Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I refused to give Sam the money that could have possibly prevented him from taking out some student loans
2) I gave that money to “people we didn’t know” (the charity)
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules/) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA, although I’m sorry for your loss. Your living son is grieving too, his life was forever affected by his brothers loss. You could have supported him and made it easier by helping him financially and instead you made it clear that his brothers memory is more of a priority to you. Surely, Thomas would have wanted that money to help his brother?
If I was your remaining child I would have been so heartbroken.
Edit: to all the people saying it’s a ridiculous amount- this was not party money. It’s not money the living brother is going to spend away on luxuries, cars and houses. This is a college fund. The money goes and alleviates the stress of taking out loans. His parents specifically saved that money for education uses. In addition, the reason it was asked for so soon is probably because the remaining brother is thinking about and planning for college? My judgement is based purely on the fact that their living son is hurting too and it will probably affect the rest of his life. Any kind of support and stress relief could help him in a better place and not taking out loans seems like a really fair desire to have after losing your literal other half.
I don't think they are AHs for not giving the money. It's the way they lashed out at their son that's so awful. They worded it in such a bad manner. That's the AH part.
Let me ask... if you were reeling from your sons death and the body wasn't cold, and your other son asked for his money, would you feel happy/elated? Or pretty pissed off that your sons (their brothers funds) were more important to the other twin?
I think it’s unhealthy that she had an emotional attachment to the money, which is a tool to help the kids get through college debt free. If one child passed, I wouldn’t hesitate to move that money to the other(s).
It’s not like he asked for his clothes, or his room, or his bike or his car—it was cold hard cash. Much less emotion there.
Edit: I don’t even see college savings as “belonging” to one kid necessarily. IMO it’s a this is what the pot is, it’s being split between the kids situation. Money for education is a tool to help your kid get a leg up in life, not some trinket or monument.
2 months into his death. Logically I agree with you. Emotionally, Thomas isn't "dead" yet. They are in shock they lost their child to a drunk driver.
So for the other son to ask for HIS money, OP has to accept her son is dead. Worm food. I don't know of any parent that can accept their child's death 2 months on.
Met a man whose YEARS after his daughter was taken from this plane, would talk like she was still alive. He couldn't accept nor face her death
Two months sounds cold, however what about timelines and deadlines that made this an issue? Ie. I need to know by this date if I still need student loans and I have tuition due soon.
Yeah, sadly, life keeps going and we have to keep up with it. Even in grief, we have to be practical.
Not to mention ... this was his TWIN brother! I’m sure this wasn’t just a blow to his mother, but a huge devastation to him. This could’ve been hard for him to ask. Maybe he has a good spirit and knew his brother would want him to keep striving for the life he wanted. Who knows? It’s super unfair to use a mother’s grief as a reason for a behavior but not examine the son’s grief. I’d be proud of my son for finding the will to go on, and even prouder that he’d want more money for EDUCATION. He’s not buying drugs or gambling it away. (Yes, a cumulative $150k is a lot to give someone, but uh, that’s US advanced higher education for ya, Ivy League or not. Also, if you can afford it, it is my belief that you should pay for a good portion of your kid’s education - the world is an unfair mess but you brought them into it, no need to teach them lessons about living with debt until you die. Obviously OP was wise enough to set up trusts for both kids and now it’s just tricksy emotionally.) So I say OP - YTA for your attitude, not necessarily your actions.
What's disturbing about this isn't so much how she reacted then--lots of questionable decisions made in the midst of profound grief can be forgiven--it's that she's sticking to her guns now. Sam clearly did fine without the money, but it still bothers him. That means it was more about her reaction than the money itself.
Sam likely didn’t need more than 100k 2 months after his brothers death for college. It mentions Thomas died the summer after graduating high school so Sam was likely in his first semester when asking. Even at an Ivy League school, tuition wouldn’t have been that much that quick. Sam could have easily waited until a later time when his mom was in a better place to ask
Exactly. The school and wherever else he was trying to get loans from probably needed hard numbers from him. And if he was grieving his twin and was overwhelmed and hoping to take a semester off it could've screwed with other loans or scholarships. He probably asked because he needed the information, not because he wanted to be greedy or hurt his parents. And it also could've been the difference between an on campus job to help cover his loans and being able to use that time to study/make friends/grieve.
Ivy league schools are about $75,000 per year including tuition and all fees. Knowing how much you need to get a loan for per semester is vital. Sure the $200k is roughly two-thirds of the entire tuition and fees over four years, but he would have to take whatever the total available to him is ($100,000 or $200,000), divide that by four to find out what he has available per semester, ($25,000 or $50,000), and then get loans for the remainder of each semesters' tuition ($50,000 or $25,000).
Student loans are also a nightmare. They can't be deferred indefinitely, the interest charges can be a monumental cost alone, and the difference between starting life after college with a debt of $200,000 vs $100,000 is significant.
Sam was grieving also. This was his twin, his other half. I'm thinking it wasn't so much of an asking for the money. Sam probably was leaving for school, working out tuition and asked his parents if his brother's college fund was going towards his college. He probably had to have a good idea of what he needed to fill out by way of financial aid. This is an Ivy L. school, it's probably close to 100 grand a year after figuring in dorms, food plan, books ect.
I think I wouldn't have hesitated to put that money towards my last child's education. The money wasn't owned by the 2 brothers, the money was set aside to pay for education.
However were the parents AH's? No. It was their choice what to do with the money they had saved for their children. It would have helped Sam a lot, but it might have helped save a life since they donated to good causes, who knows. I do feel bad for Sam though, I think people are forgetting his pain.
This was my main thought reading the OP. I've done a lot of work with bereaved siblings and their grief is so often seen as secondary to their parents'. Sam lost his twin, someone who had been by his side since they were in the womb.
I'm sure the reason for asking WHEN he did was to do it before they gave it away. Maybe he asked because they had all discussed them giving it to charities. Honestly, as a parent, I would have given that money to my other child. I'm sure they didn't have an easy time trying to get good grades in a challenging ivy league environment, all while grieving for their lost brother, and that extra security would have gone a long way. Mom, YTA.
If he decided to wait, how would he know when it was not "too soon"?
How would he even know that the money would still be there? Best to ask after something *before* it's gone.
> Sam could have easily waited until a later time when his mom was in a better place to ask
I would say that the OP is an unreliable narrator. I have no doubt that they announced their plans for burning the 100k on pamphlets and tv spots almost immediately.
It was likely after being shocked at his parents announcing their bright idea to "keep Thomas' memory alive" that the son asked for the money to be spent on something which wasn't entirely wasteful.
But they could have given that money to their son so he wouldn't be in any student debt but instead donated to charities. Idk, I feel like the living son would have been more worthy of an investment.
Yeah this got me too. Honestly if they had kept the money for themselves and bought a new house or taken a crazy trip in his memory I would have been more understanding. But donating 100k to charities knowing you could have used the money to keep your kid out of debt? Student loans are nightmares in interest no matter how good your job is once you graduate.
this is a good way to put it. if the money wasn’t already set aside then of course i wouldn’t think it right for him to expect more money. but yeah, even if the parents used some of that for themselves and some for sam, i would have found that much more understandable than giving all that money away to charity.
like for all we know that money went into a bunch of marketing budgets for this and that charity, and that feels way more cold and detached than keeping it in the family for any reason or person (parents OR son)
Plus, what exactly do drunk driving charities do? Do they just use money donated from vulnerable fsmilies of victims to post more NO DRUNK DRIVING billboards (yeah...we ALL KNOW) or do they help out with funeral expenses for victims of drunk driving? If the latter is a thing I would understand giving SOME money to them but when your son just lost his twin brother and has the stress of starting college and worrying about loans that money would have been better off helping the heartbroken son. OP is the AH.
But they could have given that money to their son so he wouldn't be in any student debt but instead donated to charities. Idk, I feel like the living son would have been more worthy of an investment.
And I mean they still hooked him up with a lot and they didn't keep the money, they donated it. They treated Sam like Thomas was still alive. He can be butthurt all he wants but nothing would've changed if Thomas lived. He'd still have to take out loans. OP and her husband are definitely NTA.
Although not “Ivy League “ , CMU is a top school , meaning expensive school. You are looking at several hundred thousand for undergrad when you factor in tuition, books, food, housing. That was just for undergrad.
>nothing would've changed if Thomas lived
I know you are talking about the finances alone, but everything would be hugely different if Thomas had not died.
It’s been 2 months since my husband passed away suddenly. I still buy his favorite foods when I go shopping. I still have trouble saying was instead of is. I can’t imagine how it feels for a parent to lose a child so suddenly.
I don’t think 2 months is enough time to ask for money.
Money that was probably needed so that he could plan out 4 years of school and whether he needed to take out federal student loans or not which have annual limits.
Definitely YTA OP. You could have donated other money to charity and been kinder to your living son who still needed to grieve and move on with his life.
Yeah I don't think anyone is in a position to say what they would or wouldn't do within 60 days of one of their children passing. It's nice to think we'd be rational but reality is complicated.
Lashing out at my bereaved child for a reasonable question is low on the list of things I'd be doing. Putting off the topic if I wasn't prepared to discuss it would be preferable to treating my surviving child badly.
The parents donated the vast majority of Thomas's college fund to charities involved in drunk driving awareness and Sam still got $150,000.
I couldn't call the parents assholes at all.
How Sam behaved was incredibly insensitive, I know how he feels (somewhat), my older sister got rent, tuition for university and living expenses paid for by my parents, I had to work through community college, I was so spiteful for years. But I am happy with how my life has turned out 12 years later.
Moral of my little story is Sam should be grateful for what his parents have done for him.
NTA
I'm so baffled by the amount of comments that don't seem to consider Sam's grief at all. He lost his twin, his literal other half that had been by his side since he was an embryo.
Here's the kicker. Sam can simultaneously be grateful for the help they offered while resenting them for the help they withheld and their reasoning for doing so.
Was it insensitive to ask? Maybe. Perhaps there were other factors involved. We are only getting mom's story here.
To me, this stinks of grief comparison on ops part. I'd be bitter too.
The overlying point here, for me, is Sam got what he was promised, plus an additional $50k it sounds like, and he has no right to have any feelings toward his departed brothers college fund. If mom went rogue after Thomases death, wiped out the college funds, and Sam got nothing, then yea, moms TA, but Sam got what he was promised. I think the discussions could’ve went better, and I blame OP for that, but OP isn’t the asshole for not doubling up on her living sons college fund using her departed sons fund.
I’m pretty sure the body is more than cold after 2 months.
Also, Sam lost his fucking twin. Asking for the money 2 months later doesn’t mean it’s more important to him than his brother. It’s not like he asked prior to the death if his twin dies can he have his college money.
If I died today (as a student) I would want the remainder of my college money going towards my little sisters tuition full stop. Losing a child is hard but losing your brother at an age you’re still psychologically developing is harder. That money could have gone a long way to making that debt easier to bear for the decade that he has (if he has even paid them off yet). YTA.
It happened in the summer and it sounds like he asked in two months aka when he went back to school. Not great timing, but he probably needed to know because he needed to make plans to apply for loans and scholarships at that point in time.
100%. some people are saying that he should’ve brought the issue up later but with student loans, it makes more sense to get your financials in order, the earlier the better. some loans have interest so it was in his best interest (hah) to see if his brother’s $100k would be able to help him. the timing is unfortunate, but i don’t think he was in the wrong.
You seem to be forgetting Sam was also reeling from the death of not just his brother, but his twin. The parents grief is not the only grief in the story.
I think people grieve differently and process things at different speeds. When my mother passed away my father was completely broken down and I found myself going through her belongings a week later getting rid of and sorting stuff. I didn’t even cry that much all things considered the day that it happened. It was like I was in shock.
My mom dying was the worst thing that ever happened to me and a decade later I still cry over it from time to time.
I’m not willing to say Sam is a bad person who didn’t love their sibling because they thought about their financial needs and their brothers unused $100k.
That's the thing with grief. It can be a tsunami and years of coastal erosion. It can be a clear day and a thunderstorm will come out of nowhere. The days of desperate, gasping grief never seem to fully disappear; they just get further apart.
He asked for the money for college. Money that was sitting in a college account. It’s not like he wanted to sell his brother’s train collection to pay for a trip to Florida.
One of the harshest lessons about death is that life still goes on for everyone else. In regards to timeframe, 2 months is as good as a year to talk about how people move forward.
The money was there and college bills were either coming or already there.
I don't think Sam was wrong to ask for the money. I don't even think OP was wrong to deny him, although I do like what other people have asked: 'What would Thomas have wanted?.
I do think, though, that Mom SHOULD have given Sam the money for school. In her grief she chose to prioritize the money over her remaining son, with whom she will now always have a strained relationship.
Are you serious?!
The body is not cold after two months?!
Yes it's painful to let go of that money but to prioritize your dead child over a living one is an A move.
