I was a BIC, and was very spiritual and obedient, until I discovered the LDS church was a hoax, about 5 years ago. My last 10 years as a Mormon, I was that single divorced working mother, and I was actually happy and relieved to leave. My children resigned with me.

I left quietly, without arguing with anyone, and continued to live the staight-laced moral life. No one talked about it--except that my brother kept saying snide remarks about me. My mother died first, and my father left everything to my mentally ill brother, who held the Holy Mekiszzdick priesthood and who had served a mission. This was mentioned with pride in Dad's obituary. My children and I were not mentioned, as though we never existed. I cried for months, off and on. But, I kept working, and my children put themselves through college, and we have survived.

We went out of our way to take care of my brother, because that was my mother's dying wish. He was on heavy psychotropic meds, and he could not keep a job, and a few times, he got into trouble for assault. I had to set firm boundaries. We never discussed religion with him, because he was too volatile, and we feared his anger. My brother would tearfully say he felt sorry I was dis-inherited, and he always told us that he was going to leave everything to me and the children in his will. He never married, and had no heirs. The amount would have been enough to change my life, and my children's life. We put up with my brother not because of the money, but because we were told it was the right thing to do. My children never believed we would actually receive anything from my brother, anyway.

Last month, my brother died. Only a few days before his death, our first cousin, who is in my brother's ward bishopric, called me and told me that my brother had changed his will, to give X amount to me, and an undisclosed amount to himself. I said, "Who gets the rest of it?" He said, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." I have an attorney looking into this, but it looks like the church will win. The house in which I grew up, my retirement, the land, the cars, the furniture and paintings from my grandparents' estate--all gone. I am devastated.

The blatant disrespect of us as human beings is more than I can bear. I have lost my whole family, as well as my inheritance. Now I realize what a sham my TBM family was--dysfunctional and fake. They dismissed females as second-class citizens. They were racist, homophobic, and snobby. I have no happy memories of Christmases or vacations--only of cowering in the shadows of the cult and my brother's pathology. I am so full of hate, that I can't put up one Christmas decoration. I'm so sick to my stomach that I can't eat.

I don't want my nasty TBM family to take me down with them! Instead of my kids and grandkids seeing dear Grandma on Christmas Day, and they are going to see Ms. Scrooge, sick with hate and consumed by greed.

Can someone please give me a different perspective? Can someone help me with "forgiveness"? NOT the SWK type of forgiveness, but a way for me to forget, heal, and move on? Is it possible to rise above your upbringing? I feel doomed financially, mentally, and spiritually. Maybe this is what they wanted to do to me all along....

How do I address my theif cousin at the family Christmas Eve party? He is a con man, MLM, wheeler-dealer who borrows money from family members for new businesses that never pan out.

Finally, how does one "officially" dis-own a relative? Unfriend him from Facebook? har-har.

This makes me so so sad. You must feel like an orphan, sweetheart. Sometimes you have to cry and feel sad for yourself and be your own good friend. Ask yourself if you could, what would you do different? Would you stay Mormon and raise your kids in it? Not take care of your brother? You broke the cycle and it cost you something. You are a hero to your children.

consumed by greed. This is a far bigger thing than the money to you and I don't blame you. I'm so sorry this has happened to you.

wow. That's tough.

The only kind of forgiveness I could consider is to recognize that this is something out of your control and therefore, not something you can change.

What is the LDS Church going to do with your furnishings etc.? Is there anything you can salvage?

Feel what you feel, then, let go of your expectations, and the unfairness and go on with your life completely on your terms, totally free of the family that didn't treat you fairly. Maybe there is a silver lining in there someplace.

Somehow, I'm sure you can rise above this, and be more successful than ever before.

The best revenge is living well!

I think you should be so proud of yourself for what you have done. Against all the odds you have made a life for yourself and your children.

You have done the right thing in the face of dismissal and hate. It is time to love yourself--for real. Don't go to the family christmas party. People who treat you like that are not family, I don't care what the bloodline shows.

It's may not be the most joyous holiday, but it can be the one with the brightest future. You know you are strong, look what you have done. Make this holiday the beginning of a new year filled with hope.

