I married my husband more than 50 years ago, when his three children were young. His first wife had left with them and was living with a man she later married. The children stayed with her until the youngest moved in with us at 12. Years later, the eldest, then a graduate student, lived with us for two years. We saw the middle child mostly at family gatherings. He remained closer to his mother and her husband.
My husband was devoted to family and eager to share his grandchildren’s lives. He spent much time with his oldest child’s children who lived nearby, and he visited his youngest child’s children, who lived in a neighboring town. But we rarely saw his middle son’s family. They pulled back after an incident in which hot coffee was spilled on their firstborn. Being shut out deeply hurt my husband. Consequently, I hardly know their children, who are now young men.
When my husband died five years ago, I inherited the house and bank account. I also own a small condominium, bought years ago with my savings. His other substantial financial assets were divided equally among his three children.
My will leaves the house to his youngest child, who hopes to live there, and the condo to his eldest and his spouse, who maintain it. The middle child believes both properties should be sold after my death and the proceeds divided equally among the three children.
I told him he expected an inheritance without fulfilling a son’s obligations. It became clear from our conversation that he considered his father emotionally distant and, as he later told his siblings, psychologically threatening to his children. That, he said, explained their distance. He also said he had tried years ago to discuss these issues with his father, who was unresponsive. Knowing my husband, I believe that is probably true, though neither the son nor his spouse approached me about it.
My ethical concern is whether my will is fair. The house was left to me, but it was marital property, mostly paid for by my husband, whose salary was many times mine. His income also enabled me to save enough for the condo. Should I change my will and divide the property equally among my three stepchildren? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
He left the house to you. It’s yours. How your real estate was paid for makes no difference. If you came to think that your husband treated your middle stepchild badly, this judgment might affect how you choose to divide your own estate. To the extent that you had planned to leave him less simply because you thought he had failed in his filial duties, you could certainly recalibrate as you see fit. But you’re not obliged to set things right between the living and the dead. Your closest relationships appear to be with his siblings and their families, not with him and his. It’s entirely reasonable for your will to reflect that reality.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader whose journal got her into hot water. She wrote:
For a long time, I’ve processed negative emotions by writing in a journal. … After getting married, I started to keep a journal of the fights I had with my husband in a Google Doc on my phone. … During our couples counseling sessions, I started referring to my journal. … I did this because my husband had different memories of our experiences during my first pregnancy. … I told him it was private, but he stole my phone and read through it while I was sleeping. He was devastated by what he read. … It has been over a year of fighting about this, and he’s still not over it. … Was I wrong to keep a journal of only negative things about my partner, to keep it private and to bring it up during counseling sessions? — Name Withheld
In his response, the Ethicist noted:
Breaking into your phone and reading this document was a very serious violation of your privacy. … You don’t say that he ever apologized for that invasion, while you have clearly explained to him that keeping a journal has long been how you process negative feelings. Was keeping this document itself a betrayal, given the purposes it served? Surely not. … Nor was it wrong to keep the journal from your spouse. … You don’t lose your right to an interior life when you get married. What about bringing up the journal during counseling? There was nothing wrong with drawing on contemporaneous notes about how you felt at the time. … Perhaps what has upset your husband is not so much that you recorded these thoughts as that you had them. … Encountering a long record of concentrated resentment may have shaken his understanding of your relationship. … A further reason he keeps returning to it could be that he sees it as an instance in which you are plainly in the wrong. But insisting on winning arguments is a recipe for losing a marriage.
(Reread the full question and answer here.)
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I have been keeping private journals since I was a teenager. I started writing quotes and affirmations in them. Then once I began counseling at 28, my first therapist suggested I write daily. Write whatever you want, whatever comes to mind. Your feelings, intentions. I expressed my emotions, and I stopped ruminating about them. My journal is confidential, private, for no one else but me. I am 62 now and have had many therapists, and they all agree that journaling is one of the best tools one can use to clear your mind. What the husband did was an unforgivable betrayal of trust. He absolutely needs to go to counseling on his own to figure out why he felt he had the right to look at his wife’s phone and to still be fighting with her about it. He was 100 percent wrong, and this is his problem. — Sydney
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Telling your husband that you keep a list of only negative things about him, and that you will only allow him to know the details in the presence of a third party without letting him look at it beforehand, is cruel and unusual punishment. If the writer kept it to herself, that would be one thing, but instead she uses it as a cudgel. Who wouldn’t want to see such a list about himself or herself, especially when the person keeping it is one’s spouse? I wouldn’t want to be with someone who did that and can’t imagine anyone who would. — Mark
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The journal serves as a therapeutic avenue for your thoughts and for keeping track of incidents. Sometimes it is important to have a record of what transpired. Our minds have learned to deal with aspects of trauma by remembering only parts or not the entire story. I’m glad you have a way to document what really occurred. Keep at it, as you may want to refer to this record in the future. — Laura
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The letter writer’s husband got exactly what he deserved for such a breach of trust — the worst of himself writ large. Once he found it, he chose to keep reading. Now, rather than process the hurt and (hopefully) guilt like an emotionally mature adult, he is using it as leverage to harm the letter writer. He does not get to treat the angry thoughts you processed in a healthy way against you just because you are contradicting him in an argument. Hopefully the husband is in individual therapy to work on healthy boundaries and accountability. If not, pause couples therapy until he catches up with you. — Stacey
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When my mother died, we were emptying her home and came across what I thought was a poetry journal. No. The pages I read were filled with vitriol, about me. We had what I thought was a loving relationship — naturally with some conflict over four decades. I didn’t want to read any more, and not only because these were still her private thoughts and reading betrayed that. But that experience continues to devastate me. I wonder why the letter writer — or anybody — needs to keep the record of her anger over a period of years? If the purpose of journaling is to work out negative emotions in order to move on, shouldn’t moving on entail deleting or disposing of these entries after a reasonable amount of time? The risk of exposure always exists, whether by a disrespectful spouse or the people you leave behind.— Renee
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