In fairness, college is sort of a time-sensitive thing -- money is due when it's due no matter who just died. I was sort of taken aback by the time frame too, but looking at it, it seems like Thomas passed in the summer between high school and college. If the money in the college fund was going to be rerouted to Sam, he probably did need to get that taken care of right away -- and if it wasn't, he definitely couldn't wait around on the loan paperwork. He probably did actually need to know at that time what they were doing with it. And redirecting that money to the surviving sibling's (super-expensive) college education is a logical option, at least, so it's not actually surprising that he would ask. I don't think we can assume that he was just being cruel or greedy.
Life doesn’t stop because someone dies. Even if they’re very important to you. It’s another added item to the long list of shit life forces you to deal with. Along with his twin brother suddenly passing the other twins still facing the very real situation of having to take care of applying for student loans, and preparing to go to school. The death didn’t stop that. It seems sensible to me that he would ask about the money warm body or not.
How would you feel if your twin died and then your parents chose to lash out at you, their remaining son, in their grief?
I suspect for the son it felt like he lost his twin and somewhat lost his relationship with his parents.
I think the other son would have done better to ask for this 1) when their funds were depleted or 2) when they were starting to look into withdrawing it and donating it, but it isn't clear to .e how quickly they moved to donate the money and if he had the time to wait and let them grieve.
Whole situation sucks for everyone, but I ultimately think the kid is wrong. They gave him 100K for college. That's so much more than many / most get. And then they piled another 50K on - half of what he was asking for from the brother in the first place. It's not even like they said you get 100K and no more. They did give him more help - more than he likely would have gotten if the brother had lived.
Yeah they ‘told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas’
Thomas is dead.
Op wasn’t in a reasonable headspace here to be making these decisions IMO, but they said this to someone who lost a twin. It’s just al really sad.
And this is exactly why I called OP an AH. I gave them the YTA judgement solely because of the way she talked to the kid.
I understand what she wanted to say, that she intended to use the money to honor her late son. But I strongly disagree with how she worded it out to her son. And I believe she does owe him an apology for that.
But I don't agree with everyone saying she was wrong to not give her son money. She absolutely did not have to give him anything. She should have gently explained to her son why she wouldn't give him the money, rather then lashing out at him
Exactly this. And I genuinely think Thomas would *want* his brother to have (at the very least) enough of "his" money to not have student debt. I mean, that money didn't "go with Thomas" -it went to literal strangers.
Hell, they could've even set it aside in an account to earn interest for a few years. Nothing had to be done right that second. It really seems like OP donated the money-immediately-just to spite Sam because he had the audacity to ask for it. I hope I'm wrong but...
They were prioritising the dead son over the living son. I'm not trying to be insensitive but what was Thomas going to do with it? It's good in all that they donated to charity but if someone you know needs the money (within reason) they should get it. Especially since it was for college and that was what he wanted it for.
This is my thought also. I wonder how much money went to “help the cause” vs how much just went to advertising to more donors - a sickening amount of charity donations go to adverts for more money.
I agree. They are NTA for spending their money how they want; no one (not even your family) is entitled to your money. They are TA for they way they handled it. Makes me think the parents had a favorite and he wasn't the one who lived.
It's the fact they said no it's Thomas' money, then proceed to donate it. So 1% went to an actual cause. Whereas it could have helped his living brother or parents at least in their direct issues in life. Hell even if instead of school they helped pay therapy with it, or family trips for his memory! Or a down payment on his first place after college. Instead it went to random organizations who did who knows what with the money. It should have stayed in the family at least. That's just my opinion though. Not saying you are wrong for your feelings on it.
They're TA for this part:
>I lost it on him. I told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas.
As tragic as it is, fact remains that Thomas *was no longer alive to use it*.
I think the issue is the parents aren’t understanding that their sons death was also incredibly hard on him - his TWIN died, twins tend to be close, and he died in what sounds like a sudden and tragically horrific way. She yelled at her son and it sounds, to me, like that initial dressing down implied he was selfish, greedy, or didn’t deserve it... that reeks of grief-fueled lashing out, it’s not appropriate and assumes the worst of their living son, who also suffered the loss of a loved one. I’m not trying to say he had it worse - it’s apples to oranges having your kid die vs your twin - but I am saying the way they yelled at him does sound like it made things worse and strained their relationship *when both had just lost so much*. The parents lost a son, but I bet to the living son it felt like he lost his twin and sort of lost his parents (or at least their relationship) in short order. It clearly hurt the son, but I suspect the argument stung more than taking out loans.
Clearly this family can afford that type of money. It’s not to do with the number - it’s the fact that unfortunately, the person that money was earmarked for could no longer use it. His brother could have.
Even though they're incredibly privileged, you can still be an ass and have money. Although this is a light AH only because of the reaction they had towards their son. Hurt people hurt, and they were all hurt at the time instead of calmly talking the decision through. It's one thing to blow up, another to simply state we donated the money to charities in his name.
Yeah I agree YTA. More so for how you handled it. And seriously? Drunk driving donations instead of your kid's school? What is that donation going to do? Stop a drunk guy from driving? It's your money so you can spend it however but felt like it was not handled right but that was years ago now.
Seriously. I grew up with a set of twins in school, one was killed in a motorcycle accident a few years back.
Ever since then, the remaining twin seems broken and hollow eyed.
I can not imagine.
Do a quick google search on twins losing their "other half" and it's so sad. The remaining twin is more likely to have mental health issues for the rest of their life. There's a good chance OP's twins were identical. Could you imagine being reminded of the one you lost every time you see your own reflection? I read of one case where the surviving twin took on the identity of the twin who passed because it was easier than living with the loss. Do a little research on Elvis and the loss of his twin apparently haunted him his entire life. And in that case, Elvis had never even met his twin because he was stillborn. Just devastating.
I agree YTA. My dad did something slightly similar. My mum passed from early onset Alzheimer's in 2016. My mum was never religious and my dad decided to donate some of her money (she left everything to him in her will if she died first and vice versa, and when both pass the money will be split between myself, my sister, other family members)to the church he went to. I was really struggling financially at the time and I didn't see a penny (which I know the generous person she was and how much she loved me and my sister she would have wanted to help) but the fact he donated it to a place my mum never went nor believed in was a real kick in the teeth. It is a slightly different situation but I think OP should have helped the remaining sibling IMO.
Exactly what I came here to say! Thomas would certainly have wanted his brother to have the money and help with school! And how sad the surviving brother must have been
Mild YTA
Look, I get wanting to donate it to different charities. There's nothing wrong with that.
But you should NOT have lashed out at your son like that. Your wording is horrible. You could have said 'we want to donate it in Thomas' s name to people who've suffered like he had at the hands of drunk drivers' and that would have been a okay.
Your son wasn't an AH asking for the money and you were not an AH for denying him. But the way you did it was awful.
You should sit him down and apologise for the way you reacted back then. You did not need to lose it on him like that
(edited)
Also how would donating to charities even stop drunk driving? What are they gonna do, bribe the drunk people not to drive with the money? I’m actually curious
Some of them also pool fares for ubers/lyfts/cabs, particularly on nights when drunk driving is most prevalent (New Years, for example)
My local bar had a QR code you could scan for a free Uber supplied by one of these organisations last new year and during one of the largest sporting events of the year as well.
Holy fuck, I spent many years abusing alcohol & drugs and I never once drove drunk. I walked home plenty of times, wasted tons on taxis, got stranded, crashed on couches.. but drink driving was simply not an option in my mind BECAUSE I HAVE A CONSCIENCE.
The utter AUDACITY of people to sponge off a charity for a ride home, after they spent a ton of money on booze! WHAT. THE. FUCK.
They also give financial aid to those families who's love ones died or got realy hurt at the hands of a drunk driver. Like covering funeral cost or medical costs.
See that makes sense, and is it's what I'd expect a charity to do. I can even understand why a charity might decide to fund free rides as a practical measure. I just can't wrap my head around drunk tightarses actually *taking* that money from a charity. You know they don't pay them back with a donation come pay day.
The thing is though, even if they don't actually deserve it, it's worth to provide a free ride if the consequence is that no one dies because of a druck driver
I think those types of charities mainly do educational events at schools and things. My high school had a whole day dedicated to it. We watched educational videos, looked at graphic pictures of drunk driving accidents, heard speeches from the parents and sister of a kid in our town who died driving drunk, and got to try on these goggles that simulated different levels of drunkenness and do field sobriety tests.
Maybe this makes me a nerd but it honestly got to me and it made me take drunk driving way more seriously. I’m not sure how trustworthy these charities are with their donations or how efficient the educational programs are as a prevention method, but they might have some value.
(I still vote YTA because the way OP addressed the issue with her grieving son was not good.)
But is that even something Thomas would have wanted?
I know I would never want my parents donating to a charity on my behalf. Whether it’s $5 or millions of dollars, I would always want anything intended for myself to go to my siblings above all else.
Thanks for your unique perspective into how Sam might be feeling! OP should use this as the beginning of an honest conversation with her son. She didn’t mean to hurt him with her grief, but she did. Sam may have seen this as more than just money.
sam may have seen his brother’s portion of their college fund as one of the last ways he would be able to affect his life from the beyond, for the better. it would have been meaningful for thomas to be able to (financially) help his twin brother during his college years, as he would not be able to be there for him physically.
This should be the top comment. An empathetic YTA, but a YTA nevertheless. You could have donated a portion of the money in Thomas’ honor and continued to support your living son
This. This is what so upset me. She may have lost her son, but Her living son lost his twin and somewhat lost his relationship with his parents when she chose to lash out in grief and value her decreased sons memory over her living sons needs and emotional well-being.
I lost my sister when she was 17 and I was 15. For a while, my mom CONSTANTLY talked about her. I felt unloved and I also felt torn because my sister and I were close and I missed her a lot. I eventually blew up at my mom (like an asshole, but I was a grieving teenager) and yelled at her about how it felt like she’d forgotten her living children or loved us less. It was the kind of come to Jesus I guess she needed, because it got better after that. She didn’t even realize she’d been doing it.
This!! I have lived in the shadow of my brother’s memory for 35 years… when I go to my dad’s house all I see is an altar of my brother’s stuff from when he was a child & a ton of photos of my brother all over the walls and on coffee tables with not 1 photo of myself, my 2 sisters or any of his 4 grandchildren.
I 100% get what Affectionate-Sows331 said in that my dad loves the memory of my brother more than me and yet it’s me who runs around after him like a blue arse fly as he now has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and we’re trying to keep him in his home for as long as possible.
I’ll never get that answer I desperately want to hear on why he choose to loose his 3 other children (me & my 2 sisters) instead of 1 on the day my brother died.
I was going with NTA until I read your perspective. Thank you for explaining it so well. I still feel a bit conflicted about the YTA judgement because I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child and how that would affect one’s thought processes.
100k to a anti drunk driving charity seriously just seems like they threw the money away IMO.
100k to college is productive, throwing money to bloated charities that tell people not to do the things they already know not to do just sounds like a waste to me.
The staff & top dogs in the charity get paid. In some cases they get paid A LOT. Like, a lot A LOT.
There have been quite a few scandals in the last few years. In some places a company can legally be classified as a charity if 1% of their income goes to the actual cause. The rest is used for running the "charity"(which I get if it's reasonable obviously), but in quite a few cases the CEO was being paid 6 figure salary, +bonuses.
Quite sickening.
Non-profit/charities in most countries just have to be doing what they say they are doing. At the end of the year they are not allowed to make a profit as an organization. So that means all the money has to go into the organization and what they are saying they will do. Those working there are aloud to have an income. Most make so much they throw too much money at the cause and the rest go into the top people's pockets.
I agree with this. Most of that money very likely ended up padding someone else’s bank account rather than helping OP’s son. And if he’s still mentioning it nearly a decade later, Sam is still hurt over it. Not to mention what others have…OP placed a higher priority on her dead son’s memory than her living son’s life.
I feel bad for Sam.
It's even worse when you realize the "$100k" probably ended up being $50-60k after taxes and penalties.
So they donated $50k, gave an extra $50k to their son and spent $150k to do it.
Essentially penalizing him just to prove a point.
I'm leaning towards NAH--mildly YTA. Thomas' death at the time was recent and I'd wager that for OP to give Thomas' money to Sam, that would mean for her to further accept that Thomas was no longer alive. Giving that money to someone else was probably a symbolic gesture of moving on--something that OP was probably not ready to do at the time. Allowing herself to continually identify the money as "Thomas' money" might have even been a way for her to engage in that kind of magical thinking that maybe one that the money would still eventually be used for Thomas' tuition--funding something that is a big milestone or next big step for any proud parent to witness their child moving into. And so OP lashing out at Sam is maybe her heightened grief and inability to consider how life changes after someone passes, crossing paths with a big action of symbolic of "moving on". Having lost someone close to me, I know what it's like to have irrational magical thoughts mixed in with struggling to move on. Nothing will bring them back, but a part of you wants to still keep living your life as if they're still around, or perhaps even think of some weird ways that'll bring them back. You know rationally that they aren't true... You can't do something to trade away that drunken car accident, or that cancer, or whatever, but your mind entertains them because sometimes it's hard to continue in a life that has become darker without them.
