Hi Jacque: Your book and emails have been so helpful to me over the last couple years, and I’m happy to report that I’m getting married next month to a wonderful, wonderful man (who happens to have two young sons). Thank you for sharing your wisdom and compassion and helping me feel comfortable with the unexpected path toward stepmotherhood that my life has taken!
I do have a question for you that I’d love to see addressed (and love to get other stepmoms’ feedback on). My fiance and I haven’t had a conversation about wills, and as much as I don’t want to be thinking about that right now, it does seem like something we should do once we’re married. So I’m curious: how do most stepfamilies handle inheritance issues? My assumption is that most married couples who have children together only pass on an inheritance to the kids once both parents have passed away. Is that the norm with married couples when stepkids are involved, too? If – God forbid – something were to happen to my fiance, the last thing I’d want is to end up with financial difficulties or to start fighting with the ex about how much the kids should be getting. I certainly would want to fulfill my fiance’s goals as far as funding his kids’ college educations, but I’m not sure if/how that should get codified in a legal document. What should we be thinking about as we start talking about wills?
Congrats on your upcoming wedding! You are so smart to ask about this. Estate planning is a challenge no matter when you discuss it, but it is absolutely critical. And just because you get things down on paper now, remember there is plenty of time for you to change things later on if your heart or your circumstances change. I HIGHLY recommend finding a professional estate planning attorney to help you do this. Make sure to ask if they are experienced with stepfamily issues and you can educate yourself beforehand with some of Marjorie Engel’s wonderful work on stepfamily financial issues.
Instead of guessing, work with a financial planner, also well-versed in stepfamily matters, who can help you determine the amounts of life insurance you’ll need, retirement, college savings, etc. Just going through the process of working on all of this is a wonderful way for you and your partner to work through some of these challenging issues. If you have children from a previous marriage or you have a new baby together, you’ll need to discuss how you both want to take care of your children.
You make an assumption here that assets are only left to the children once both parents have passed away. Though that certainly does happen, it’s not always the case. In a stepfamily, if dad dies before you do, things can get extremely complicated. This is the stuff legends are made of. You need to be taken care of but dad might want his childrens’ needs addressed as well. Some divorce decrees state that a portion of or all of Dad’s life insurance will go to his children directly or to support his children. What does your husband’s (or your) divorce decree state?
You have no legal relationship to the stepkids when Dad is living or when he’s gone. We found out that in Minnesota if my husband and I both died in a car crash, the state makes the assumption legally that my husband died first. That means his assets are transferred into my estate, which means that our biological daughter would inherit everything and my stepchildren would get nothing of their father’s estate, UNLESS we specify our inheritors in our wills or set up a trust to handle the life insurance payouts.
SO. To answer your question. It is CRITICAL to have your estate planning done when you’re in a stepfamily. Though it can be extremely difficult to have the kind of conversations you’ll need to have to get this done, just imagine how much harder it would be for the people you leave behind if you don’t do it. ICK. Plus if you don’t have a will or trusts set up to transfer your assets to the next generation, the government will step in and try to do it for you. You’ll estate will go into probate so the loved ones you left behind will have to pay to have the government tell them what it thinks you wanted to do with the money.
Not good. As I’ve mentioned in past articles and in my book, the laws are different in each state. Have I scared you yet?
I had a brief conversation about legal issues in a Stepmom Circles podcast with Stepfamily Law Expert Margaret Mahoney. It is in the archive so you can find it here.
All right, my ladies. Let’s discuss! Do you have a will? Have you looked at it recently? How do you work through some of emotional landmines with your partner?
A new Stepmom Circles Podcast is ready! When I first began researching stepfamily life so I could write my book, I came across Dr. Margorie Engel. At the time she was the president of the Stepfamily Association of America, which is now the National Stepfamily Resource Center and we talked then about stepfamily money issues. I recently interviewed Dr. Engel again and we talked for hours about all the things that stepfamilies face when it comes to money: saving for college, insurance, estate planning and much, much more. This podcast is the first in a series of three. She also generously gave us documents to help guide our discussions of these topics with our families.
Becoming A Stepmom 