After I'm gone

[trytrytry]

I have a DD28 with many of the characteristics of BPD and of Bi-polar.  She will refer to herself as bi-polar.  She has a history of cutting/unstable relationships/little follow through/ wrecked cars/wild emotional swings and immaturity.  She has lived with boyfriends on and off for the past 3 years, and is currently in school and may pass 1/2 of her classes.  She has taken out loans to go to school, and has not been good with money historically.   She does not qualify for any financial or medical help.  She has also relied on drugs and alcohol to medicate herself, and still wants to be the "party girl".  She has gotten better over time- somewhat

I also have a reliable and mature DD25 who has no mental illness.  She lives on her own and works hard to support herself.

Question:  I am a single parent (dad has no financial ability to help), and my only asset is my house.

Right now I've left the house to both girls 50/50 in a Living Trust.  I'm thinking that maybe that's not such a good idea.  There is no one else in our family.

Any of you have experience with this?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[chooselove]

That is a really good question and one I'm grappling with, too.  My daughter has made it abundantly clear she feels entitled to our home right now with us still quite alive. I don't think she is capable of taking care of it. Every place she has lived has been left in ruin and filth.  I'm thinking of the hell we might leave for others to give them equal say over things. One idea is to let your other daughter inherit the house (if she wants it) and get a life insurance policy on yourself that names the BPD daughter as the recipient.  There is the chance she'll blow through the money but at least the other daughter will be spared the partnership of co-owning the house with her.

I'm interested in what others can offer up.

[parent of bpd daughter]

I am further along in my decision - since my husband died 10 years ago - I had to re-write all the paperwork and wills.

My BPD daughter will get nothing - I have given her about $50,000 total POST COLLEGE and I paid for her college too. Over her lifespan - I have sunk a lot of hard earned $$ into a human being that will never be able to feel, empathize or give back to society in any way, so I am no longer guilt ridden about it. I made a conscious decision to leave nothing to her when I die.

I will leave all to my 21 yo daughter and have set it up in a trust and will continue to work with lawyers to make sure they represent her interests when I die. Her BPD sister will undoubtedly create massive drama at being left nothing, and I will ensure my healthy 21 yo daughter has legal representation and a support system setup to weather the storm when I die.

Luckily the BPD is legally married, so her spouse has the onus of long term care so the 21yo won't be saddled with that burden as her only next of kin that will remain.

Giving money to a BPD is the most illogical thing anyone can do and I know that now. It's actually more harmful to give them money than to leave them be. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

[trytrytry]

Thank you both for your replies.  A wonderful thing about this board, is we can learn from other people's experience!  Chooselove, I hadn't thought about an insurance policy-  That might just work.

On the other hand, as Parent of a BPDdaughter so aptly put, sometimes giving them any money can be more harmful. 

Hopefully, I'll live a good while longer, and can watch and see.  I would hate to saddle my non with a battle after I'm gone.  I'm sure they would need to sell the house, divide the money and go their individual ways.  At this point, my BPDDD may then proceed to kill herself w/ drugs/alcohol, etc.

I always had a dream that the house could stay in the family somehow. So much for dreams, eh?

[co.jo]

I know the laws are different in each country, but here was my experience in Canada. We adopted a boy whose bio Mom has schizo-affective disorder. She has contact with our son, but has a difficult time with money. His bio grandma had cancer, and consulted many lawyers to make her will stand strong. She wanted to leave 1/3 each to my son's aunts., and 1/6 to his Mom and 1/6  in trust for him. Unfortunately, bio-Mom contested this as she didn't think it was fair. Sisters ended up giving in, because otherwise all the money would have ended up going to lawyers and court.So he never got his share.

I don't know what she could have done differently, but it did not turn out the way she wanted.

[Pizzas123]

This has really got me thinking, as it's something my husband and I have worried about a lot the past few years - AND we've done nothing about it.  My DD has all the BPD problems mentioned... . her brother, our son, is responsible, hard working, etc, asks for nothing, and we have give our daughter FAR more over the years than our son.  Plus, we own a business and several properties.  Right now, we have it where everything is divided equally.  Not only is this not fair, given all our daughter has recieved from us, but it would be terrible to saddle our son with his unstable sister in business and property ownership.  We had better change a few things, for our son's sake.  Thanks for getting me to think about this again!

[trytrytry]

Dear Pizza123,

I'm only sad that we need to make these decisions at all. Although I do try to use the tools presented here and in my 12 step programs to make the best of it all, it's sure not what I signed up for when I became a parent.

I'm thinking more and more about the Insurance Policy idea.  I feel like I need to leave her something, even though she has had more that her share so far.

[chooselove]

I wonder if the insurance policy can be left to someone other than the BPD who would then be instructed to use it only for maintenance and upkeep, i.e. rent, utilities, car payments, etc.  May not be able to do such a thing when they are not minors.   And imagine what the BPD would put the executor through!  Have to be an individual with a very secure temperament.

[PaulaJeanne]

In the US you couild do that. You make the beneficiary of the life insurance a trust for the benefit of the adult child with BPD. A lawyer would have to set up the trust, and it would cost some $$ to do so. You'd also have to assign a trustee. I'm  in the process of doing this for my kids. I wouldn't make my non BPD-daughter the trustee... . that would put her in a difficult spot. I plan to ask my younger sister, and then a nephew who is an attorney as successor trustee.

[chooselove]

Very helpful, thank you, PaulaJeanne.