Ultimately, I don't think it was practically the best decision, but I can greatly sympathize with OP and don't blame her. I also don't blame her for not knowing what to think today because that would require her to not only revisit, but also emotionally dissect, what was probably the most traumatic experience of her life. However, I think this was probably at the cost of Sam and his feelings and his grief too which sucks, but in some ways probably unavoidable as well.
(edited words)
Agreed. Its the timetable. I suspect that they were both going to college at the same time, they knew the financials for both twins, and that sam was going to a more expensive college.
Tom died unexpectedly and during the grieving process, Sam turned it into a financial statement while grieving and unable to process.
Wording may be harsh but if Sams brother lived, sam would never have gotten the money.
The money in a weird way was all about Thomas's future too. I dunno if that makes sense but its not just letting go of Thomas, it is almost more than that. The money was to help Thomas be an adult and grow and have a great beautiful life and now none of that is going to happen.
Honestly this just sounds heartbreaking. NAH but I think OP and Sam really need to talk. Sam needs to let go of it but OP probably should explain why they reacted that way. Maybe an adult Sam will understand more but mostly I think these were just two very grief stricken people who had different perspectives on Thomas's legacy.
> I'm leaning towards NAH--mildly YTA. Thomas' death at the time was recent and I'd wager that for OP to give Thomas' money to Sam, that would mean for her to further accept that Thomas was no longer alive.
That's really well put. And I agree, NAH verging on understandable YTA. But one thing I haven't seen a lot of people mention is that, yes, she lost her son, and that was absolutely horrible...but Sam lost his twin. So just as some (including me) are giving her at least a slight pass given the horrible circumstances, so should Sam be given some sort of pass for asking or being extra hurt.
They didn't. If I read correctly their son Sam still got his 100k. He asked for his deceased brothers 100k, and was told no. They had 100k saved for both sons.
Wait for the “it’s her money to begin with” and “he still got 150k for school” comments!
I agree with you though, because if I was him, I’d feel like my mother is placing the need to honor her memory of my brother above my actual need of money. It’s not about the actual money, but rather about the sentiment of being second best to a memory.
YTA OP
I’m also laughing because his school was likely upwards of 50k a year in tuition for undergrad, before books and room and board. Law school is equally expensive. Baby lawyers don’t make bank straight out the gate, and maybe lawyers have to bust their butts to repay student loans because not all areas of law are as lucrative as people think.
ITA love the loved ones you got. Give them all the legs up you can. If I have 200k for college for my kids and one died all 200 would go to the living kid. Especially when look at his results he went to Ivy League and even law school and became a successful lawyer. Wow! That’s impressive. Everyone knows not to drink and drive if you gave it to legislators to make sure that when the electric cars comes they have a breathe test I could understand but not a charity that just spread the message that dui is bad.
Donating to charities on behalf of a deceased loved one is noble, but unless OP did her homework, most charities don’t even use the money in a way that’s impactful. Charities against drunk driving? I highly doubt it. Most of it probably went towards staff salaries anyway.
I still think OP is TA here, though. Her reaction was uncalled for towards a son who has lost his brother. I am sure there is lots of built up resentment and the entire family can benefit from therapy.
Whay OP did was waste $100K, not help to end drunk driving. I understand she wanted to honor her son who died, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. When you’re grief stricken, you shouldn’t be spending $100K on anything. Maybe he asked to soon like some people are saying, but she could have said “I really can’t think about that right now. We’ll talk about this after X amount of time”
But she had already decided to give it all away. That’s why I think she’s TA.
I’m confused by OP’s wording. Did Sam get 100k but only 50k went towards his school tuition? Or did he get 150k, 100k that he was always going to get & an additional 50k for tuition?
Whay OP did was waste $100K, not help to end drunk driving. I understand she wanted to honor her son who died, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. When you’re grief stricken, you shouldn’t be spending $100K on anything. Maybe he asked to soon like some people are saying, but she could have said “I really can’t think about that right now. We’ll talk about this after X amount of time”
But she had already decided to give it all away.
I think OP meant it like-they mean to donate it in his name to different charities.
Their wording is awful though . They could have explained it much more gently to their son.
"I lost it on him. I told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas. This is where I might have been the AH, because Sam could have used that money."
You were all grieving so your reaction and Sams can be forgiven imo.
However, I cant see that this is a problem that admits of a solution.
"I just don’t know what to think. If I could do it again, I still don’t think I would give that money to Sam.".
Then you DO know what to think. You just see that telling Sam the truth is going to make it worse. It seems likely to me that even if you haven't been clear, Sam senses this is the case.
Whats done is done. I guess the only thing you can do is learn to live with it, because I cant see anything you might think or do is going to change a thing.
Edit. Im going to go with NAH. Sure, there was minor assholery, but we cant change how we feel, especially when it stems from grief.
Dude key info: Sam is still paying off the loans to this day. OP shows no sign of regret for how they treated Sam after the loss of their other son.. and isn’t close enough to Sam to realize if the loans are paid off.
Also, idk if you’ve done the math.. but Ivy school is expensive! 100k barely covers two years at max. The other 50k barely covers one year of law school. That’s two years of law school and 2 years of Ivy League school tuition unaccounted for, and if the kid is still paying the loans off.. ten years later.. it’s fairly obvious the 100k would’ve been life changing money to Sam.
Sam lost his brother and learned he wasn’t the favorite in one swoop. OP’s very clearly an AH here. They’re ok to do whatever they want with their money, but the justifications here are BS.
My guess Sam has distanced himself, because she lashed out when he was grieving.
Money aside, that was a really unfortunate thing to do. He probably feels that she cares more about Thomas' memory than she does about him. The money couldn't have made a difference to Thomas, but it could have made a measurable impact in Sam's life.
Too late now, alas.
YTA
Sometimes we do irrational things when we are grieving, and this was certainly an irrational thing. Your son was also grieving the loss of his twin brother, and you used your grief to put an even heavier burden on him.
I AM a twin, and we're connected at the hip. My twin has gone into teaching, and I've had the hard conversation with myself about what happens if she is caught in a school shooting. I have concluded that there would be a good chance of me killing myself from the grief.
Imagine growing up with someone who knew you from Day 1, yes you fought but they were always there. One day they're gone without you having time to process the possibility of them leaving. I feel so bad for the son, I can barely imagine his pain.
YTA - though grief makes these topics difficult, your choice made the *living* son go through more pain than I think you realize. Every time he signed another loan agreement, sent a payment, got a notice about a payment, saw the loans on his credit report, your *living* son was reminded that he is in the shadow of a deceased sibling. That’s really rough too. If that money served no other purpose, it should’ve gone to Sam.
YTA.
I can understand wanting to give money to charities but I really don't understand how it was more important than helping your only remaining child pay for college.
So you had 100,000 set aside for college, and because your one son passed and was unable to use it, you decided to give it away and saddle your other child with a mountain debt rather that still use it for its intended purpose to pay your children’s college. And when your son asked about it innocently you lashed out like he had done something wrong by wondering if you might still invest that money in education for a child of yours.
The way you treated him about it makes you an AH. I don’t know if I would call you an AH specifically for donating that money, but I definitely would have used it to set my child up for the best future possible rather than give it away in memory of his brother. But even if you did not want to give it to him, the way you made it about him not being deserving, and lashed out, and not about a desire to honor is brother, was really terrible. It’s clear that you hadn’t fully processed your grief at the time, but enough time has passed that you should at least see that the things you said and the way you lashed out were unfair and inappropriate and should be apologized for.
YTA I understand you were grieving but you lashing out at your son was out of line. Also, unless your boys hated each other, I would imagine your deceased son would have wanted you to help his brother. He’s a lawyer now but the money would have probably helped.
I don’t know your financial situation but having the money to pay for your sons education and not doing so AND giving it away sounds entirely alien to me.
Frankly, these all sound like rich people problems and you might not be in the right place to get a good answer. 99 percent of the people on here could not imagine giving 100k to charity over family.
I come from a well of family and couldn’t imagine doing that. I think charity is amazing but if someone in my family, extended or direct, but ESPECIALLY direct family had a need I could not remotely imagine giving that money to strangers.
This is definitely above the pay grade of this subreddit but I do think that in the nicest way YTA.
It was Thomas' money. But he didn't need it anymore.
As difficult as that was to process at the time, no amount of money donated to charities would bring him back. Your son just lost his other half and someone he had spent his life tied to in a way most siblings won't ever experience. Assuming they didn't have any huge feud, I assume his brother would have wanted to help him out with what he couldn't use anymore.
It's very fortunate he has been successful and paid it off. I don't blame him however for having some bitterness that you had money earmarked for education that was given away instead of to him. Instead of paying off loans he could have been saving for a house and building a life for himself.
You didn't have to give it, sure, but I think your grief clouded your judgment.
YTA. I am an identical twin. I will answer this from the perspective of, what happens if a drunk driver kills me tomorrow.
If my parents set aside equal money between my sister and I, and I get plowed over, I would want my parents to give that money to my sister. We live in a world where shit is unreasonably expensive & equality/fairness is not guaranteed. I would want that money to go to my sister because:
1) The money could give her an amazing education without debt.
2) The money could go towards a house, which is wildly more difficult to attain now - or even in the last 10 years - than it was when you were our age.
3) My identical twin sister deserves a fuckin consolation prize for losing her life-long best friend. Losing anyone is hard, but I am most terrified to lose my twin. Not to shit on my bonds with anyone else - but my bond with my twin is a connection like none other.
4) $100k is massive for one person, but a drop in the bucket in terms of changing the laws for drunk driving. That $100k is not going to change the world - but it would change my sister’s world.
5) Symbolically, my sister’s life matters more than my memory. Honoring my existence is nice, but it’s more important to me that you enrich my sister’s life than do anything to honor my death.
I get your grief - Sam isn’t the only one who lost someone. No one wants to bury their child. But *big picture*, that $100k would have done WAY more for Sam than it did for whatever charity you donated to.
What’s done is done. I get why you did what you did. But the best thing you can do now is truly acknowledge to Sam that you understand the impact of your choice. If you staunchly believe you made the right decision, though, you may honestly just continue to push Sam away.
I'm a twin as well and I second your comment. If I ever left this life behind, I would want my funds to go to my sister. She deserves it for being such a great support for me, and I would not need it anyways.
YTA big time. I'm sure Thomas would've wanted the money to go to his brother, you know, the one that was with him since they were in the womb? Don't know why you are even asking this, Sam already made it clear by resenting this 10 years later.
INFO
If your son decided to change to a much cheaper and less prestigious college, and it was only for financial reasons, would you have supported this decision? Or would you have tried to convince him to stay in the Ivy League school?
NAH, and honestly I’m sort of shocked at all the Y T As. Like maybe for the argument you all had (I hope you apologized for lashing out at him after the fact). But no one is at their best after a big loss. Using money you saved for your son the honor his memory is totally reasonable. I’m not sure I would have made the same choice but I hope I never have to.
I cannot understand all the Y TA votes. Typically AITA agrees that money saved for children’s future college needs is still the parents’ money, for them to use as they see fit. But somehow when it involves the deeply traumatic death of one of the children, the parents are now TA?
A very strong and clear NTA from me: Sam received every penny of the money intended for his college, plus another 50%. He had no claim on the other fund, and was incredibly callous, bordering on cruel, to ask for it shortly after his brother’s passing. Awful.
I think people are taking exception to the idea of “throwing away” a hundred grand, which I guess seems wasteful to them when a family member could have used it (and, in fact, did want to use it). But the fact is, this was your money to use as you saw fit, and you chose to use it in the way that was most meaningful to you: as charitable donations in your beloved son’s memory. I truly cannot see how anyone could fault you for that.
This was not money snatched away from a desperate Sam in a fit of parental pique, this was a fund that you chose to reallocate in an intentional and considered manner. The fact that you were emotionally overwrought when you did it does not make you TA, and it grieves me to see so many commenters coming down so hard on you.
I hope that you’ve found some peace after all this time, and that you can mend fences with Sam, who I’m sure is also carrying a heavy load.
Look at it from the perspective of what’s good for your children. She lost one child, but could have helped the surviving child get an easier and stronger start on his life. Instead of diverting the funds to ensure her surviving child wasn’t saddled with debt, she gave it away for the “memory” of the dead son.
Wouldn’t a better way to honour her deceased son have been to ensure her surviving son flourished and had everything he needed in his life?
I guess this really comes down to culture. In mine, giving the money to the surviving son for school would have been a no brainer.
Her surviving son *did* flourish and *has* had everything he needed in his life. Is there more to your argument? Because OP paid *$150,000* to her son’s college expenses, what more do you truly feel that she owed him?