It's too soon to forget and forgive, but its not too soon to avoid those that cause the heartache. Stay away from the poisonous people in your life.

Find a few friends with real integrity. Blood isn't everything and sometimes it's worse than nothing.

I wish you all the best.

I am so sad for you. What has happened to you is so wrong. I wish I had words to soothe and heal, but I don't know what they would be. Some family members are so damaging that it makes it difficult to protect ourselves from them. We pay the price. In my own family I have a difficult time sorting out sick from evil, they are so intertwined at times. I am so sorry you have to pay the price for the actions of others.

While I agree with much of what's been said about forgiving and moving on, I'm also curious about your lawyer. Maybe he or she isn't the best person for this sort of thing.

If I were you I would do some serious looking for an experienced, competent lawyer who is used to winning, and then tell them to go after this thing like they mean it.

I know this is jumping to conclusions, but something isn't right. This sounds fishy to me. If your brother told you he was going to leave it all to you and then at the last minute it changed, and he was mentally ill to boot? Huh? Could it be that someone was whispering in his ear? Like maybe your cousin? It sounds to me like you aren't used to fighting for yourself, and if that's true, there's certainly no shame in it. That's why you might consider finding someone who IS good at fighting and let them fight FOR you.

Also, I'm curious as to whether you ever had a conversation with your brother before he died about his wishes about the will, inheritance, etc.

I'm sure there's alot of info I'm not privy to which might render these points moot, but that's just my first inclination.

Don't go to the family xmas party - it doesn't sound like you'd have a good time there anyway.

Can you just spend time with your own children?

I second looking into a good lawyer - it sounds like this cousin scammed your brother and used his position in the bishopric to do it.

Another thought (and WITH the help of your lawyer) threaten a lot of VERY BAD publicity about how the church conned your poor mentally unstable brother and left you with nothing even though you've been looking after him for years. You will probably be able to get them to settle with you out of court - they've done it before in other type of cases. They DO NOT want bad publicity.

I don't see how you could go, be polite to someone who you think scammed you horribly, and remain sane.

On the other hand, it would suck to go, confront him, and have it out at the party. Let your lawyer talk to him.

It's better to just keep your distance until you stop reeling from the shock. Take care of yourself and figure out what to do next.

Playing nice with blatantly toxic people is self-destructive. It validates their treatment of you, teaching both you AND them that it's acceptable.



It sounds like this isn't the first sick thing to happen in your family. Maybe you could celebrate a different way this year. I know some people who had a bonfire on winter solstice and burned stuff they wanted out of their lives.

Thank you all for some very good advice.

I'm relieved that no one got on my case about losing all that money. I did try to reason with my parents. I did love them, and that's what hurts.

My brother told me the night before he changed his will, that he was leaving everything to me and my children. He always brought up the subject, and my kids always thought he was just trying to manipulate us. I saw him two days after he changed his will, and his words made no sense, which was sometimes the norm for him. He died the next day. I feel very guilty, that I let my children down, financially, though being essentially "self-made" has given them a lot of confidence and satisfaction in life. They all have good careers that they enjoy.

Yes, I'm positive that my pushy cousin whispered in my brother's ear. It does seem very strange that my brother would leave pennies to his only sibling, and nothing to his nieces and nephews--and everything to one cousin (we have dozens of cousins) and the church. I have no idea who gets what, or how much. Maybe the church gets pennies, too, and the cousin gets it all. I just found out that my cousin's son got my brother's car. Yes, it is very fishy!

Hmmmmm...if living well is the best revenge, then just living is revenge on a dead person.

I'll get a better lawyer, though I can't really afford one.

I won't go to the family party on Christmas Eve. Getting support from children and friends is a much better idea.

I don't want any more pain. I also don't want to be tainted by grappling in the dirt with evil people, and getting dirty myself.

I feel sorry for everyone who has lost a spouse or child to the cult--that's worse than losing money.

Where's the love? Right here on RFM. Thanks for your good responses!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 12:20AM by motherwhoknows.

Definitely find a top-notch lawyer. If there is enough money at stake, you might find someone willing to work on a contingency. I wonder if your brother was mentally capable (legally capable) when he signed the will.

+1

To RFM: Is there a lawyer in the house?

