Advice and Wisdom - Family Issues 02

Hi, I'm Doug Noll, and this is Advice and Wisdom, and thank you for joining me. For the next hour, I will be happy to answer your questions about life, relationships, money. Tonight we're going to talk about family relationships, and as you know if you registered, um, I opened up a new email called questions@adviceandwisdom.com so that people could submit questions that they'd like me to talk about before the show. And of course, the purpose of Advice and Wisdom is, is for you to ask questions and get information about life questions from hopefully a source of information that's unbiased and hopefully trustworthy. I am a lawyer, but I'm not going to be giving legal advice. Specifically because I can't do that as a lawyer. But my hope is that through these free webinars I can help you navigate the difficult questions of life that you might have where you really don't know who to turn to to ask for help. And I'm hoping that as time goes on, more and more people will learn about these webinars and feel free to tune in and help people. That's really what my life is all about—service to humanity. Tonight I thought we would spend time talking about family issues, and the first question that I got that I thought was quite interesting is, Dad has passed away. The stepmom is still alive and is widow. She's 87 years old. She says that everything is in joint tenancy, and do I have a right to see a will? So the question, the real question is What do we do in a situation where parents are passing and they haven't really shared with us what their estate plan is, if any? And of course, we have a couple of, you know, people have a couple of concerns at a couple of different levels on this because one, they may be entitled to the estate. Two, they may be required to administer the estate unbeknownst to them if they're named as an executor in the will or the trust, or a trustee in the trust. And also, if there's any wealth to be passed on, that's going to presumably go on to the children if the parent— the parents, in the law we call them the decedent— has designated them as beneficiaries of the estate. So the first general question is, how do I know if I have a will? And I think that it is a responsibility of adult children when they're dealing with elderly parents to ask that question directly of mom and dad. And I know it's difficult, but you really have to understand what is there legally in place in order to know whether you have a will. Now, if your parents say, "No, I don't have a will," or, "No, I don't want to answer that question," then the only way that you might have A right to the will under most jurisdictions is if you are named as a beneficiary. All beneficiaries of wills or trusts are to be notified that they're beneficiaries so that they have a right to see the will and work with it and to understand what their rights are under the will. And likewise, if a will exists and the estate is large enough, it must be administered through a court process known as probate. And if a probate is filed in the county where your parent passed away, you can check court records on a regular basis. Most courts are now online, so you can do it online to find out whether or not a will has been filed with the court and probate has been administered. That's kind of a long roundabout way to do that, and sometimes you'll need some legal assistance to get that done. But that's really how you can find out if you have a will. Now, in some cases, the property can be of your father or mother. In this case, it sounds like it might be in joint tenancy, and generally what that means is that when people hold property in joint tenancy, the survivor gets title to the property. And then the question becomes, well, what happens when that person passes? If that person doesn't have a will, then there's a whole process of intestate administration. Intestate meaning that there's no will or trust in place, and there are procedures by which estates can be administered that way. Obviously, an intestate administration is a little bit more difficult. It can be more costly. It can be procedurally more difficult, and you definitely require a lawyer to help you help understand that process. So it's always best to have— to see that your parents have some kind of estate plan in place if they're willing to do that. And this raises a whole bunch of other issues around other siblings being involved in the process, confidentiality of finances, the potential for elder abuse and fraud. I mean, there's just a whole series of issues that arise, and of course the more value there is to the wealth of the family, the greater the possibility that there's going to be problems with siblings or creditors or other people. So generally speaking, if you have elderly parents and you don't know whether or not they have an estate plan and they are reticent to tell you, then there's not much you can do. However, if there's a lot of wealth involved, you probably need to consult an attorney for an hour or two and get some good solid legal advice on what you can specifically do to make sure that your rights are protected if you have any. So it can be a little tricky and obviously very delicate, but I think that parents don't like to talk about their finances with kids, and especially as they get older and maybe they're approaching the end of life, the conversation becomes even more difficult. But you can explain to them that this is just a part of life and to protect them and to protect their assets. At least you should know whether or not they have an estate plan in place. And I think that's about the best I can do on that one. So number 1, ask them. If they refuse to tell you, then upon passing, just check the court records every couple of weeks to see whether or not a will has been probated. If it hasn't, and there's a surviving spouse, then you need to talk to the surviving spouse and see what he or she is going to plan to do to administer the estate and at least help them find a lawyer to help them do that because there are legal requirements for taking on wealth from a person who's passed away even