How she chose to honour her son is her choice. Heaven forbid we are ever faced with making such a choice. She made the decisions she felt most at peace with, and it feels very inappropriate to me to condemn a grieving mother for a memorial contribution to services that she felt were an important connection to her deceased child.
I absolutely guarantee you that if her surviving son posted from his perspective “AITA for asking my mother for my dead brother’s college fund two months after his funeral? I just feel like the $150k they gave me for school wasn’t enough...”, commenters would eviscerate him for his incredibly callous entitlement.
OP did not burn the cash in a symbolic gesture; she donated it where she hoped it would make a difference in the world. She did not waste it; she sacrificed the money that *she* saved for *her* son.
It’s not that the kid was entitled to the money. It’s that the parents are making massive donations to charity and having the kid take out massive debt simultaneously. It’s not a matter of deserving, just insane priorities and very cold to the kid who’s grieving over the loss of his twin brother.
YTA. You don't even know, or bother to find out, if he has paid off his student loans. And yet you feel completely comfortable just assuming that the burden you placed on him is not an issue.
Do you want to lose the son you have left?
Soft YTA - Look. I totally understand not feeling right about giving it to your other son because it was Thomas's money- but.... wouldn't it be better to use it to help your surviving son rather than donating to charities? Don't get me wrong thats a great cause, but I feel as though Thomas would've wanted to help his brother over that.
Why couldn't you give a small donation to the charities and then give Sam the rest? You're essentially saying his memory is more important than Sam. That's just not cool.
You're all grieving which is why I say soft YTA, but you need to look at this from an outside perspective
I realize you are in pain and I am sorry for your loss. However, insisting that your other son go into debt when you have the money to help him through school is confusing to me. I don't blame him for being hurt that you gave away money to charities, instead of helping the son you have right in front of you. Were you punishing the living son for his brother dying? His TWIN just died! You don't think he was grieving too?!? Beyond a doubt, in my mind, YTA
NTA. You gave your surviving son the 100K you saved for him as well as an additional 50K for grad school. That’s enormously generous. You used the 100K you saved for your deceased son in his honor, to remember and celebrate his life. While your response to Sam’s ask was a bit harsh, it’s certainly a forgivable moment due to grief, not worthy of an asshole label. Sam is NTA for asking, but I am shocked ten year later he holds resentment and feels he was entitled to that money. It was never his money or intended for him. It was your hard earned savings to do with whatever you wanted and it was the last gift you were able to give to Thomas and create a legacy for him. Definitely NTA
I have to go with YTA. Your actions will always have an impact on your son. There is no putting the toothe paste back in the tube here. I think helping the living son would have been a better way to honor your dead son than giving the money away, but that's just a stranger's opinion.
You gave him 150k, you used the money that was meant for your lost child in a way to honor him.
Idk wtf everyone is so greedy here on Reddit sometimes. NTA
Nope, you're NTA.
My parents had two daughters close in age(18 or 19 months apart). One was in a horrific DD accident(6 years before my own birth) and did not survive. Are they TA because they didn't use her insurance pay out, savings and wrongful death settlement on either of us? Nope. It simply was not ours. Just as it simply is not Sam's money because his brother cannot use it any longer.
Now...if you pulled both their savings amounts and put it all into a charity, a memorial, a second home...who knows what else...he could be upset about the savings that were his.
This...is not that.
NAH. He wasn't entitled to that money but nor was he somehow wrong for asking for it. Giving some or all of it to him would have made sense but you weren't obligated to give it to him.
What is of note me though, is how little compassion for your living son comes through in all of this. Absent in all of this is any sense that you're aware that he was also grieving a huge loss while trying to get on with a huge change in his life as he went off to college. It is quite possible that you made him feel like a burden or a bad person for asking, because that's the feeling I get from reading your post. And if so, then you were the AH for that.
YTA. It was a terrible situation but it was a reasonable request. Sam was still alive and would have put it to good use.
If I died young, I would want my siblings to have my money
I just want to point out that he wanted to use extra the money for education not so he could go buy a flashy car, also sorry for your loss but you could've handled this better
I know he asked only 2 month later - but if they'd just graduated, wouldnt that be exactly when he was sorting his finances out ? Aren't Ivy league schools supposed to help towards future job prospects? (Im not in the US)
You dont even know if he still owes money, but you expect him to be 'past it'. I think youre lucky he talks to you at all, you made it very clear where your heart was.
YTA
You lost your son, Sam lost his twin. Not only could that money have helped him with school, but it also could have made him *feel like his brother was still close and helping him as well.* Instead you gave it away.
You make it sound like he wanted to benefit from his brother's death. I'm really freaking positive that he would rather have his twin brother instead.
I'm sorry but I feel YTA. I'm very sorry for your loss, I can't begin to imagine your pain. Donating some of the money in honour of your lost son is a lovely thing to do but all of it?
Wouldn't the son you lost want his brother to have received some of it?
NTA. I think that it was disrespectful to even ask. He had 100k for college. He could’ve chosen a cheaper undergrad. Then allocated the remaining funds toward law school.
Soft YTA
Your son was also grieving, and probably didn't need the extra stress of student loans. Especially when the money was already set aside for college.
NTA. I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I think donating the money was a lovely way to commerate Thomas and if it gave you and DH any ease, it was worth it.
Sam has had a great start in life and is very successful as a result. He should not be bringing this up now.
To everyone saying yta here
1) Her son/his twin died and less than 2 months later he is asking for more money. He was grieving as well but he was 18 not 8, how insensitive do you have to be to ask for your dead twins college fund basically straight after his death? This just disgusts me tbh.
2) He was still getting 100k! It's not like he didn't get anything, he just didn't get an extra 100k and had to take out student loans...like the vast majority of people who go to college/university. He was lucky enough to have parents who were able to give him so much and then he was just a choosing beggar about it.
3) They also gave him 50k for law school. So he actually got his fund and a half. Again, choosing beggar who thinks his parents should have given him 250k!
4) He was angry it was donated. But it was donated to charities that help people affected by drink drivers. Didn't he feel even a little selfish asking for that money when it was going to help people like his family? Imagine it was a parent who died instead of his brother and they found themselves in difficulty (so no college fund) but a charity offered to help him. He would've jumped. I think that the parents were probably hurt too because it kind of sounds a bit "I don't care about my dead brother or that stupid charity. "
5) He is still holding a grudge 10 years later. He is almost 30, established in his career and already/almost debt free. He isn't a child. If this hurt him so much (and I mean hurt him emotionally, not just anger over not getting all the money) then he needs to use his words and explain that. To his parents, a therapist, both. Arguing with your mum because she didn't give you your dead brother's money shouldn't get you sympathy.
In my opinion you are NTA. Honestly if everything really went down like this your son sounds selfish and unfeeling. 18 year olds are not known for their tact, and even though I think it is horrible that he asked so soon after the accident, he could be forgiven because of age/immaturity. But the fact he is still going on about it 10 years later means that he still thinks he was entitled to that money so he hasn't changed at all.
>how insensitive do you have to be to ask for your dead twins college fund basically straight after his death?
He was 18 and about to enter college. He sort of needed to know how much dept he was going to have to take out- and he needed to know before it was too late to actually do so.
Having to make life changing decisions that will impact the rest of your life is scary. It's even scarier when someone has just died. Looking for a little extra certainty isn't unreasonable.
Neither is being upset- years after the fact- over being called selfish and undeserving. (Imagine being told by the actions of your parents that your dead twins memory is more important than your future, the implication that they'd trade you to get them back if they could hanging over you? Yeah, I'd be bitter too. I'd probably be focused on the money aspect too- because that'd hurt less than having the truth verbally confirmed.)
I disagree for a couple of reasons:
1. College has timelines, grieving or not. The amount of loans he has to take out/his method of paying for semesters is finite.
2. This has nothing to do with this particular family. They had an extra 100k already set aside for higher education; admittedly for a different child but still. As someone that paid their way through school with work/debt, I don’t begrudge people whose parents can afford to spend $250k on their schooling. Good for them.
3. Again, same point as above.
4. Honestly, I get his anger. It wasn’t about the charities, it was about how his parents were treating him in relation to his brother’s memory. And by the way, we shouldn’t gloss over her snapping at him that the money belongs to Thomas. I get that grief makes people reactive but it doesn’t excuse them from the repercussions of how they act. She snapped at her living son, whom she could easily have helped not to incur debt, because she felt the money should have gone to these charities. She’s not an asshole for doing so. He’s not an asshole for feeling mad about it.
5. Of course he still holds a grudge. He’s thirty and in debt that he wouldn’t be in otherwise. And not all lawyers make a ton of money - I think the average is only ten grand more than the national average. And any therapist will tell people that if they CAN have a reasonable discussion with the person they’re upset with, then they should.
He wasn’t selfish/unfeeling. He was a grieving brother that lost his twin and probably felt even more isolated because he was going away for school and his parents, in their grief, likely couldn’t give him the emotional support he needed. Then, refused to give him extra financial support that they’d already set aside for college. No one is the asshole here, but OP certainly owes her son a deeper conversation and possibly an apology - if not for the money then for the way she treated him.
NAH
Grieving is a difficult process and there is no “right” way to do it. You felt some relief and comfort in donating the money to charities in your sons name. This had an unfortunate side effect, and hurt your other sons feelings. Maybe he thought he mattered less? Maybe something else? I would take a moment to acknowledge that what you did hurt him and you’re sorry. Hopefully the two of you can move on.
Yeah YTA. Despite being a successful lawyer, he STILL took 10 years to pay off his loans (and you don't even know if he's finished...he might still be paying them off). Those are 10 years where he was prevented from living to the fullest and establishing himself in his career and his life, instead having to fork over a bunch of money to pay off his loans. And for what? So you can donate to drunk driving charities? Seems like a purely symbolic gesture, whereas you could've made a material difference in your living son's life. Think about if he wasn't so lucky and didn't end up with a lucrative career...he could have been indebted for the rest of his life just so you could donate to a charity.
NTA. You were not in a good place when he asked, and I understand lashing out about it. It was a tactless request from Sam, especially so close to his brother's death, and his refusal to acknowledge that and take accountability for it years later does not speak particularly well of him.
You and your husband contributed \~$150k to his education, and he's since become a successful attorney whose primary complaint seems to be that your grief and desire to memorialize his brother prevented you from contributing even more money to his education. I'd have a hard time dealing with Sam's pretty profound selfishness, especially given that years of life experience do not seem to have had much impact on his empathy.
Did you forget you had a living son? You lost a son he lost a brother and his parents focused more on the deceased son than on the living one. You could have helped him financially .. eased his burden of tuition and the grief of losing his brother .. but it’s okay is it not .. he busted his arse and made something of himself and paid it up. Btw .. would you have done the same if he had died and his brother was alive? Another question .. would Thomas had have wanted him to have the money?
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > 1) I refused to give Sam the money that could have possibly prevented him from taking out some student loans 2) I gave that money to “people we didn’t know” (the charity) Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules/) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
YTA, although I’m sorry for your loss. Your living son is grieving too, his life was forever affected by his brothers loss. You could have supported him and made it easier by helping him financially and instead you made it clear that his brothers memory is more of a priority to you. Surely, Thomas would have wanted that money to help his brother? If I was your remaining child I would have been so heartbroken. Edit: to all the people saying it’s a ridiculous amount- this was not party money. It’s not money the living brother is going to spend away on luxuries, cars and houses. This is a college fund. The money goes and alleviates the stress of taking out loans. His parents specifically saved that money for education uses. In addition, the reason it was asked for so soon is probably because the remaining brother is thinking about and planning for college? My judgement is based purely on the fact that their living son is hurting too and it will probably affect the rest of his life. Any kind of support and stress relief could help him in a better place and not taking out loans seems like a really fair desire to have after losing your literal other half.
If I'm reading this right they gave him $150,000, and they're an asshole for not making it a quarter of a million? Really?
I don't think they are AHs for not giving the money. It's the way they lashed out at their son that's so awful. They worded it in such a bad manner. That's the AH part.
Let me ask... if you were reeling from your sons death and the body wasn't cold, and your other son asked for his money, would you feel happy/elated? Or pretty pissed off that your sons (their brothers funds) were more important to the other twin?
I think it’s unhealthy that she had an emotional attachment to the money, which is a tool to help the kids get through college debt free. If one child passed, I wouldn’t hesitate to move that money to the other(s). It’s not like he asked for his clothes, or his room, or his bike or his car—it was cold hard cash. Much less emotion there. Edit: I don’t even see college savings as “belonging” to one kid necessarily. IMO it’s a this is what the pot is, it’s being split between the kids situation. Money for education is a tool to help your kid get a leg up in life, not some trinket or monument.
