My Husband’s Will Pits Me Against Our Daughter. What Can I Do?
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Version 0 of 1. My husband and I have been together for many years and have a teenage daughter; he also has a daughter from a prior relationship, who is a grown woman. He is a wonderful father to both. He has covered all my stepdaughter’s expenses from childhood, and her education, including living expenses and vacations. We are not rich but have a good income. He is the main breadwinner. I have no assets or savings myself. Our house was his property when we met, and it remains his main asset. His will stipulates that I can live in the house until my own death if he dies first, but only his daughters actually inherit it. I hope my husband will live another 100 years, but should he die tomorrow, our daughter would have to sell her half of the house to afford the excellent, carefree education her sister is still receiving. My pension would be insufficient, and I wouldn’t be able to find a job that would allow me to support her. In addition, selling the house to provide for our daughter’s education would leave me homeless. When I try to discuss this with my husband, he gets extremely angry. He has even said that for our daughter to have to sell her part of the house would be O.K. I disagree. I would like to create a trust fund or something similar so that if anything happens to him before our daughter reaches full independence, she can have an excellent education while preserving her inheritance. Am I missing something, or would this be the fair thing to do? Name Withheld Preparing for your own death can be unappealing, and your husband’s response, though unhelpful, isn’t unusual. Still, it’s irresponsible not to plan for these contingencies, whether with life-insurance policies or trusts or other arrangements. It’s also a good idea to have a clear understanding with the children as to what the arrangements are. You certainly shouldn’t be placed in a situation where you must choose between your daughter’s welfare and your own. Ask your husband to come with you to discuss these issues with a competent lawyer, and try to reach some consensus on how to plan for this situation. You might even propose couples counseling if he continues to resist. This will, no doubt, make him angry, too. But it will show that you’re serious about settling this properly. Though facing mortality is hard, we don’t buy time by making our deaths especially inconvenient to our loved ones. I am applying for a government job, and I came across the following question: Have you ever been dismissed from employment? Another section provides a space to explain why and where. In my case, I have been dismissed twice in the last five years. The first I have no problem mentioning, as it was because of budgetary constraints and companywide monetary difficulties. The second time is a bit tricky. In fact, I don’t include my employment there on any work history form, application or résumé. Some background: Before my first dismissal I had a long history of job stability in another state. I moved in 2013 and held a job for six months before being hired away by another company in 2014 (higher pay, benefits, location). I worked for a solid year before being dismissed in 2015 by that same company for the reasons mentioned above. I still maintain contact with all my previous employers and was even given permission to job-search at work after being told of the budget cuts, including using my co-workers and superiors as references. I was hired by another organization in 2015, before my time was up at the company, in large part thanks to my work history and those references. This is where my problem begins. I was employed for less than a month before being abruptly terminated. I applied for unemployment benefits and soon received notice that my supervisor at the religious organization had contested my application, claiming misconduct. At the subsequently scheduled hearing, my supervisor failed to show and the ruling defaulted in my favor. My supervisor then appealed the decision and a second hearing was scheduled. At the second hearing my supervisor showed up with the head of the organization and a co-worker. We presented our cases, and soon after I received notice that because of the evidence and testimony I had presented, the judgment was once again in my favor. Here’s the question: I don’t include working there on any form, application or résumé. The questionnaire, however, only asks if I’ve ever been dismissed — full stop. If I include the fact I was dismissed twice, once including a court case, I feel as if that’s a huge black mark against me and essentially immediately removes me from the candidate pool. If I don’t include the second dismissal, I’m afraid that this may also give me problems, namely that it could be unethical, that I’d be lying on a government application. I didn’t have a problem not mentioning it when I was hired at my current job, and that was directly coming off unemployment. Gut instinct says not to, but I’m still unsure. What should I do? Name Withheld You have a perfectly good explanation for both of these job terminations. In the second instance, you have a court’s decision in your favor. A reasonable manager, given these explanations, shouldn’t remove you from consideration. On the other hand, if it ever comes out that you lied on the form — which, let’s be clear, is what you’re considering — they’d have reason to fire you for doing so. (This is an ethical, not a legal, observation.) Go with the truth and an explanation. It isn’t a serious offense to omit from your résumé a brief episode that would require lengthy context. It is a serious offense to lie about something you’ve been asked about explicitly. I have an elderly friend who sold real estate until the market crashed in 2008. Although the market rebounded, she did not. She has no pension or savings and is struggling to live on her modest Social Security check, food stamps and handouts from charity organizations. She is not in the best of health, so getting a part-time job would be difficult but not impossible. I am in my 50s and doing O.K. financially; I saved my money, and I still work. I have helped her out occasionally by buying her necessities and giving her money, but I’m becoming resentful. I don’t think she has done everything to help herself. For instance, she refuses to move to a subsidized apartment or give up her health insurance for Medicaid. She does have a grown son who could help her, but she doesn’t want to ask, because they do not have a good relationship. I have even offered to pay her to do basic bookkeeping for me, but she says she can’t work for a friend. What is my ethical responsibility here? I have real concerns that she could be evicted and end up homeless. I want to be a good person and a good friend, but I don’t think I should have to support her. Suzanne Kolasinski It’s often useful to distinguish between the question “What am I obliged to do?” and the question “What would it be good to do?” What you’ve done for her — offering her work, buying her necessities, giving her money — is what a friend would do, not something you had a duty to do. A lot of what’s valuable about friendship flows from our wanting to do things for our friends; doing them out of a sense of duty is at odds with this idea. The strict answer to your question about your responsibility is that you’ve already done more than you had to. There’s a great deal more that it might be good to do, however. You don’t make it clear whether you’ve actually discussed with her the various ways you think she could be helping herself. You should. Helping her think straight about her situation could be a gift of friendship. She may balk at accepting your advice, as she balked at accepting your offer of work. But it can take a thoughtful analysis by someone who cares for us to get us to accept the realities of our situation. And unless you press these issues with her, your resentment may well poison your friendship. |