Our dad ‘disinherited’ us for new family, now he wants to mend rift

A worried daughter has pleaded for help in an open letter after her father “disinherited” her and her adult brother shortly after their mother died.

Writing to the Washington Post‘s advice column Ask Amy, the internet user explains she’s “confused by anger” after her father moved on with a new partner, named in the letter as ‘Rebecca’, within a week of her mother’s funeral – before allegedly cutting her and her sibling out of his inheritance two years later.

She claims he has now spent it all on ‘Rebecca’ – whose real name is not revealed – and her three children. But 10 years later, following her sad death, he now wants to “mend fences”.

“I begged my father not to do this and told him he’d never see me or my kids again if he married her and disinherited us,” the writer says. “He said he didn’t care and went ahead.

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“Fast-forward to the present. Rebecca has died, and [he] is trying to ‘mend fences’. Meanwhile, he admitted to me that he has spent my mother’s entire trust on Rebecca and her three spawn, so I am out the money I was supposed to get from my deceased mother after my father died.”

She goes on to insist she wants nothing to do with her dad now, and accuses him of betraying his real family for “a bunch of strangers”. While she has since moved on and started her own family with her husband, she adds: “He has dishonoured my mother’s dying wish that he preserve the principal of her trust for me and my family.”

However, the letter got a fairly blunt response from the site. Claiming the woman’s own behaviour had actually contributed to her rage, it reads: “You declared to your father that you would completely cut him off if he married ‘Rebecca,’ and yet one of the things that makes you so angry is that your father aligned with ‘strangers’. Well, if you hadn’t cut off your relationship, these people would not be strangers.”

Read more: Estranged grandpa begs for advice to mend rift – gets harsh response

The site advises her to explore ways of releasing her rage, so it doesn’t consume her, and says restoring some fences may be an opportunity to express her anger, and finally get an apology.

Would you forgive a parent if they cut you out of their inheritance?