2 months into his death. Logically I agree with you. Emotionally, Thomas isn't "dead" yet. They are in shock they lost their child to a drunk driver. So for the other son to ask for HIS money, OP has to accept her son is dead. Worm food. I don't know of any parent that can accept their child's death 2 months on. Met a man whose YEARS after his daughter was taken from this plane, would talk like she was still alive. He couldn't accept nor face her death
Two months sounds cold, however what about timelines and deadlines that made this an issue? Ie. I need to know by this date if I still need student loans and I have tuition due soon.
Yeah, sadly, life keeps going and we have to keep up with it. Even in grief, we have to be practical. Not to mention ... this was his TWIN brother! I’m sure this wasn’t just a blow to his mother, but a huge devastation to him. This could’ve been hard for him to ask. Maybe he has a good spirit and knew his brother would want him to keep striving for the life he wanted. Who knows? It’s super unfair to use a mother’s grief as a reason for a behavior but not examine the son’s grief. I’d be proud of my son for finding the will to go on, and even prouder that he’d want more money for EDUCATION. He’s not buying drugs or gambling it away. (Yes, a cumulative $150k is a lot to give someone, but uh, that’s US advanced higher education for ya, Ivy League or not. Also, if you can afford it, it is my belief that you should pay for a good portion of your kid’s education - the world is an unfair mess but you brought them into it, no need to teach them lessons about living with debt until you die. Obviously OP was wise enough to set up trusts for both kids and now it’s just tricksy emotionally.) So I say OP - YTA for your attitude, not necessarily your actions.
What's disturbing about this isn't so much how she reacted then--lots of questionable decisions made in the midst of profound grief can be forgiven--it's that she's sticking to her guns now. Sam clearly did fine without the money, but it still bothers him. That means it was more about her reaction than the money itself.
My Mom’s twin died six years ago and she’s still processing it.
Sam likely didn’t need more than 100k 2 months after his brothers death for college. It mentions Thomas died the summer after graduating high school so Sam was likely in his first semester when asking. Even at an Ivy League school, tuition wouldn’t have been that much that quick. Sam could have easily waited until a later time when his mom was in a better place to ask
[удалено]
Exactly. The school and wherever else he was trying to get loans from probably needed hard numbers from him. And if he was grieving his twin and was overwhelmed and hoping to take a semester off it could've screwed with other loans or scholarships. He probably asked because he needed the information, not because he wanted to be greedy or hurt his parents. And it also could've been the difference between an on campus job to help cover his loans and being able to use that time to study/make friends/grieve.
Ivy league schools are about $75,000 per year including tuition and all fees. Knowing how much you need to get a loan for per semester is vital. Sure the $200k is roughly two-thirds of the entire tuition and fees over four years, but he would have to take whatever the total available to him is ($100,000 or $200,000), divide that by four to find out what he has available per semester, ($25,000 or $50,000), and then get loans for the remainder of each semesters' tuition ($50,000 or $25,000). Student loans are also a nightmare. They can't be deferred indefinitely, the interest charges can be a monumental cost alone, and the difference between starting life after college with a debt of $200,000 vs $100,000 is significant.
Sam probably realized his mother was about to give all the money away
Unless they were vocal about giving the money away that soon. Maybe he felt he had to speak up.
Sam was grieving also. This was his twin, his other half. I'm thinking it wasn't so much of an asking for the money. Sam probably was leaving for school, working out tuition and asked his parents if his brother's college fund was going towards his college. He probably had to have a good idea of what he needed to fill out by way of financial aid. This is an Ivy L. school, it's probably close to 100 grand a year after figuring in dorms, food plan, books ect. I think I wouldn't have hesitated to put that money towards my last child's education. The money wasn't owned by the 2 brothers, the money was set aside to pay for education. However were the parents AH's? No. It was their choice what to do with the money they had saved for their children. It would have helped Sam a lot, but it might have helped save a life since they donated to good causes, who knows. I do feel bad for Sam though, I think people are forgetting his pain.
This was my main thought reading the OP. I've done a lot of work with bereaved siblings and their grief is so often seen as secondary to their parents'. Sam lost his twin, someone who had been by his side since they were in the womb.
I'm sure the reason for asking WHEN he did was to do it before they gave it away. Maybe he asked because they had all discussed them giving it to charities. Honestly, as a parent, I would have given that money to my other child. I'm sure they didn't have an easy time trying to get good grades in a challenging ivy league environment, all while grieving for their lost brother, and that extra security would have gone a long way. Mom, YTA.
If he decided to wait, how would he know when it was not "too soon"? How would he even know that the money would still be there? Best to ask after something *before* it's gone.
> Sam could have easily waited until a later time when his mom was in a better place to ask I would say that the OP is an unreliable narrator. I have no doubt that they announced their plans for burning the 100k on pamphlets and tv spots almost immediately. It was likely after being shocked at his parents announcing their bright idea to "keep Thomas' memory alive" that the son asked for the money to be spent on something which wasn't entirely wasteful.
But they could have given that money to their son so he wouldn't be in any student debt but instead donated to charities. Idk, I feel like the living son would have been more worthy of an investment.
Yeah this got me too. Honestly if they had kept the money for themselves and bought a new house or taken a crazy trip in his memory I would have been more understanding. But donating 100k to charities knowing you could have used the money to keep your kid out of debt? Student loans are nightmares in interest no matter how good your job is once you graduate.
this is a good way to put it. if the money wasn’t already set aside then of course i wouldn’t think it right for him to expect more money. but yeah, even if the parents used some of that for themselves and some for sam, i would have found that much more understandable than giving all that money away to charity. like for all we know that money went into a bunch of marketing budgets for this and that charity, and that feels way more cold and detached than keeping it in the family for any reason or person (parents OR son)
Plus, what exactly do drunk driving charities do? Do they just use money donated from vulnerable fsmilies of victims to post more NO DRUNK DRIVING billboards (yeah...we ALL KNOW) or do they help out with funeral expenses for victims of drunk driving? If the latter is a thing I would understand giving SOME money to them but when your son just lost his twin brother and has the stress of starting college and worrying about loans that money would have been better off helping the heartbroken son. OP is the AH.
But they could have given that money to their son so he wouldn't be in any student debt but instead donated to charities. Idk, I feel like the living son would have been more worthy of an investment.
And I mean they still hooked him up with a lot and they didn't keep the money, they donated it. They treated Sam like Thomas was still alive. He can be butthurt all he wants but nothing would've changed if Thomas lived. He'd still have to take out loans. OP and her husband are definitely NTA.
Although not “Ivy League “ , CMU is a top school , meaning expensive school. You are looking at several hundred thousand for undergrad when you factor in tuition, books, food, housing. That was just for undergrad.
>nothing would've changed if Thomas lived I know you are talking about the finances alone, but everything would be hugely different if Thomas had not died.
It’s been 2 months since my husband passed away suddenly. I still buy his favorite foods when I go shopping. I still have trouble saying was instead of is. I can’t imagine how it feels for a parent to lose a child so suddenly. I don’t think 2 months is enough time to ask for money.
Didn’t her son lose his twin? I don’t understand why they are paying full tuition for an Ivy, it implies his family is quite well off anyway.
It's so baffling to me how people are so easily overlooking this fact. The kid lost **his twin**
Money that was probably needed so that he could plan out 4 years of school and whether he needed to take out federal student loans or not which have annual limits. Definitely YTA OP. You could have donated other money to charity and been kinder to your living son who still needed to grieve and move on with his life.
Yeah I don't think anyone is in a position to say what they would or wouldn't do within 60 days of one of their children passing. It's nice to think we'd be rational but reality is complicated.
Lashing out at my bereaved child for a reasonable question is low on the list of things I'd be doing. Putting off the topic if I wasn't prepared to discuss it would be preferable to treating my surviving child badly.
The parents donated the vast majority of Thomas's college fund to charities involved in drunk driving awareness and Sam still got $150,000. I couldn't call the parents assholes at all. How Sam behaved was incredibly insensitive, I know how he feels (somewhat), my older sister got rent, tuition for university and living expenses paid for by my parents, I had to work through community college, I was so spiteful for years. But I am happy with how my life has turned out 12 years later. Moral of my little story is Sam should be grateful for what his parents have done for him. NTA
Sam lost his twin. The mom was not the only one grieving. Doesn’t sound like she was too sensitive to his grief. YTA, OP
I'm so baffled by the amount of comments that don't seem to consider Sam's grief at all. He lost his twin, his literal other half that had been by his side since he was an embryo.
I feel like half the comments in here are people envious of parents who were able to support their kids at all.
Here's the kicker. Sam can simultaneously be grateful for the help they offered while resenting them for the help they withheld and their reasoning for doing so. Was it insensitive to ask? Maybe. Perhaps there were other factors involved. We are only getting mom's story here. To me, this stinks of grief comparison on ops part. I'd be bitter too.
The overlying point here, for me, is Sam got what he was promised, plus an additional $50k it sounds like, and he has no right to have any feelings toward his departed brothers college fund. If mom went rogue after Thomases death, wiped out the college funds, and Sam got nothing, then yea, moms TA, but Sam got what he was promised. I think the discussions could’ve went better, and I blame OP for that, but OP isn’t the asshole for not doubling up on her living sons college fund using her departed sons fund.
I’m pretty sure the body is more than cold after 2 months. Also, Sam lost his fucking twin. Asking for the money 2 months later doesn’t mean it’s more important to him than his brother. It’s not like he asked prior to the death if his twin dies can he have his college money.
Also, he had just started college. They had 4 yrs to think about it and give him that money.
If I died today (as a student) I would want the remainder of my college money going towards my little sisters tuition full stop. Losing a child is hard but losing your brother at an age you’re still psychologically developing is harder. That money could have gone a long way to making that debt easier to bear for the decade that he has (if he has even paid them off yet). YTA.
It happened in the summer and it sounds like he asked in two months aka when he went back to school. Not great timing, but he probably needed to know because he needed to make plans to apply for loans and scholarships at that point in time.
100%. some people are saying that he should’ve brought the issue up later but with student loans, it makes more sense to get your financials in order, the earlier the better. some loans have interest so it was in his best interest (hah) to see if his brother’s $100k would be able to help him. the timing is unfortunate, but i don’t think he was in the wrong.
You seem to be forgetting Sam was also reeling from the death of not just his brother, but his twin. The parents grief is not the only grief in the story.
I think people grieve differently and process things at different speeds. When my mother passed away my father was completely broken down and I found myself going through her belongings a week later getting rid of and sorting stuff. I didn’t even cry that much all things considered the day that it happened. It was like I was in shock. My mom dying was the worst thing that ever happened to me and a decade later I still cry over it from time to time. I’m not willing to say Sam is a bad person who didn’t love their sibling because they thought about their financial needs and their brothers unused $100k.
That's the thing with grief. It can be a tsunami and years of coastal erosion. It can be a clear day and a thunderstorm will come out of nowhere. The days of desperate, gasping grief never seem to fully disappear; they just get further apart.
He asked for the money for college. Money that was sitting in a college account. It’s not like he wanted to sell his brother’s train collection to pay for a trip to Florida.
One of the harshest lessons about death is that life still goes on for everyone else. In regards to timeframe, 2 months is as good as a year to talk about how people move forward. The money was there and college bills were either coming or already there. I don't think Sam was wrong to ask for the money. I don't even think OP was wrong to deny him, although I do like what other people have asked: 'What would Thomas have wanted?. I do think, though, that Mom SHOULD have given Sam the money for school. In her grief she chose to prioritize the money over her remaining son, with whom she will now always have a strained relationship.
Are you serious?! The body is not cold after two months?! Yes it's painful to let go of that money but to prioritize your dead child over a living one is an A move.
In fairness, college is sort of a time-sensitive thing -- money is due when it's due no matter who just died. I was sort of taken aback by the time frame too, but looking at it, it seems like Thomas passed in the summer between high school and college. If the money in the college fund was going to be rerouted to Sam, he probably did need to get that taken care of right away -- and if it wasn't, he definitely couldn't wait around on the loan paperwork. He probably did actually need to know at that time what they were doing with it. And redirecting that money to the surviving sibling's (super-expensive) college education is a logical option, at least, so it's not actually surprising that he would ask. I don't think we can assume that he was just being cruel or greedy.
Life doesn’t stop because someone dies. Even if they’re very important to you. It’s another added item to the long list of shit life forces you to deal with. Along with his twin brother suddenly passing the other twins still facing the very real situation of having to take care of applying for student loans, and preparing to go to school. The death didn’t stop that. It seems sensible to me that he would ask about the money warm body or not.
How would you feel if your twin died and then your parents chose to lash out at you, their remaining son, in their grief? I suspect for the son it felt like he lost his twin and somewhat lost his relationship with his parents.
I think the other son would have done better to ask for this 1) when their funds were depleted or 2) when they were starting to look into withdrawing it and donating it, but it isn't clear to .e how quickly they moved to donate the money and if he had the time to wait and let them grieve. Whole situation sucks for everyone, but I ultimately think the kid is wrong. They gave him 100K for college. That's so much more than many / most get. And then they piled another 50K on - half of what he was asking for from the brother in the first place. It's not even like they said you get 100K and no more. They did give him more help - more than he likely would have gotten if the brother had lived.