[mggt]

This is such a good topic a couple of years ago we were going away so we wrote up a quick will with a lawyer

giving everything to our BPD dd when she turns 25 .  At that time we hoped and thought maybe she would be

better but highly doubtful .  We have two executors family sister and sister in law .  Not sure if that is fair to either of

them.  We now have a gd toddler and our dd is our only child we had told the first executor to sell our house and only

give money to dd when she needed it so basically she would have to babysit all assets until our dd turned 25.  Our dd

is terrible with money so we are sure it would be all gone within months even if waited till she was 25 years old.  I think

we will have to decide to have the lawyer be the executor and have him/her dole out the money as needed .  We will

have to pay him/her to do all of this.  Our thought was as soon as we pass sell our house and buy her a small condo

in cash so she will always have a place to live and give her money as needed but now gd is involved so we have

alot of thinking to do and make sure it is all spelled out in black and white .   

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[lever.]

We have been thinking about this and had more or less decided to split things into quarters. One for DD! One for her children One for DD2 and one for her children . I have been upset today.

Some of you will have seen my posts on carefully trying to repair relationship with DD1. I have got to a point of very low contact.

I e-mailed today to tell her that DH (her Dad) is in hospital. The reply, you had best make a will leaving me out because if the w***er drops dead and leaves anything to me I will only give it away.

Is this illness or just nastiness? Do I take her at her word?

She has hurt me again when I feel upset anyway.

I'm not responding until the emotion dies down.

I have been continuing to read and send love to all you lovely ladies. I suspect my posts are being read so I have not been posting often, but I am following your stories and learning from your experience

[Pizzas123]

I am sorry, lever, for her hurtful words, especially at a time when you need support and kind words.  Someone said that her cruelty may stem from fear.  Maybe that's true.  I sometimes wonder, like you, if my daughter's words are from her illness, or just that she is a spoiled, nasty person. 

Sorry, I never seem to have a solution, but I do send warm thoughts and hugs to you.  Hope your husband is ok!

[trytrytry]

Lever,

So sorry to hear-Such a hurtful response to a already difficult situation.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Best wishes

[GaGrl]

In the US you couild do that. You make the beneficiary of the life insurance a trust for the benefit of the adult child with BPD. A lawyer would have to set up the trust, and it would cost some $$ to do so. You'd also have to assign a trustee. I'm  in the process of doing this for my kids. I wouldn't make my non BPD-daughter the trustee... . that would put her in a difficult spot. I plan to ask my younger sister, and then a nephew who is an attorney as successor trustee.

Absolutely.

My DH is a financial advisor and runs into these types of questions/situations frequently.  He has had clients whose disordered/addicted children sucked $$$ from parents until no retirement funds were left and the only asset was a house.  What to do?

You would really need the services of both a financial advisor and a lawyer -- one to look at the financial options and the other to draw up the legal docs to set up trusts.

One of my DH's clients left 50% directly to one (healthy) daughter and 50% in trust to another (disordered) daughter.

[RockLady]

Hi, I'm a newbie to this site but not to BPD.  Much thanks to peaceplease and jellibeans for their warm welcome.

My dd is 26 and lives with her father and me.  Her os31 is nonBpd, happily married, self-sufficient. dd26 has no relationship with os due to jealously, distorted memories, etc.  dd26 is on SSDI and I am representative payee.

We have consulted with financial advisor and lawyer regarding asset distribution but have done nothing yet.  We were told a Special Needs Trust needs to be set up to protect dds benefits.  The problem we have run into is someone to manage the trust.  It would be so unfair to give the responsibility to od but I am worried about the honesty of a non-family member.  We were given an idea to pursue.  The financial advisor works for a large religious based company that has outstanding ratings.  That company has a whole dept that manages trusts.  It was suggested that we use a service like this and have od as a consultant.  She would not have to manage the trust, she would just advise on spending above normal allotted expenses.  We are mulling this idea around.  The cost through this organization is not as expensive as using lawyers, banks, etc.  I am not going to name the organization but the idea might be worth investigating for some of you.

RockLady

[qcarolr]

My dh and I are doing new wills with a special needs trust as a seperate document for each of our girls. Our gd8 that we are guardians for and BPDDD27. I have just read the drafts today. So our wills pour over into these trusts equally after we are both gone. The trusts can become active any time so any other family members that want to offer help for either girl can put assets into the trusts as well. They are set up to limit any interference with public or private benefits for the 'girls'. Our wills treat gd as if she is our child in all ways.

We have named a list of siblings to act as trustee with the lawyer firm named if no one else wants to do it.

We were very fortunate that they gave us a very low rate to do new wills and 2 trusts. They had done our wills several years ago with provisions for a trust just for DD.

Gives me some peace of mind.

qcr

[jeb]

Since I am divorced and live mainly on an inheritance plus a little money tutoring, I updated my will at the same time that I was getting my divorce in 2011.  At the moment everything is split evenly between my dd25 and her nonBPD brother as this is how my parents treated my brother and I.  I want to be fair.  Now I have no idea what my ex (especially as he is remarried) has done with respect to a will and that is really none of my business.  I too look at the amount of money she takes; I am lucky ex is paying because he has a job but it is costing him tens of thousands every year for her but my very frugal son comes to us for nothing.  I understand it is hard to know what to do when one child seems to have gotten more that his or her fair share because of this wretched illness and yet I say to myself if my dd25 had some form of physical illness which required expensive care would I feel that my son was going to be cheated.  I kind of think now that we have to realize that this is not an illness that they chose to have and so maybe she should not be punished in my will, but it is worrisome to think that the BPD recipient will blow through her money in no time. I once asked my lawyer about setting up a trust but he told me that the amount I would be leaving would not make it worthwhile.  I may consult him again  because dd25 had not been formally diagnosed at the time I made my will and see if there is some way the money can be doled out over several years or starting at a certain age. I do agree with everyone that this situation poses quite a challenge.










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