Dear Therapist: My Father Died, I’m Doing All the Estate Work, and No One Appreciates Me
8 min read
Editor’s Note: On the last Monday of each month, Lori Gottlieb answers a reader’s question about a problem, big or small. Have a question? Email her at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com.
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Dear Therapist,
My beloved dad died four months ago, leaving me to settle his estate and manage my mom’s affairs. I had no idea what went into closing an estate. Dad had asked me to take on this role more than a decade ago, so getting it wasn’t a surprise—the surprise was its breadth and challenges.
Despite the rigors of this chapter—in addition to my grief over losing my 87-year-old dad—I’ve found it healing to honor the requests he laid out. His primary goal was to take good care of my 84-year-old mom, to whom he was married for 64 years, and to whom I’ve never been close. I’m her middle child and oldest daughter, and she’s told me several times throughout my life that Dad preferred me to her. My older brother and dad never got along. My dad wanted a big-man-on-campus-type son (being a quarterback, showing interest in cars and girls, having a family, playing golf), but my brother has been none of those things. He moved states away after college and has never married. My younger sister also felt unseen by Dad, and skipped town to build and focus on her own family.
I am the “golden child” who never wanted the job. Since his passing, I’ve sold the family home, settled the estate, and moved my mom into the retirement home she’s always wanted to live in. Naturally, this has been a tough transition for her, so I try to visit every weekend to help with errands, doctor visits, etc. My siblings, who are much closer to Mom emotionally, rarely visit her or ask me about the status of the estate (although they’ll inherit a sizable sum in the future). Instead, I get seething resentment. My sister has repeatedly challenged me about the house’s closing price (too low, she believes); my brother called me “the Führer” last week, accusing me of loving my new role. In the meantime, I’m arranging Dad’s celebration of life (no one else stepped up), and picking Mom up at the ER after she’s done an Ambien-inspired walkabout from the home.
I’m exhausted, bitter, and this close to being over it.
Is it possible to honor my dad’s wishes, look out for my mom’s best interests, and salvage my sibling relationships? I love them both, but their lack of support—and inability to see that I didn’t ask for this role—is starting to make me wonder if I need to let the salvage efforts go.
Dear Reader,
The difficulties you and your siblings are experiencing are both frustrating and common. The death of a parent and the financial and logistical decisions that follow can bring deep-seated childhood feelings and sibling dynamics to the surface. That’s what seems to be happening here, and once you understand the emotions at play, you’ll have a better sense of how to decrease the tension and make these relationships more congenial.
Let’s start with the general premise that most people, even in adulthood, have a central question they ask themselves regarding their parents: To what degree, and in which ways, do my parents love me?
In childhood, the answer to this question for those who have siblings is usually inferred through observation and comparison. How does Mom or Dad treat the other children in our house? Are our parents more or less affectionate, doting, present, critical of, delighted by, or displeased with me than they are with my siblings? Do they value the qualities my sibling has over those that I have? Which parent is my ally and can be counted on to have my back? Which parent serves this function for another sibling, leaving me feeling misunderstood and unseen?
How these dynamics play out informs the feelings that siblings bring with them into their adult relationships with one another: lingering perceived injustices; a sense that one child was somehow favored (sometimes birth order or gender lead to differential treatment, even if parents aren’t aware of these biases); or a belief that if one sibling was “easy” while another made things difficult for the parents, the easy one is entitled in adulthood to more emotional or logistical support—or even inheritance—as reparation for the time, energy, and focus denied that sibling while the parents focused on the challenging one.
Keep in mind that while preexisting family dynamics might quietly (or not so quietly) brew beneath the surface for years, when the death of a parent is added to the mix, earlier issues don’t tend to recede—they become amplified by grief, a tectonic event experienced differently by each sibling based on the respective relationships they had with that parent.
In your family, many if not all of you seem to bear unspoken resentment related to your father. If your mom believed that your father preferred you to her, she might have felt resentful toward you, which could account for the lack of emotional closeness you describe. Similarly, you say that your brother and sister felt unseen by your father, which likely caused some resentment on their part, especially when they saw him delight in you. And as much as you enjoyed a close relationship with your dad, you also might have had some resentment toward him for having been placed in the role of “golden child,” giving everyone else in the family reason to resent you.
I’m pointing this out not to blame anyone in your family but to shed light on a pattern that you’re all still dealing with. As you and your siblings process the death of a father with whom you each had very different relationships, these old resentments have become front and center.
But you can break out of your old roles. Your father has passed, your mother is aging, you and your siblings are well into midlife: This time of great change is ripe with opportunity for the three of you to see one another as the adults you’ve become, separate from your childhood identities.
You can start by relinquishing the “golden child” role. You say you didn’t ask for that designation, and if you truly don’t want it, you can dethrone yourself now. Consider that you weren’t the golden child only while your father was alive; by being named his executor, you remain the golden child after his death, and your siblings are reacting to that. When your sister questioned you repeatedly about the sale price of the house and your brother called you the Führer, they were probably feeling as unseen as they felt by your father, but this time by his living proxy—you.
I don’t know what “salvage efforts” you’ve already tried, but you might start by sending your siblings an email that looks something like this:
Dear Siblings,
I know there’s been tension between us since Dad died, and I realize that some of this isn’t new. I’d really like to change this, because I love you both and want us all to have a better relationship. I’ve been thinking about how things have gone in the past few months, and I want to apologize for not including you both in a way I feel you should be. It’s our duty to honor Dad’s written wishes, but I’m not the expert here, and I want to know what’s important to each of you and how you’d like to be involved so we can work as a team. I’ve realized that we’ve all had different experiences in our family, but we have a chance now to create our own relationships as grown-ups. Maybe the gift that will come of Dad’s passing is that the three of us can get to know one another better and become closer as we navigate through this time in our lives.
Can we talk about what matters to each of us and how we can communicate our needs and wishes so that everyone feels included and heard?
Love,
Sister
If your siblings are willing to share their desires with you, you’ll want to do much more listening than talking—and when you do talk, speak from a place of curiosity instead of defensiveness. Keep the conversation present-focused rather than rehashing the past. Notice when your own resentment comes up, and how you can turn that resentment into a calm request, such as “I’m feeling overwhelmed planning Dad’s celebration of life/taking care of Mom, so can we figure out a solution together?” Your siblings might welcome the opportunity to participate more, but if not, the three of you can problem-solve as a team: With the help of the inheritance, perhaps you could hire an event planner, or enlist a friend or other family member to help with your mom’s weekly needs. Maybe the staff at her retirement community has a recommendation for a reliable person who can take on some tasks and lighten your load. Whatever the solution, the most important element is that your siblings’ resentments will decrease because they feel included in the process and that their opinions matter; and your resentment will decrease because you’ll receive fewer criticisms that stem from their feeling unseen. You’ll also be functioning as a unit, so you won’t carry all the responsibility alone.
Ultimately, the three of you will have to make your own peace individually with the relationships you’ve had with your parents. But together, you can make peace with one another as the soon-to-be-oldest generation in the family that you’re becoming.
Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental-health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in part or in full—and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.
