “It came to head when cleaning my wife found wine in the attic. She was pissed and poured it out. Apparently it was a 300 dollar bottle and it caused a huge fight between her and DIL (daughter-in-law).”

Not long after, with the renovations were complete and the younger couple moved out.

Then the drama grew, with the son telling his mother and father that they can no longer see their grandchildren because the incident had made him “rethink their relationship.”

“I told him that was bulls**t,” the father wrote, “that he knew the one big rule in the home, which caused stress to his mother (my wife). He told me it was final and I told him if he goes through with this he will be out of the will.”

On Reddit, many people posted to support the father’s decision. “Don’t know why everyone thinks it’s acceptable to be so dependent on alcohol that being asked to not drink it for a little while is a crime,” one comment began.

“You were kind enough to offer them to stay in your home, and gave them some rules to follow. When they didn’t follow them, you didn’t even kick them out. If there was some special reason for them to be keeping that expensive wine in the house, such as ‘we didn’t want it to get stolen during the reno’s [renovations]’ then they should have discussed that with you rather than hiding it. They resulted to punishing you because they refused to follow a couple simple rules. Your son and his wife are being massively entitled here.”

Another commenter agreed, writing, “DIL is AH for bringing alcohol into your home when it was forbidden. IF DIL couldn’t abide by that rule for a few months, she has a drinking problem, which makes it unlikely she’s spending $300 on a bottle of wine.”

They continued: “I would frankly be amazed if she had a $300 bottle of wine in your home (despite her claim) because people who appreciate fine wine aren’t going to hide it in the attic. There’s a reason people have wine cellars and not ‘wine attics.’”

Other advice followed: “Inheritance is not an obligation (though you should make sure to leave him the bare minimum to avoid anyone else in the will from a lengthy suit that delays distribution). Make sure a trusted 3rd party has the most recent copy of your will and make sure that if it needs to be filed with your city, town, county or locale, that it is filed,” a third commenter wrote.

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