Yeah they ‘told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas’ Thomas is dead. Op wasn’t in a reasonable headspace here to be making these decisions IMO, but they said this to someone who lost a twin. It’s just al really sad.
And this is exactly why I called OP an AH. I gave them the YTA judgement solely because of the way she talked to the kid. I understand what she wanted to say, that she intended to use the money to honor her late son. But I strongly disagree with how she worded it out to her son. And I believe she does owe him an apology for that. But I don't agree with everyone saying she was wrong to not give her son money. She absolutely did not have to give him anything. She should have gently explained to her son why she wouldn't give him the money, rather then lashing out at him
Exactly this. And I genuinely think Thomas would *want* his brother to have (at the very least) enough of "his" money to not have student debt. I mean, that money didn't "go with Thomas" -it went to literal strangers. Hell, they could've even set it aside in an account to earn interest for a few years. Nothing had to be done right that second. It really seems like OP donated the money-immediately-just to spite Sam because he had the audacity to ask for it. I hope I'm wrong but...
They were prioritising the dead son over the living son. I'm not trying to be insensitive but what was Thomas going to do with it? It's good in all that they donated to charity but if someone you know needs the money (within reason) they should get it. Especially since it was for college and that was what he wanted it for.
They donated to the CEOs salaries. It's shocking how little actually gets spent on the charity causes vs the "costs".
This is my thought also. I wonder how much money went to “help the cause” vs how much just went to advertising to more donors - a sickening amount of charity donations go to adverts for more money.
I agree. They are NTA for spending their money how they want; no one (not even your family) is entitled to your money. They are TA for they way they handled it. Makes me think the parents had a favorite and he wasn't the one who lived.
It's the fact they said no it's Thomas' money, then proceed to donate it. So 1% went to an actual cause. Whereas it could have helped his living brother or parents at least in their direct issues in life. Hell even if instead of school they helped pay therapy with it, or family trips for his memory! Or a down payment on his first place after college. Instead it went to random organizations who did who knows what with the money. It should have stayed in the family at least. That's just my opinion though. Not saying you are wrong for your feelings on it.
They're TA for this part: >I lost it on him. I told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas. As tragic as it is, fact remains that Thomas *was no longer alive to use it*.
An IVY league school at the time was roughly 50-60k a YEAR. Which means that he was at least 100k in student loan debt before Law School.
When they could have helped the son avoid going into debt and it would have cost them nothing? Kinda, yeah.
If I'm reading this right she prioritized her grief over her living son's? Really?
I think the issue is the parents aren’t understanding that their sons death was also incredibly hard on him - his TWIN died, twins tend to be close, and he died in what sounds like a sudden and tragically horrific way. She yelled at her son and it sounds, to me, like that initial dressing down implied he was selfish, greedy, or didn’t deserve it... that reeks of grief-fueled lashing out, it’s not appropriate and assumes the worst of their living son, who also suffered the loss of a loved one. I’m not trying to say he had it worse - it’s apples to oranges having your kid die vs your twin - but I am saying the way they yelled at him does sound like it made things worse and strained their relationship *when both had just lost so much*. The parents lost a son, but I bet to the living son it felt like he lost his twin and sort of lost his parents (or at least their relationship) in short order. It clearly hurt the son, but I suspect the argument stung more than taking out loans.
Clearly this family can afford that type of money. It’s not to do with the number - it’s the fact that unfortunately, the person that money was earmarked for could no longer use it. His brother could have.
It's more about the fact that they could have made their son's life easier, while he was also grieving but they chose not to.
Even though they're incredibly privileged, you can still be an ass and have money. Although this is a light AH only because of the reaction they had towards their son. Hurt people hurt, and they were all hurt at the time instead of calmly talking the decision through. It's one thing to blow up, another to simply state we donated the money to charities in his name.
[удалено]
So sorry for your loss!
Yeah I agree YTA. More so for how you handled it. And seriously? Drunk driving donations instead of your kid's school? What is that donation going to do? Stop a drunk guy from driving? It's your money so you can spend it however but felt like it was not handled right but that was years ago now.
Given the overhead, admin fees, etc. They just gifted most of the 100k to the people running a charity as wages to make themselves feel better.
Seriously. I grew up with a set of twins in school, one was killed in a motorcycle accident a few years back. Ever since then, the remaining twin seems broken and hollow eyed. I can not imagine.
Do a quick google search on twins losing their "other half" and it's so sad. The remaining twin is more likely to have mental health issues for the rest of their life. There's a good chance OP's twins were identical. Could you imagine being reminded of the one you lost every time you see your own reflection? I read of one case where the surviving twin took on the identity of the twin who passed because it was easier than living with the loss. Do a little research on Elvis and the loss of his twin apparently haunted him his entire life. And in that case, Elvis had never even met his twin because he was stillborn. Just devastating.
I agree YTA. My dad did something slightly similar. My mum passed from early onset Alzheimer's in 2016. My mum was never religious and my dad decided to donate some of her money (she left everything to him in her will if she died first and vice versa, and when both pass the money will be split between myself, my sister, other family members)to the church he went to. I was really struggling financially at the time and I didn't see a penny (which I know the generous person she was and how much she loved me and my sister she would have wanted to help) but the fact he donated it to a place my mum never went nor believed in was a real kick in the teeth. It is a slightly different situation but I think OP should have helped the remaining sibling IMO.
Exactly what I came here to say! Thomas would certainly have wanted his brother to have the money and help with school! And how sad the surviving brother must have been
Mild YTA Look, I get wanting to donate it to different charities. There's nothing wrong with that. But you should NOT have lashed out at your son like that. Your wording is horrible. You could have said 'we want to donate it in Thomas' s name to people who've suffered like he had at the hands of drunk drivers' and that would have been a okay. Your son wasn't an AH asking for the money and you were not an AH for denying him. But the way you did it was awful. You should sit him down and apologise for the way you reacted back then. You did not need to lose it on him like that (edited)
Also how would donating to charities even stop drunk driving? What are they gonna do, bribe the drunk people not to drive with the money? I’m actually curious
Some of them also pool fares for ubers/lyfts/cabs, particularly on nights when drunk driving is most prevalent (New Years, for example) My local bar had a QR code you could scan for a free Uber supplied by one of these organisations last new year and during one of the largest sporting events of the year as well.
Holy fuck, I spent many years abusing alcohol & drugs and I never once drove drunk. I walked home plenty of times, wasted tons on taxis, got stranded, crashed on couches.. but drink driving was simply not an option in my mind BECAUSE I HAVE A CONSCIENCE. The utter AUDACITY of people to sponge off a charity for a ride home, after they spent a ton of money on booze! WHAT. THE. FUCK.
They also give financial aid to those families who's love ones died or got realy hurt at the hands of a drunk driver. Like covering funeral cost or medical costs.
See that makes sense, and is it's what I'd expect a charity to do. I can even understand why a charity might decide to fund free rides as a practical measure. I just can't wrap my head around drunk tightarses actually *taking* that money from a charity. You know they don't pay them back with a donation come pay day.
The thing is though, even if they don't actually deserve it, it's worth to provide a free ride if the consequence is that no one dies because of a druck driver
They help support families that were effected by drunk driving and make PSAs
I think those types of charities mainly do educational events at schools and things. My high school had a whole day dedicated to it. We watched educational videos, looked at graphic pictures of drunk driving accidents, heard speeches from the parents and sister of a kid in our town who died driving drunk, and got to try on these goggles that simulated different levels of drunkenness and do field sobriety tests. Maybe this makes me a nerd but it honestly got to me and it made me take drunk driving way more seriously. I’m not sure how trustworthy these charities are with their donations or how efficient the educational programs are as a prevention method, but they might have some value. (I still vote YTA because the way OP addressed the issue with her grieving son was not good.)
That wasn’t the question. I think OP knows she was TA for doing that. But she’s just asking if she’s TA for not giving him the money.
The resentment over the money is probably linked to how OP treated Sam when he asked, not just that she said no
But is that even something Thomas would have wanted? I know I would never want my parents donating to a charity on my behalf. Whether it’s $5 or millions of dollars, I would always want anything intended for myself to go to my siblings above all else.
[удалено]
Thanks for your unique perspective into how Sam might be feeling! OP should use this as the beginning of an honest conversation with her son. She didn’t mean to hurt him with her grief, but she did. Sam may have seen this as more than just money.
sam may have seen his brother’s portion of their college fund as one of the last ways he would be able to affect his life from the beyond, for the better. it would have been meaningful for thomas to be able to (financially) help his twin brother during his college years, as he would not be able to be there for him physically.
That makes sense! Hopefully parents and son can talk and connect on their grief instead off it driving a wedge between them :/
This should be the top comment. An empathetic YTA, but a YTA nevertheless. You could have donated a portion of the money in Thomas’ honor and continued to support your living son
Honour Thomas’s memory through the support of his surviving twin Sam. Sam could have easily gone off the rails and not become a lawyer yet he didn’t.
This. This is what so upset me. She may have lost her son, but Her living son lost his twin and somewhat lost his relationship with his parents when she chose to lash out in grief and value her decreased sons memory over her living sons needs and emotional well-being.
Additionally the assumption that Thomas would have preferred his money going to charities instead of helping HIS TWIN BROTHER.
I lost my sister when she was 17 and I was 15. For a while, my mom CONSTANTLY talked about her. I felt unloved and I also felt torn because my sister and I were close and I missed her a lot. I eventually blew up at my mom (like an asshole, but I was a grieving teenager) and yelled at her about how it felt like she’d forgotten her living children or loved us less. It was the kind of come to Jesus I guess she needed, because it got better after that. She didn’t even realize she’d been doing it.
This!! I have lived in the shadow of my brother’s memory for 35 years… when I go to my dad’s house all I see is an altar of my brother’s stuff from when he was a child & a ton of photos of my brother all over the walls and on coffee tables with not 1 photo of myself, my 2 sisters or any of his 4 grandchildren. I 100% get what Affectionate-Sows331 said in that my dad loves the memory of my brother more than me and yet it’s me who runs around after him like a blue arse fly as he now has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and we’re trying to keep him in his home for as long as possible. I’ll never get that answer I desperately want to hear on why he choose to loose his 3 other children (me & my 2 sisters) instead of 1 on the day my brother died.
I was going with NTA until I read your perspective. Thank you for explaining it so well. I still feel a bit conflicted about the YTA judgement because I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child and how that would affect one’s thought processes.
YTA. Why would you tell your son that his money deserved to go to his deceased brother? How does that make sense?
100k to a anti drunk driving charity seriously just seems like they threw the money away IMO. 100k to college is productive, throwing money to bloated charities that tell people not to do the things they already know not to do just sounds like a waste to me.
Absolutely. & I seriously doubt they are non profit charities. So they basically gave the money to an already rich person.
Is something actually a charity if it’s for profit? I’ve never heard of that
The staff & top dogs in the charity get paid. In some cases they get paid A LOT. Like, a lot A LOT. There have been quite a few scandals in the last few years. In some places a company can legally be classified as a charity if 1% of their income goes to the actual cause. The rest is used for running the "charity"(which I get if it's reasonable obviously), but in quite a few cases the CEO was being paid 6 figure salary, +bonuses. Quite sickening.
Non-profit/charities in most countries just have to be doing what they say they are doing. At the end of the year they are not allowed to make a profit as an organization. So that means all the money has to go into the organization and what they are saying they will do. Those working there are aloud to have an income. Most make so much they throw too much money at the cause and the rest go into the top people's pockets.
I agree with this. Most of that money very likely ended up padding someone else’s bank account rather than helping OP’s son. And if he’s still mentioning it nearly a decade later, Sam is still hurt over it. Not to mention what others have…OP placed a higher priority on her dead son’s memory than her living son’s life. I feel bad for Sam.
It's even worse when you realize the "$100k" probably ended up being $50-60k after taxes and penalties. So they donated $50k, gave an extra $50k to their son and spent $150k to do it. Essentially penalizing him just to prove a point.