While I was working very hard and earning good money ,I had a person take advantage of me and I was left in excess of $30,000 poorer..However a good friend said some wise words.

"Never have more money (wealth) than you can walk away from"..

**To some people that is $10.00 or some its $1,000 or some its $50,000. The moral of the story is imagine your father was still alive, thus his money and wealth would not be in your posession anyway **.

Motherwhoknows -- You have lived a wonderful and successful life with your children. Don't let others and their money ruin your life and don't continue to dwell on what might have been. Take your revenge by living a happy and productive life, and don't give them more power to hurt you, than they think they have already.

Walk away with you head held high, and a smile on your face!!

JB

You are stronger than you know. And there are people out there ( all of us here, for instance) who will tell you how proud they are of you. You've been wronged, but I hope you figure out that you don't need those people making you feel small.

You have received good advice above to seek legal representation and challenge the will. The court can override the will of someone who is not legally in their right mind through a claim that there was "undue influence" to affect a change. Do you have a copy of the original will or can you get one? Challenging a will is quite common as long as the will does not have a clause in which all challengers will be automatically disinherited.

Beyond that, I do have some advice to help you. Without going into my whole sad story, I also have a seriously mentally ill son and have suffered tremendous injustice when it came to my inheritance. My expectation was that I would never have to plan for retirement, that there was enough that my sister and I would both be financially secure in our old age.

I took care of my mother for years with no help from my sister whatsoever. But when she developed her final illness, suddenly instead of the hero, I was suspect. My sister became hateful and accusatory, filing one lawsuit after another to block my mother's wishes and challenge her will. Long story short, I simply did not have the money to continue the legal battles and gave up. The money all went down the black hole of nursing home charges (I was too unreliable to take care of mother myself), attorney fees, accountants, detectives, etc.

At first my anger toward my sister was poisoning my own life. I kept wanting to "set the record straight" or "produce the evidence" to prove my innocence. Then I realized that the polarization of the family was what my sister wanted all along. She had always called me "the black sheep" and that was necessary for her to feel ok. Now that she was going to be a divorcee as well, she needed something else to be wrong with me.

I began working on my own attitude because I was truly frightened that I would be lost in poverty and bitterness myself. The first powerful realization I had was that it was my expectation of comfort and security that had been elimination--the EXPECTATION, not the actual comfort or security. What I now had was FEAR. I was still working, so I immediately got a higher paying job and began socking money away. I decided to look to myself for a good retirement plan and I made a Plan A and a Plan B and put the house I owned on the market immediately. This was wise because right after I sold, the economy tanked.

I learned that fears are not facts and began dealing with fear through meditation and reading books by Eckhart Tolle. I was fascinated with his ideas of one self as your Being and the other self--the constantly chattering monkey-mind as not "real" in the same sense as your Being is real. I learned that we are all driven by egoic needs. The need to defend/explain for example, is fueled by the idea that if people just know the FACTS, they will understand me and like me. HAH!

Applying some of these ideas to my anguish over what happened to my future...well, the future never comes, so all those expectations are illusions, aren't they? Why let an illusion about tomorrow ruin today?

This was huge. It was money I never had, no different than my casino winnings in Las Vegas that I never had that I imagined I might have that time I went there and gambled.

Would I have taken care of my mother those years without the expectation of money? Sure--I did that for love, so no loss there. Was I the winner or loser all the years I drove up to my sister's house regularly to see her and she never, ever came to see me? I was the winner! I enjoyed having something to look forward to on Fast Sunday and they always cooked a terrific barbecued chicken. Those were wonderful fun times and I still have warm memories of them, so that's no different.

I continue to love my sister as I remember her and forgive her for the things she's done that eliminated our mutual financial security, because money can't buy a clear conscience. It can't buy the love and devotion of children and grandchildren all eagerly waiting for their Grandma Slippers for Christmas.

Maybe you won't have the land, cars, paintings, etc., but you made some very important decisions in your life that have left you surrounded by children old enough to realize how you saved them. Maybe you'll live in an apartment instead of a house, but having a senior community gives you neighbors near you and you avoid being so isolated.

