nostatic at all...

So here's the short story: I have a brother, 13 years older than me. My parents have/had an A-B trust, which means that when one dies that half of the trust is frozen...meaning the surviving spouse can do whatever they want with *their* half of the estate, but the other half vests to those named in the will. In my case, my mom died about 4 years ago, so my brother and I vested in half the estate...he has 25%, I have 25%. My dad has since remarried, and tried to get us to sign a waiver on the current trust so he could rewrite the whole thing to include his current wife (he's 80, she's 60). And he wanted to make everything go to her until she died, then it would be split by my brother and I. My brother is 57, so he wasn't keen on this idea. So he refused. I tried to play good cop and negotiate a buy out of our interests but a deal couldn't be hammered out.

In a separate deal, my dad set up a trust for my son...with the goal being to pay for his college education. I've counted on this money and have planned accordingly wrt my financial setup. I was the executor of that trust, with my son being able to tap into it when he was 18 for the express purpose of paying for college. All well and good.

So my dad has been trying to figure out how to leave the house (paid for in SD) to his wife, but there isn't a way to do it as my brother and I are vested in it (part of the estate). To date my dad has sworn that my son's trust is hands off. So I call today to say hi (my usual weekly call), and after the small talk, he says, "oh by the way, what's your social security number?" Of course that peaks my interest and after some hemming and hawing on his part, he says a new lawyer he has needs it to "iron out" some details of the trust. Upon further questioning he admits that he has rewritten his portion of the trust to go 100% to his wife. OK...I can live with that, and in fact expected it (still sucks, but I know his reasons and his psychological foibles).

But when I ask about my son's trust, he hems and haws again. I know what he's done by the way he described his portion of it...he's rolled everying in together. So my son's separate trust is now gone. I am no executor, but his new wife is. But he says, "oh, she'll give him the money." I ask why not just leave me as executor. He says, "well, if she needs the money I want her to be able to use it." So I tell him that means that I have to change my savings plans as I have to assume the worst and there is a decent chance that there will be no money for the boy. He keeps saying "no", but he's rationalizing. I finally get him to admit that:

a) he has written me out of his will
b) he has removed me from mention in my son's trust
c) after he dies his widow can do whatever she wants with the money and doesn't have to give my son a dime

Sweet.