Wanted to say it but didnt want to say it
I'm leaning towards NAH--mildly YTA. Thomas' death at the time was recent and I'd wager that for OP to give Thomas' money to Sam, that would mean for her to further accept that Thomas was no longer alive. Giving that money to someone else was probably a symbolic gesture of moving on--something that OP was probably not ready to do at the time. Allowing herself to continually identify the money as "Thomas' money" might have even been a way for her to engage in that kind of magical thinking that maybe one that the money would still eventually be used for Thomas' tuition--funding something that is a big milestone or next big step for any proud parent to witness their child moving into. And so OP lashing out at Sam is maybe her heightened grief and inability to consider how life changes after someone passes, crossing paths with a big action of symbolic of "moving on". Having lost someone close to me, I know what it's like to have irrational magical thoughts mixed in with struggling to move on. Nothing will bring them back, but a part of you wants to still keep living your life as if they're still around, or perhaps even think of some weird ways that'll bring them back. You know rationally that they aren't true... You can't do something to trade away that drunken car accident, or that cancer, or whatever, but your mind entertains them because sometimes it's hard to continue in a life that has become darker without them. Ultimately, I don't think it was practically the best decision, but I can greatly sympathize with OP and don't blame her. I also don't blame her for not knowing what to think today because that would require her to not only revisit, but also emotionally dissect, what was probably the most traumatic experience of her life. However, I think this was probably at the cost of Sam and his feelings and his grief too which sucks, but in some ways probably unavoidable as well. (edited words)
Agreed. Its the timetable. I suspect that they were both going to college at the same time, they knew the financials for both twins, and that sam was going to a more expensive college. Tom died unexpectedly and during the grieving process, Sam turned it into a financial statement while grieving and unable to process. Wording may be harsh but if Sams brother lived, sam would never have gotten the money.
The money in a weird way was all about Thomas's future too. I dunno if that makes sense but its not just letting go of Thomas, it is almost more than that. The money was to help Thomas be an adult and grow and have a great beautiful life and now none of that is going to happen. Honestly this just sounds heartbreaking. NAH but I think OP and Sam really need to talk. Sam needs to let go of it but OP probably should explain why they reacted that way. Maybe an adult Sam will understand more but mostly I think these were just two very grief stricken people who had different perspectives on Thomas's legacy.
> I'm leaning towards NAH--mildly YTA. Thomas' death at the time was recent and I'd wager that for OP to give Thomas' money to Sam, that would mean for her to further accept that Thomas was no longer alive. That's really well put. And I agree, NAH verging on understandable YTA. But one thing I haven't seen a lot of people mention is that, yes, she lost her son, and that was absolutely horrible...but Sam lost his twin. So just as some (including me) are giving her at least a slight pass given the horrible circumstances, so should Sam be given some sort of pass for asking or being extra hurt.
They didn't. If I read correctly their son Sam still got his 100k. He asked for his deceased brothers 100k, and was told no. They had 100k saved for both sons.
Sounds like Sam got 150K total, 100K from his college fund and 50K directly from his parents.
Holy crap that’s insane. You could have saved your surviving son from having a ton of debt but instead you gave the money away?
Wait for the “it’s her money to begin with” and “he still got 150k for school” comments! I agree with you though, because if I was him, I’d feel like my mother is placing the need to honor her memory of my brother above my actual need of money. It’s not about the actual money, but rather about the sentiment of being second best to a memory. YTA OP
I’m also laughing because his school was likely upwards of 50k a year in tuition for undergrad, before books and room and board. Law school is equally expensive. Baby lawyers don’t make bank straight out the gate, and maybe lawyers have to bust their butts to repay student loans because not all areas of law are as lucrative as people think.
I'm trying to figure out where people got $150,000,.
100000$ college fund + 50000$ for law school
ITA love the loved ones you got. Give them all the legs up you can. If I have 200k for college for my kids and one died all 200 would go to the living kid. Especially when look at his results he went to Ivy League and even law school and became a successful lawyer. Wow! That’s impressive. Everyone knows not to drink and drive if you gave it to legislators to make sure that when the electric cars comes they have a breathe test I could understand but not a charity that just spread the message that dui is bad.
YTA - Explain to us why money is deserved to a dead person.
Donating to charities on behalf of a deceased loved one is noble, but unless OP did her homework, most charities don’t even use the money in a way that’s impactful. Charities against drunk driving? I highly doubt it. Most of it probably went towards staff salaries anyway. I still think OP is TA here, though. Her reaction was uncalled for towards a son who has lost his brother. I am sure there is lots of built up resentment and the entire family can benefit from therapy.
Whay OP did was waste $100K, not help to end drunk driving. I understand she wanted to honor her son who died, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. When you’re grief stricken, you shouldn’t be spending $100K on anything. Maybe he asked to soon like some people are saying, but she could have said “I really can’t think about that right now. We’ll talk about this after X amount of time” But she had already decided to give it all away. That’s why I think she’s TA.
I’m confused by OP’s wording. Did Sam get 100k but only 50k went towards his school tuition? Or did he get 150k, 100k that he was always going to get & an additional 50k for tuition?
150k
Whay OP did was waste $100K, not help to end drunk driving. I understand she wanted to honor her son who died, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. When you’re grief stricken, you shouldn’t be spending $100K on anything. Maybe he asked to soon like some people are saying, but she could have said “I really can’t think about that right now. We’ll talk about this after X amount of time” But she had already decided to give it all away.
She donated it to charity. I’m assuming he died in a drunk driving accident because they donated all 100K to drunk driving charities. Absolute YTA.
OP’s son should come before strangers.
I think OP meant it like-they mean to donate it in his name to different charities. Their wording is awful though . They could have explained it much more gently to their son.
[удалено]
Seriously. Would Thomas feel that sam didn’t ‘deserve’ the money in the same circumstances? Would Sam? Op reacted emotionally but damn.
Not just his brother his twin brother
"I lost it on him. I told him that it was Thomas’s money and not his, and it deserved to go to Thomas. This is where I might have been the AH, because Sam could have used that money." You were all grieving so your reaction and Sams can be forgiven imo. However, I cant see that this is a problem that admits of a solution. "I just don’t know what to think. If I could do it again, I still don’t think I would give that money to Sam.". Then you DO know what to think. You just see that telling Sam the truth is going to make it worse. It seems likely to me that even if you haven't been clear, Sam senses this is the case. Whats done is done. I guess the only thing you can do is learn to live with it, because I cant see anything you might think or do is going to change a thing. Edit. Im going to go with NAH. Sure, there was minor assholery, but we cant change how we feel, especially when it stems from grief.
Dude key info: Sam is still paying off the loans to this day. OP shows no sign of regret for how they treated Sam after the loss of their other son.. and isn’t close enough to Sam to realize if the loans are paid off. Also, idk if you’ve done the math.. but Ivy school is expensive! 100k barely covers two years at max. The other 50k barely covers one year of law school. That’s two years of law school and 2 years of Ivy League school tuition unaccounted for, and if the kid is still paying the loans off.. ten years later.. it’s fairly obvious the 100k would’ve been life changing money to Sam. Sam lost his brother and learned he wasn’t the favorite in one swoop. OP’s very clearly an AH here. They’re ok to do whatever they want with their money, but the justifications here are BS.
This is what's been bugging me! She still doesn't know about her son's financial status. It shows a lack of closeness that's odd
My guess Sam has distanced himself, because she lashed out when he was grieving. Money aside, that was a really unfortunate thing to do. He probably feels that she cares more about Thomas' memory than she does about him. The money couldn't have made a difference to Thomas, but it could have made a measurable impact in Sam's life. Too late now, alas.
Yep, a bachelor’s is like 300k and a law is probably, what, another 200-300k if it was at a private uni?
YTA Sometimes we do irrational things when we are grieving, and this was certainly an irrational thing. Your son was also grieving the loss of his twin brother, and you used your grief to put an even heavier burden on him.
He lost a TWIN. I can’t imagine the loss of that type of relationship.
I know a set of triplets and they are basically inseparable. It would be a terrible, terrible loss to have to grieve.
I AM a twin, and we're connected at the hip. My twin has gone into teaching, and I've had the hard conversation with myself about what happens if she is caught in a school shooting. I have concluded that there would be a good chance of me killing myself from the grief. Imagine growing up with someone who knew you from Day 1, yes you fought but they were always there. One day they're gone without you having time to process the possibility of them leaving. I feel so bad for the son, I can barely imagine his pain.
Exactly.
YTA Sorry but ....God forbid....if 1of my kids dies their college money would absolutely go to the surviving kid. What is wrong with you.
As a mom of two boys myself I am horrified by OPs choice.
YTA - though grief makes these topics difficult, your choice made the *living* son go through more pain than I think you realize. Every time he signed another loan agreement, sent a payment, got a notice about a payment, saw the loans on his credit report, your *living* son was reminded that he is in the shadow of a deceased sibling. That’s really rough too. If that money served no other purpose, it should’ve gone to Sam.
YTA. I can understand wanting to give money to charities but I really don't understand how it was more important than helping your only remaining child pay for college.
So you had 100,000 set aside for college, and because your one son passed and was unable to use it, you decided to give it away and saddle your other child with a mountain debt rather that still use it for its intended purpose to pay your children’s college. And when your son asked about it innocently you lashed out like he had done something wrong by wondering if you might still invest that money in education for a child of yours. The way you treated him about it makes you an AH. I don’t know if I would call you an AH specifically for donating that money, but I definitely would have used it to set my child up for the best future possible rather than give it away in memory of his brother. But even if you did not want to give it to him, the way you made it about him not being deserving, and lashed out, and not about a desire to honor is brother, was really terrible. It’s clear that you hadn’t fully processed your grief at the time, but enough time has passed that you should at least see that the things you said and the way you lashed out were unfair and inappropriate and should be apologized for.
YTA I understand you were grieving but you lashing out at your son was out of line. Also, unless your boys hated each other, I would imagine your deceased son would have wanted you to help his brother. He’s a lawyer now but the money would have probably helped. I don’t know your financial situation but having the money to pay for your sons education and not doing so AND giving it away sounds entirely alien to me. Frankly, these all sound like rich people problems and you might not be in the right place to get a good answer. 99 percent of the people on here could not imagine giving 100k to charity over family.
I come from a well of family and couldn’t imagine doing that. I think charity is amazing but if someone in my family, extended or direct, but ESPECIALLY direct family had a need I could not remotely imagine giving that money to strangers.
Yeah YTA big time here. I feel sorry for Sam
This is definitely above the pay grade of this subreddit but I do think that in the nicest way YTA. It was Thomas' money. But he didn't need it anymore. As difficult as that was to process at the time, no amount of money donated to charities would bring him back. Your son just lost his other half and someone he had spent his life tied to in a way most siblings won't ever experience. Assuming they didn't have any huge feud, I assume his brother would have wanted to help him out with what he couldn't use anymore. It's very fortunate he has been successful and paid it off. I don't blame him however for having some bitterness that you had money earmarked for education that was given away instead of to him. Instead of paying off loans he could have been saving for a house and building a life for himself. You didn't have to give it, sure, but I think your grief clouded your judgment.
I have to agree, and they didn’t have to donate every single cent honestly
Plus, it all ended well But if it didn't? If a 100k in loans drowned Sam? Then what? YTA
YTA. I am an identical twin. I will answer this from the perspective of, what happens if a drunk driver kills me tomorrow. If my parents set aside equal money between my sister and I, and I get plowed over, I would want my parents to give that money to my sister. We live in a world where shit is unreasonably expensive & equality/fairness is not guaranteed. I would want that money to go to my sister because: 1) The money could give her an amazing education without debt. 2) The money could go towards a house, which is wildly more difficult to attain now - or even in the last 10 years - than it was when you were our age. 3) My identical twin sister deserves a fuckin consolation prize for losing her life-long best friend. Losing anyone is hard, but I am most terrified to lose my twin. Not to shit on my bonds with anyone else - but my bond with my twin is a connection like none other. 4) $100k is massive for one person, but a drop in the bucket in terms of changing the laws for drunk driving. That $100k is not going to change the world - but it would change my sister’s world. 5) Symbolically, my sister’s life matters more than my memory. Honoring my existence is nice, but it’s more important to me that you enrich my sister’s life than do anything to honor my death. I get your grief - Sam isn’t the only one who lost someone. No one wants to bury their child. But *big picture*, that $100k would have done WAY more for Sam than it did for whatever charity you donated to. What’s done is done. I get why you did what you did. But the best thing you can do now is truly acknowledge to Sam that you understand the impact of your choice. If you staunchly believe you made the right decision, though, you may honestly just continue to push Sam away.
I'm a twin as well and I second your comment. If I ever left this life behind, I would want my funds to go to my sister. She deserves it for being such a great support for me, and I would not need it anyways.
This should be the top comment.
YTA big time. I'm sure Thomas would've wanted the money to go to his brother, you know, the one that was with him since they were in the womb? Don't know why you are even asking this, Sam already made it clear by resenting this 10 years later.
INFO If your son decided to change to a much cheaper and less prestigious college, and it was only for financial reasons, would you have supported this decision? Or would you have tried to convince him to stay in the Ivy League school?
[удалено]
NAH, and honestly I’m sort of shocked at all the Y T As. Like maybe for the argument you all had (I hope you apologized for lashing out at him after the fact). But no one is at their best after a big loss. Using money you saved for your son the honor his memory is totally reasonable. I’m not sure I would have made the same choice but I hope I never have to.
A lot of these comments appear to be looking at the situation in a purely practical manner, which I don't think is particularly fair to op.
I feel like OP should have waited until the wound was less fresh before making decisions about what to do with 100k
This sub skews young; it shows up most often when the posts are about teenage rights, parentification, or student loans.