What I am saying is that reaching the last third of your life with the ability to love and few regrets is FAR more important than having a lot of money. Think of all the people who are rich, famous, can travel wherever they want, and end up killing themselves when their stock portfolio loses value, or when they are foreclosed upon.

Forgive my rambling--your story touched my heart because you have contributed a lot to this board over the years and I've always thought you sound like someone I'd like to have as a friend.

Even though this turn of events is so shocking, it doesn't change who you are and what you stand for. All you can do is stand up for justice and if it does not go your way (the church has far more legal $$ for attorneys than you do and they are experts in bilking the demented and mentally ill who have money)... you still have the ability to be very happy in your life.

(((Hugs)))

Anagrammy

If anyone asks, tell them that you don't feel up to it this year. I agree with the others that I would aggressively pursue the matter of the will. I think you should contest it, given your brother's mental illness and the fact that he changed it so soon before his death. (Check his signature on it, while you're at it.) I wouldn't just roll over about it. There's a time to be nice and a time to fight. Fight, girl!

Forgiveness -- under the right circumstances, it can be a wonderful thing, but it's not what you need right now. See if you can find a way to work out some of your anger. Something where you can thwack a ball hard, or throw darts, or otherwise let out some of your frustration.

You are, and will continue to be, the parent that you always wanted. And you are a very strong woman. You are made of tough stuff. You can do this. You can get through this.

Just browsing--you are right! Your take on things makes me feel better.

That was my father's money.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew my brother was baiting me, because I did not include those hundreds of thousands of dollars in my retirement plan! Actually, my retirement, and my children's future HAS NOT CHANGED. Therefore, we have not been robbed. We have been abused, lied to, scammed, insulted, cheated, but no one has come into our houses or our bank accounts and robbed us.

Thanks for the praise, jazzskeeter. Those people are making me feel very small.

Imaworkinonit wrote: "Playing nice with blatantly toxic people is self-destructive. It validates their treatment of you, teaching both you AND them that it's acceptable." In my sore heart, playing nice is the last thing I want to do. I wouldn't want my children to see that.

This is a predatory practice of the church, "accepting" the remaining personal wealth of dying members as a donation to the church without regard to the survivors.

It's a reminder that the church, fundamentally, is all about money.

The church claims the high ground of an un-paid clergy and a "sacred" regard for the Lord's funds. They pretend to not be hung up about money, and IRONICALLY it's anyone that questions tithing or excessive donations that THEY would say is hung up about money.

My thoughts and good wishes are with you and your children.

Good luck with the legal battle. I seriously hope it works in your favor. Getting the story out in the media might help the cause and force the mormon church to settle.

Take care.

My father did the same thing to me and my sister. He put my parents life savings into my brother's business. My mother wanted to stop the drain but my father could not bear to have his only son fail. It destroyed the family. My mother died of cancer and that left my father and brother to destroy the family.

My sister and I eventually got a token sum, when my father sold the house to my brother, and that was because we fought for it. Even then my father didn't give us what he promised.

My father lied and told my brother that I didn't pay back some money that I borrowed from them, when he knew I paid it back.

Finally, to hurt me, my father sold our family xmas decorations, which he knew meant alot to me and my sister. Then he lied to us and told us that he told us that if we didn't remove them he would get rid of them. He never told us that because we would have taken them. It was a petty thing to do and I had had enough.

I told my father that I wished that he was the one that was dead because if mom was alive she would not have destroyed the family the way that he and my brother did. My father then went and told everyone that I said that I wished that he was dead. He didn't say what he had done, as if I just said that out of the blue.

I can only suggest therapy. I was filled with rage and hate for years. It is now 15 years later and I am finally able to not feel the flare of hate.

The only way is to work through the hate and anger. Find a therapist that you click with, if you don't connect try another.

I am truly sorry for your pain.

Maybe I can tell you a brief story, to let you know that you are not alone.

Now my parents were not TBM, and they didn't dis-inherit me over my lack of enthusiasm for the church, but...

My aunt, who never had children died about 3 years ago. She had lived very frugally and had a heck of alot of money. Some years back she indicated all her nieces and nephews were in the will and would get equal shares of her money. Well, my Mom and her two sisters, got the will when my aunt died and changed it so that the sisters got the money and the nephews and nieces got nothing. My mom has been busy spending the inheritance by gambling out at Wendover for three years now. My never married sister who lives with her is also living it up on the money. My Mom got all ticked off at me and my brother when we asked why the will was not followed. She basically dis-owned me, told me that they (the sisters) had changed it, and that I was a worthless child for even asking.

