1. Demanding Money
TimeyWimeys has a story about their stepfather trying to grub their inheritance. “My mother died, and I ended up being the fifty-fifty beneficiary with the other half being my stepfather. My stepfather mentioned that my mother had a lot of debts and asked if I’d be willing to help with some of them. Being more than a little naive and thinking it would be, at most, 5k, I said, sure, how much do you need? The first quote he gave me was 25k, and it wasn’t that substantial of an inheritance I received. I was pretty flabbergasted and backed off a bit to say I needed to think about it. However, every time I inquired again, wondering if he’d rethink his actions, the number he asked for kept climbing. Then the requests turned into demands.
“Now I don’t talk to my stepfather at all. The final number he demanded was more than what I received in the first place. And I was not a rich, well-established person with a career at the time. I was 21 and still very much struggling to find my way after having been essentially driven out of the home. He hadn’t been my abuser; I had kind of held out hope at the time that, even though he stood back for most of the abuse, he wasn’t that bad of a person. It took me several years to realize just how f***ed up it is to demand the inheritance money of the poor, struggling, abused child of your dead spouse.”