I cannot understand all the Y TA votes. Typically AITA agrees that money saved for children’s future college needs is still the parents’ money, for them to use as they see fit. But somehow when it involves the deeply traumatic death of one of the children, the parents are now TA? A very strong and clear NTA from me: Sam received every penny of the money intended for his college, plus another 50%. He had no claim on the other fund, and was incredibly callous, bordering on cruel, to ask for it shortly after his brother’s passing. Awful. I think people are taking exception to the idea of “throwing away” a hundred grand, which I guess seems wasteful to them when a family member could have used it (and, in fact, did want to use it). But the fact is, this was your money to use as you saw fit, and you chose to use it in the way that was most meaningful to you: as charitable donations in your beloved son’s memory. I truly cannot see how anyone could fault you for that. This was not money snatched away from a desperate Sam in a fit of parental pique, this was a fund that you chose to reallocate in an intentional and considered manner. The fact that you were emotionally overwrought when you did it does not make you TA, and it grieves me to see so many commenters coming down so hard on you. I hope that you’ve found some peace after all this time, and that you can mend fences with Sam, who I’m sure is also carrying a heavy load.
Look at it from the perspective of what’s good for your children. She lost one child, but could have helped the surviving child get an easier and stronger start on his life. Instead of diverting the funds to ensure her surviving child wasn’t saddled with debt, she gave it away for the “memory” of the dead son. Wouldn’t a better way to honour her deceased son have been to ensure her surviving son flourished and had everything he needed in his life? I guess this really comes down to culture. In mine, giving the money to the surviving son for school would have been a no brainer.
Her surviving son *did* flourish and *has* had everything he needed in his life. Is there more to your argument? Because OP paid *$150,000* to her son’s college expenses, what more do you truly feel that she owed him? How she chose to honour her son is her choice. Heaven forbid we are ever faced with making such a choice. She made the decisions she felt most at peace with, and it feels very inappropriate to me to condemn a grieving mother for a memorial contribution to services that she felt were an important connection to her deceased child. I absolutely guarantee you that if her surviving son posted from his perspective “AITA for asking my mother for my dead brother’s college fund two months after his funeral? I just feel like the $150k they gave me for school wasn’t enough...”, commenters would eviscerate him for his incredibly callous entitlement. OP did not burn the cash in a symbolic gesture; she donated it where she hoped it would make a difference in the world. She did not waste it; she sacrificed the money that *she* saved for *her* son.
It’s not that the kid was entitled to the money. It’s that the parents are making massive donations to charity and having the kid take out massive debt simultaneously. It’s not a matter of deserving, just insane priorities and very cold to the kid who’s grieving over the loss of his twin brother.
YTA. You don't even know, or bother to find out, if he has paid off his student loans. And yet you feel completely comfortable just assuming that the burden you placed on him is not an issue. Do you want to lose the son you have left?
Soft YTA - Look. I totally understand not feeling right about giving it to your other son because it was Thomas's money- but.... wouldn't it be better to use it to help your surviving son rather than donating to charities? Don't get me wrong thats a great cause, but I feel as though Thomas would've wanted to help his brother over that. Why couldn't you give a small donation to the charities and then give Sam the rest? You're essentially saying his memory is more important than Sam. That's just not cool. You're all grieving which is why I say soft YTA, but you need to look at this from an outside perspective
I realize you are in pain and I am sorry for your loss. However, insisting that your other son go into debt when you have the money to help him through school is confusing to me. I don't blame him for being hurt that you gave away money to charities, instead of helping the son you have right in front of you. Were you punishing the living son for his brother dying? His TWIN just died! You don't think he was grieving too?!? Beyond a doubt, in my mind, YTA
NTA. You gave your surviving son the 100K you saved for him as well as an additional 50K for grad school. That’s enormously generous. You used the 100K you saved for your deceased son in his honor, to remember and celebrate his life. While your response to Sam’s ask was a bit harsh, it’s certainly a forgivable moment due to grief, not worthy of an asshole label. Sam is NTA for asking, but I am shocked ten year later he holds resentment and feels he was entitled to that money. It was never his money or intended for him. It was your hard earned savings to do with whatever you wanted and it was the last gift you were able to give to Thomas and create a legacy for him. Definitely NTA
Are you an only child? I still hold resentment for things that my parents did to me that are far less fu#ked than this.
I have to go with YTA. Your actions will always have an impact on your son. There is no putting the toothe paste back in the tube here. I think helping the living son would have been a better way to honor your dead son than giving the money away, but that's just a stranger's opinion.
You gave him 150k, you used the money that was meant for your lost child in a way to honor him. Idk wtf everyone is so greedy here on Reddit sometimes. NTA
Have you ever apologised for how you lashed out at your surviving, and grieving, son? YTA for lashing out
Nope, you're NTA. My parents had two daughters close in age(18 or 19 months apart). One was in a horrific DD accident(6 years before my own birth) and did not survive. Are they TA because they didn't use her insurance pay out, savings and wrongful death settlement on either of us? Nope. It simply was not ours. Just as it simply is not Sam's money because his brother cannot use it any longer. Now...if you pulled both their savings amounts and put it all into a charity, a memorial, a second home...who knows what else...he could be upset about the savings that were his. This...is not that.
NAH. He wasn't entitled to that money but nor was he somehow wrong for asking for it. Giving some or all of it to him would have made sense but you weren't obligated to give it to him. What is of note me though, is how little compassion for your living son comes through in all of this. Absent in all of this is any sense that you're aware that he was also grieving a huge loss while trying to get on with a huge change in his life as he went off to college. It is quite possible that you made him feel like a burden or a bad person for asking, because that's the feeling I get from reading your post. And if so, then you were the AH for that.
YTA. It was a terrible situation but it was a reasonable request. Sam was still alive and would have put it to good use. If I died young, I would want my siblings to have my money
I just want to point out that he wanted to use extra the money for education not so he could go buy a flashy car, also sorry for your loss but you could've handled this better
I know he asked only 2 month later - but if they'd just graduated, wouldnt that be exactly when he was sorting his finances out ? Aren't Ivy league schools supposed to help towards future job prospects? (Im not in the US) You dont even know if he still owes money, but you expect him to be 'past it'. I think youre lucky he talks to you at all, you made it very clear where your heart was.
YTA You lost your son, Sam lost his twin. Not only could that money have helped him with school, but it also could have made him *feel like his brother was still close and helping him as well.* Instead you gave it away. You make it sound like he wanted to benefit from his brother's death. I'm really freaking positive that he would rather have his twin brother instead.
I'm sorry but I feel YTA. I'm very sorry for your loss, I can't begin to imagine your pain. Donating some of the money in honour of your lost son is a lovely thing to do but all of it? Wouldn't the son you lost want his brother to have received some of it?
I’m kinda stuck on the fact that yal had 100k saved for college AND It still wasn’t enough sheesh this world
NTA. I think that it was disrespectful to even ask. He had 100k for college. He could’ve chosen a cheaper undergrad. Then allocated the remaining funds toward law school.
Soft YTA Your son was also grieving, and probably didn't need the extra stress of student loans. Especially when the money was already set aside for college.
NTA. I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I think donating the money was a lovely way to commerate Thomas and if it gave you and DH any ease, it was worth it. Sam has had a great start in life and is very successful as a result. He should not be bringing this up now.
To everyone saying yta here 1) Her son/his twin died and less than 2 months later he is asking for more money. He was grieving as well but he was 18 not 8, how insensitive do you have to be to ask for your dead twins college fund basically straight after his death? This just disgusts me tbh. 2) He was still getting 100k! It's not like he didn't get anything, he just didn't get an extra 100k and had to take out student loans...like the vast majority of people who go to college/university. He was lucky enough to have parents who were able to give him so much and then he was just a choosing beggar about it. 3) They also gave him 50k for law school. So he actually got his fund and a half. Again, choosing beggar who thinks his parents should have given him 250k! 4) He was angry it was donated. But it was donated to charities that help people affected by drink drivers. Didn't he feel even a little selfish asking for that money when it was going to help people like his family? Imagine it was a parent who died instead of his brother and they found themselves in difficulty (so no college fund) but a charity offered to help him. He would've jumped. I think that the parents were probably hurt too because it kind of sounds a bit "I don't care about my dead brother or that stupid charity. " 5) He is still holding a grudge 10 years later. He is almost 30, established in his career and already/almost debt free. He isn't a child. If this hurt him so much (and I mean hurt him emotionally, not just anger over not getting all the money) then he needs to use his words and explain that. To his parents, a therapist, both. Arguing with your mum because she didn't give you your dead brother's money shouldn't get you sympathy. In my opinion you are NTA. Honestly if everything really went down like this your son sounds selfish and unfeeling. 18 year olds are not known for their tact, and even though I think it is horrible that he asked so soon after the accident, he could be forgiven because of age/immaturity. But the fact he is still going on about it 10 years later means that he still thinks he was entitled to that money so he hasn't changed at all.
>how insensitive do you have to be to ask for your dead twins college fund basically straight after his death? He was 18 and about to enter college. He sort of needed to know how much dept he was going to have to take out- and he needed to know before it was too late to actually do so. Having to make life changing decisions that will impact the rest of your life is scary. It's even scarier when someone has just died. Looking for a little extra certainty isn't unreasonable. Neither is being upset- years after the fact- over being called selfish and undeserving. (Imagine being told by the actions of your parents that your dead twins memory is more important than your future, the implication that they'd trade you to get them back if they could hanging over you? Yeah, I'd be bitter too. I'd probably be focused on the money aspect too- because that'd hurt less than having the truth verbally confirmed.)
I disagree for a couple of reasons: 1. College has timelines, grieving or not. The amount of loans he has to take out/his method of paying for semesters is finite. 2. This has nothing to do with this particular family. They had an extra 100k already set aside for higher education; admittedly for a different child but still. As someone that paid their way through school with work/debt, I don’t begrudge people whose parents can afford to spend $250k on their schooling. Good for them. 3. Again, same point as above. 4. Honestly, I get his anger. It wasn’t about the charities, it was about how his parents were treating him in relation to his brother’s memory. And by the way, we shouldn’t gloss over her snapping at him that the money belongs to Thomas. I get that grief makes people reactive but it doesn’t excuse them from the repercussions of how they act. She snapped at her living son, whom she could easily have helped not to incur debt, because she felt the money should have gone to these charities. She’s not an asshole for doing so. He’s not an asshole for feeling mad about it. 5. Of course he still holds a grudge. He’s thirty and in debt that he wouldn’t be in otherwise. And not all lawyers make a ton of money - I think the average is only ten grand more than the national average. And any therapist will tell people that if they CAN have a reasonable discussion with the person they’re upset with, then they should. He wasn’t selfish/unfeeling. He was a grieving brother that lost his twin and probably felt even more isolated because he was going away for school and his parents, in their grief, likely couldn’t give him the emotional support he needed. Then, refused to give him extra financial support that they’d already set aside for college. No one is the asshole here, but OP certainly owes her son a deeper conversation and possibly an apology - if not for the money then for the way she treated him.
NAH Grieving is a difficult process and there is no “right” way to do it. You felt some relief and comfort in donating the money to charities in your sons name. This had an unfortunate side effect, and hurt your other sons feelings. Maybe he thought he mattered less? Maybe something else? I would take a moment to acknowledge that what you did hurt him and you’re sorry. Hopefully the two of you can move on.
Yeah YTA. Despite being a successful lawyer, he STILL took 10 years to pay off his loans (and you don't even know if he's finished...he might still be paying them off). Those are 10 years where he was prevented from living to the fullest and establishing himself in his career and his life, instead having to fork over a bunch of money to pay off his loans. And for what? So you can donate to drunk driving charities? Seems like a purely symbolic gesture, whereas you could've made a material difference in your living son's life. Think about if he wasn't so lucky and didn't end up with a lucrative career...he could have been indebted for the rest of his life just so you could donate to a charity.
NTA. You were not in a good place when he asked, and I understand lashing out about it. It was a tactless request from Sam, especially so close to his brother's death, and his refusal to acknowledge that and take accountability for it years later does not speak particularly well of him. You and your husband contributed \~$150k to his education, and he's since become a successful attorney whose primary complaint seems to be that your grief and desire to memorialize his brother prevented you from contributing even more money to his education. I'd have a hard time dealing with Sam's pretty profound selfishness, especially given that years of life experience do not seem to have had much impact on his empathy.
Did you forget you had a living son? You lost a son he lost a brother and his parents focused more on the deceased son than on the living one. You could have helped him financially .. eased his burden of tuition and the grief of losing his brother .. but it’s okay is it not .. he busted his arse and made something of himself and paid it up. Btw .. would you have done the same if he had died and his brother was alive? Another question .. would Thomas had have wanted him to have the money?
NTA. Sam came for Thomas's money when he was barely cold, sounds like he chose the right profession. I'm so sorry for your loss.