Anyway, I still have to help take care of my Mom. She acts like nothing has happened now, I guess I'm just supposed to forgive and forget. Except that part is, well, impossible. I try to help her, I try not to think about it, but it is still there.

The only thing you can do, is to try what you can (the attorney, etc.), but put it out of your mind. It will be toxic to your soul to dwell on it. I am sorry for your situation.

Hard to understand why you would still feel that you "have to" help your mother.

Move on. She obviously has nothing but disdain for you.

Let her sisters help her instead.

This happend to me in reverse as I was taken out of the will after I joined the Church. It hurt a lot and my wife and I committed to leave everything equally to our four children no matter what orgs they are members of or what freaks they may be married too. It is our last message to our kids and it will be that we love them all equally. All are healthy and capable.

Through all of this I learned that if I forgive, then the burden is lifted from me. Not easily, but it did help change my focus.

I would see another attorney and have a freeze placed on the estate until it can be sorted out. I would socialize and find out how the Church got involved. I would go with the "he was not mentally stable enough to make that kind of change at the end of his life". They do not like publicity. You can see if the will has been registered to find out when it was written and signed. Make sure it is his signature. Your lawyer may be able to get it. Get a non-LDS lawyer.

You know they are working harder to get older couples to be missionaries. I think many of these are on mormon.org chat line. They probably work from home like the FamilySearch.org help line people. The older farts don't crumble when asked the tough JS questions. I am sure the Church will be or has been going after older couples to leave everything to the Church - kinda goes in line with the committments made in the temple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 11:55AM by Joe Laban.

Sue the cousin and sue the church and don't stop until you get everything that is rightfully yours!!!!!

Like another poster said, get a lawyer that means business, one that is like a bulldog who won't let go until he wins, and then go after that effing cousin and let him know how it feels to lose everything.

Forget about being forgiving and meek, get angry and go after the bastard. There is a time to forgive and a time to fight and right now is the time to fight.

There is no place in your life for forgiveness right now, nobody in this story "deserves" forgiveness and you do not have to forgive that crooked deceitful cousin who STOLE your inheritance and gave half to himself and half to the fucking church that is building a $4 billion dollar shopping mall.

Get angry, and go after that bastard and don't stop until you win!!!!

I'm speechless, after reading the stories of anagrammy, summer, raven, and elcid. The fact that so many of my favorite posters have experienced similar injustices--indicates that Mormon families are very likely to be dysfunctional!

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to write your stories. As you're writing them, it all seems surreal, doesn't it. I'm so sorry you all had to go through that pain, and I'm proud of you for rising above it, and not letting your family devalue you. Part of their strategy is to make you feel unworthy, small, power-less. Crooks win by stomping on other people.

Yes, nasty siblings sometimes want to "polarize" the family. Divide and conquer, right? My evil cousin actually told me some of the dialog between him and my dying brother, and what my brother said to malign me and my children, in his last days. Over the years, my brother and cousin together have delighted in criticizing everyone in the family, and have spread typical lies about apostates and divorced people--and none of them were true. My children are wonderful people, and it makes me sick to hear lies about us. My brother was extremely two-faced, and it is almost impossible to distinguish the lies from the truth, and, as one of you wrote, sort out evil from sickness.

I understand how frustrating it is to always try to explain and justify your motives and actions to others. This often is nothing but a futile waste of energy. People believe what they want to believe, well...a lot of weaker people believe what they are manipulated into believing...right?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 01:21PM by motherwhoknows.

So far, the new will has not been registered anywhere! I'm not sure if there even was a will.

The cousin is not a lawyer. He skipped from company to company, doing freelance work, and "retired" at age 35. He's a con-man who ACTS like a lawyer, a real estate speculator with no license on illegal land, a businessman with no business, a scholar with no college degree, a writer who has never published. I've been doing some research, and have made some discoveries:

My brother had been lying to me for years. There might have not been an official will, drawn up by an attorney, like my brother had told me there was. I can't locate a copy. I can't locate an attorney by the name that my brother gave me, or any attorney that he ever knew. The attorneys in my brother's ward and stake don't know my brother.