if there is no will in place. So it gets a little legally complicated and So that's when you really need to find a pretty good probate or estate lawyer to help you, give you some basic advice at the beginning. And I can't get into much more detail than that because I don't have any more facts, but hopefully that will give you a sense and guidance of where to go on. Here's a great one. How do I deal with a difficult mother-in-law? How do I deal with a difficult mother-in-law? Okay, so this is probably one of the greatest challenges of a marriage, is working with a mother-in-law who is hypercritical, wants to micromanage, who says you, you're never good enough as the spouse, the daughter or the son, you're never good enough, and is just a real pain to be with. Well, there's no real easy answer to this question. It's pretty much basic conflict management 101. First of all, if it's really difficult, then you want to keep your visits to a minimum and not— and when you go in, understand that your needs are not going to be met and do not expect your needs to get met. Expect and plan for button-pushing and reactivity and triggering by comments made by the in-law, the mother-in-law, because she's pulling a power trip on you and it's probably unconscious. So you're going to have to be very centered going into any, any time you're going to be in the presence of this mother-in-law and be Be prepared and expect to be insulted and disrespected. There's just no way around that. Now, if you want to try to go a little further, you can try the foundational skill that I teach, which is core messaging and affect labeling, and see whether or not that works. Although sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't work, so it's really hard to say. You can also talk to your spouse about the problem And you can have a conversation, hopefully, that remains loving and respectful about the fact that the mother-in-law is being difficult. I find in working with families that the problem becomes more difficult as the mother-in-law gets older. But it's really— oftentimes the difficulty posed by in-laws is caused by fear of loss, a desire to control, resentment over the spouse, and not feeling loved or appreciated. And this all manifests itself into behavior that most of us would find to be at best disrespectful and at worst intolerable. Unfortunately, we can't change people's behaviors, and if we try to change their behaviors, all we're going to do is create more conflict. So the only thing you can really do is control what's inside yourself and keep the contact minimal and as civil and light as possible. Watch for the triggers. Figure out what— you'll see the repetitive behaviors. You'll see the same criticisms over and over again. Pay real close attention to what those criticisms are. And to the extent possible, without getting reactive, try to be as kind and as gentle and as gracious as you can. That won't probably result in a change in behavior, but it'll make you feel better because at least you're taking the moral high road and the behavioral high road when you're working with a difficult in-law. And it's, it's very, very, very challenging. As long as— to take a few words out of Aleya's book— as long as you love yourself and you have a deep inner connection within yourself, and as long as you respect yourself and are centered in yourself, there's really nothing else that anybody can do to knock you off center. So fundamentally, if all else fails, go listen to Aleya's meditations about how to get centered in yourself and take some of her courses to learn how to do that so that the triggering events that the mother-in-law presents to you are or diminished at the most. So I'm going to scan the chat room. Oh, this is kind of off topic, but I thought it was a really good one, and because I can talk to it at a, at a broader level. It's really not on family, but it's about on life. So I got an email from a lawyer yesterday who wrote to me at questions@adviceandwisdom.com and basically said that She had been in practice since 2003. She was basically getting laid off of her job because her company or firm had been sold. And she is totally burned out on being a lawyer and totally stuck. What do I do? This is a problem. I want to talk about lawyers first and then talk about the broader problem of burnout and finding joy in life. As it turns out, 50% of the lawyers who enter the practice of law are no longer practicing law 10 years after practice. Burnout in the law is really, really high, and the stress and the unhappiness in the practice of law is also very high. So it's not unusual for somebody who's been in practice for 10 years, 2003 to 2015, call it, call it 12 years, would be feeling this sort of stuff. There's not a lot about the law that these days that lends itself to great satisfaction. I mean, look at me. I practiced for 22 years and finally left in 2000 to do something completely different. But the question is, what do you do? And let's suppose you're not in law, but you maybe you're in medicine, or maybe you have some other career where you're feeling stuck and burned out. Well, obviously you have to balance a couple of things. You gotta balance finances because maybe you have kids to raise, maybe you have a spouse to support, you got a big mortgage to pay, maybe you're looking at college education down the road. So finances becomes important. On the other hand, cutting your life expectancy short because you're stressed out in a job that you hate is also stressful. And finding the balance between finding fulfillment in your work and finding the financial wherewithal to support yourself and your family is extremely difficult. However, let me just tell you about my story a little bit and give you— hopefully that will give you some courage. I, I practiced law for 22 years. I was in school getting— finishing up my master's degree. My law firm knew what I was doing. Half the firm really liked what I was doing. Half the firm, maybe not even that many partners in the firm, were really concerned and indeed frightened by what I was doing. And I knew that I wasn't going to try cases for