Transformer
Well-Known Member
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Help! My Siblings Squandered Their Trust Funds. Now They Want Mine.
They say it’s what our parents would have wanted.
Dear Prudence,
My parents died when my siblings and I were very young. Their estate was divided equally into three separate trusts for our education. Anything left over after graduating would be paid out when we turned 25. I watch my siblings squander theirs by failing out of college, renting needlessly expensive apartments, and getting pregnant twice. While they’re doing all right now, neither had anything left in their trust by their 25th birthdays. I applied for multiple scholarships, lived with roommates, and worked through school. Even with my master’s degree, I still have more than half my trust left. I turned 25 recently and have been planning to buy a house. I mentioned this to my brother, who was surprised to learn I had enough money left to do so. My sister was more than surprised. She was furious and called me to rant about the “unfairness” of it all. She felt “cheated” that her baby sister might buy a house before she did, because she needed it more as a single mom!
I guess I threw fuel on the fire by reminding her that we had the same opportunities but made different choices. Somehow that turned into me looking down on her kids and hating my nephews. Since then she has roused the rest of the family against me. I “owe” her and my brother financial help, because apparently that’s what our parents would have wanted. I blocked my sister’s number after she demanded I give the rest of my trust to her kids, “the grandchildren our parents would have wanted.” I told her it was laughable to consider that our parents would be happy about their daughter getting pregnant at 20 and dropping out of school. She called me a *****. Everything is falling apart now. I feel hunted. What do I do?