Unknown to us, our cousin has been sole executor and sole trustee of my brother's estate, and also has had power of attorney, for several years, ever since my brother's first panic-filled episode with cancer. At that point in time, our unemployed cousin started spending ridiculous amounts of money on cruises, trips to Europe, boats, cars, redecorating his McMansion in Provo, etc.

My children are convinced that our cousin has been living off of my brother's estate for some time. They don't think there's much money left, and therefore, it is no longer in our control. Ironic, but my brother was unemployed, and leeched off my parents' estate, too. If this is common, there's not going to be any money for future Mormon generations.

In a seemingly casual conversation over lunch, I also discovered that this cousin has tried several scams on the other side of his family, as well. Our cousin has told many other proven lies about his employment and business ventures. I know a man to whom he owes money for a failed real estate speculation.

Knowing what I know now, if there's any money left, I will have to hire a lawyer, and fight this crook! It's like discovering the church is not true, and opening that can of worms all over again. Barf.

Sorry to ramble, but instead of being victimized, I am doing something about this--even though it might end up being out of our control. At least, I'll know one way or the other, and will act accordingly. I feel better already.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 02:58PM by motherwhoknows.

NO NO NO Motherwhoknows --You must let go if it NOW --If you do not it will consume you with thoughts of what might have been ..!! Just accept it that your cousin is just a WANNABEE !!! I wannnabee rich I wannabee accepted etc..Be extremely careful, because after a while he may see you and your bank accounts as another stream of revenue.

Judging by his history there will be very little left of these inheritances or accounts. -- These type of people have a propensity to go through money at an alarming rate, knowing that there is always another "Mark" that they can hit on..

LET IT GO NOW !! **IF YOU WRESTLE WITH A PIG IN MUD -- YOU GET DIRTY, AND AFTER A WHILE YOU REALIZE THE PIG IS REALLY ENJOYING IT""

JB

If you already were in your brother's will and your lawyer/bishop cousin influenced him during his dying days to change the will in favor of himself and the church, you may have a good case.

There was a conflict of interest.
Perhaps a lawyer can take this case on consignment.

A lawyer leaning on a dying person to change their will does not usually go over well with the courts.

Boy, this makes me glad I was an only child!! :O
Speaking seriously now, I can't add any more to what's already been said, and never having had to go through something like this, I can only empathize as best I can.
I'm so glad you have the support and encouragement you need here at RfM. I also hope you make the most of whatever legal recourse you have and I agree with what others said. TIME TO PLAY HARDBALL!!
Sending you my best wishes and a hug :D

A court order will prevent the sale of the house and property.

Her lawyer needs to go to court on the double and get all assets frozen until the matter is resolved.

I'm in somewhat the same situation you are. A sum of money has been left to my multiply-convicted pedophile brother, and although I've tried every legal avenue I can find to break my mother's will it won't work. She left him some because...you know, that's what you do. He's her only son and all, and maybe, just maybe he'll come around and be a super-spiritual priesthood holder and all. Not. But she wanted to believe that so badly. It makes my head explode that he's going to get this money, set up shop again when he's released, and instantly start offending again. My mother tried to do the "right thing" and what she was counseled to do by the church - what a disaster.

I swear to God--I am not making this up. I, too have a brother who is a pedophile! More later.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 04:17PM by forestpal.

You definitely should have the services of an attorney who specializes in contesting wills. I don't know where you live, but as an example I did a google on "attorney contesting will salt lake county utah". You should substitute the county where your brother lived at the time of his passing.

Here is the link to a result from that search. I know nothing about this attorney, but I am simply showing you this for general information purposes.

http://www.mgpclaw.com/Other-Specialized-Complex-Disputes/High-Stakes-Probate-Litigation.shtml

Most attorneys will provide you with a free consultation of 15 to 30 minutes so you can discuss your situation. I suggest that you have a free consultation with at least three (maybe more, depending on the results) attorneys, and then choose the one that best fits your needs and shows the greatest expertise.

Good luck to you.