much longer. And the decision for me was easy because it was made for me. One day, the managing partner of the firm, who was my, my peer and my equal, He and I graduated from law school in the same year and had been in the firm for pretty much the same amount of time. He came to me one day, one Friday in late October of 2000 and said, "I'm not giving you any more paychecks until you stop this peacemaking stuff." Now he had no right to do that, and I could have taken this up and made a big conflict out of it and gone to call the partners meeting and said, "What kind of what's this all about. But I didn't. I went home and I thought about it for the weekend and did some number crunching and tried to figure out how I could survive and decided that, you know, maybe I can survive with a little bit of luck. And so I came back on that Monday and I walked into his office at 8 o'clock in the morning and I said, you know, I took what you had to say on Friday and thought about it very much, and it's pretty obvious that You don't want me in this firm anymore, so I quit. I'm leaving effective Friday, and I don't know, I don't want a retirement party, and I don't want any stuff, I don't want any big deal about it. I'm done here. And his jaw dropped because he thought he had all the power over me because he thought that because he was the one designated to sign the paychecks that by forcing me to do what he wanted to do because of money that he had all kinds of control over me. And what I did was take the power away from him by making money and a paycheck unimportant. And in fact, I left that Friday with no business plan, no idea of what I was going to do, and opened up my own professional mediation practice the following Monday, November 1st, 2000. And I've never looked back. Now, do I have the financial security that I had when I was a trial lawyer? No. Do I make as much money as I made when I was a trial lawyer? No. But am I able to follow my heart and do some really, really cool stuff? Absolutely. And I wouldn't trade the last 15 years for anything. It's amazing what I've been able to do because I turned away from financial security and turned towards my heart and followed my heart. And that's really The only thing that you can do when you're stuck and burned out looking for something to do— it's the universe telling you, forget the money, the universe will provide. Have courage, follow your heart, find out what you can really become passionate about, and then, and then do that. And I guarantee you that if you do that, with just a little bit of thinking and planning, you will find some amazing opportunities opening for you if you're willing to put out a little bit of effort. I work hard, and anybody who will tell you that is self-employed, that they work much, much harder than anybody who works for a paycheck. But when you are self-employed and working for yourself, you have freedom that you can't imagine, a different kind of emotional and spiritual freedom, and you have the ability to control your own destiny. And it's, you know, at times it's stressful, but on balance being free of the pressure of a job that you don't like probably outweighs the stress of— or the security— the so phenomenal— or I'm going to say the ephemeral security of having a paycheck. So something to think about. And for the person that asked this question, if you're watching the webinar, there's a great book called "100 Things You Can Do with a Law Degree Without Being a Lawyer." There's a great book out there. Recommend that book. There's some really cool things that you can do with a law degree that have nothing to do with the practice of law that could be very, very gratifying and satisfying in your life. So this next question is another really difficult life question, and it— I'll try to phrase the question in a way that I think most people will relate. So you have an elderly mother or father Maybe they're starting to suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's or some other problem and you've got siblings who are unengaged and now you're left being the person responsible for taking— making sure their bills are paid and taking— making sure they're being taken care of and maybe they will qualify for Social Security are not Social Security but disability. Maybe they have enough money to help them in assisted nursing. Maybe they're entitled to some other benefits like insurance benefits, disability benefits, maybe Veterans Administration benefits. It depends. Um, but you're the one that's really responsible and you've got brothers and sisters who have completely checked out. So That is a tough place to be in. The first thing— the worst situation is when you do not have a power of attorney from your parents giving you authority over their finances. They just informally put you on their checking account or banking account and there's just an understanding that you're going to help them write checks and take care of stuff. That is the worst place to be in, I think. I think that fundamentally, if you're going to take care of the financial affairs of your parent, you need to really talk to a lawyer for your particular circumstances, but you want to have legal protections in place that are very clear about what your obligations are as either an agent, which means that there's a power of attorney that's vesting you with power to handle decisions for your parents. And there are all kinds of different kinds of powers of attorney. There's a general power of attorney which gives you general powers over financial matters and property matters. There are things called durable powers of attorney which under certain circumstances give you the power to handle matters after your parents have passed or after they lost their competency. There is— there are healthcare directives which are powers of attorney that that give you the right to decide medical treatment or to withhold medical treatment. So there are all kinds of different powers of attorney, and these are all things that you should consult with, with a, with a good general practitioner or lawyer in your area to understand how powers of attorney work.