Family, what does it mean to you?

Blood is thicker than water, so the saying goes.

My disabled partner of many years and I, who lived at a distance from my original family home, were unable to help my brother move my very elderly mother on the day she had arranged to go into residential care, as my partner suddenly had to go into hospital.

It was a worrying time, so it was a while before I discovered that my sister in law had taken and sold many items of sentimental value( which it had been agreed by both my parents at a meeting involving all of us) should come to me.After my mother's death, I discovered she had also appropriated all her jewellery, which included items which had belonged to both my grandmothers, neither of whom she had known.As these were items mentioned in my mother's will,I was told by the solicitor that I could have been made this a matter for the police.

My sister in law never went out to work after she and my brother married, but expected him to provide a high standard of living, which he told me (on the quiet) was sometimes difficult.I was not going to add to his problems.What money remained after our mother's death was shared equally between the two of us- but I still regret the loss of items which reminded me of happy times in my childhood home and in the homes of my grandparents.The 'wealth' in this regard were my memories.These were not shared or valued by my sister in law.

It may not surprise you to know that I now have difficulty thinking of my sister in law as family!

I think my DH and 2 SiL handled the sorting of their parents' estate appropriately. The 3 of them got together to divide up what was not specifically allocated in the wills. Neither I nor my 2 BiL participated. That is the way it should be.

However, in our family, a new issue has sprung up: stepchildren. My elder SiL died not long after her parents. All her estate went to her much older husband, a widower with grown up children who had never shown any affection or interest in their stepmother(She had MS).They, in turn, have inherited all of their father's estate( our elderly BiL)a huge chunk of which actually belonged to my SiL or had been inherited from her parents. The rest of our family thought this was wrong.

Our own eldest daughter has a stepdaughter of 16.. The girl lives with her mother. We have no relationship with her despite many attempts to develop one. We are now trying to see how, when we die, we can prevent our daughter's share of our estate to pass on to the stepdaughter( they have no children of their own). We would like it all to go to blood or adopted descendants , not to someone with whom we have never had a relationship.

Tricky...and families are nothing, if not complicated.

DH and I have been married for 33 years (he's almost 10 years younger than me, and MIL (84) is like a big sister). He and I are both only children. I have 2 estranged daughters from previous marriage and a son who lived with MIL for some years as a kid. She (understandably) has left everything to DH, abut doesn't want any of her estate to go to my DDs, which is agreed, but DH is severely disabled and doesn't expect to make old bones, so I'm likely to inherit everything within the nezt few years. I'm a canny Scot and save far more than I spend, so anticipate that DS will get her house and quite a healthy inheritance, but still feel that any GC should get a share of what I have put aside from my estate. Of course you may not be officially "family", but DH should certainly keep you in the loop - you may be able to keep the peace in the event of any unpleasantness.

My sister in law who despite my mums attempts was never close to her and though she lived 5 minutes walk away never popped in to see her even when she became frail and confused. when mum had to go into nursing care and the house needed to be sold she came round and helped herself to what little jewellery mum had, including her wedding g ring. I had Not touched anything as I assumed, wrongly, my brother and I would do this together. Have to say I was shocked when I asked about it, and After some debate I eventually got her jewellery back, but the other personal items she took were never returned.

My ILs are lovely, I'm treated like "real" family, I'm a "real" aunty not "aunty in law" to the kids cousins

But no way would I butt in to the divvying up of sentimental family things if anything happened to my PILs.

I'm with your OH's family on that. You can't go back in time and be brought up by their parents, you may be "full family" but you did only join the family as an adult.

My DM has left a list of small items which she wants to go to friends, there is only myself & my DD & everything is shared equally between us apart from some "sugar sifter spoons" which are DD's. I already have silver tray which I bought for my Parent's Silver Wedding & there is a Mabel Lucy Atwell baby bowl which we have all used which I have told DM I would like. There are some books & prints which hopefully I will get as they have a connection for me (Artist is Half-Brother to my 1st H & is a well known water colour artist - we always had a good relationship).

Everything else is to be sold, Charity or "dumped" as we wish & House is to be sold. So glad it's only the 2 of us to sort it out

Catlover, as a wife I am not a member of husband's family. The number of years married has no tie to who is family.