My Stepsiblings Are Angry at the Cost of My Mom’s Memory Care

Stepdad left her mother money in a trust, but now his kids worry there will be no money left for an inheritance

Barry J. Jacobs,

AARP

Comments

Published March 27, 2025

a woman and her mother sit in chairs while three figures lurk in the background

Vidhya Nagarajan

We asked Facebook AARP Family Caregivers Discussion Group members and other caregivers to submit pressing questions they’d like Barry Jacobs to tackle in his caregiving column. The family therapist and clinical psychologist took on this hot-button topic:

My mother had a very happy second marriage. Unfortunately, a few years after her husband died, my mother developed dementia. I moved her near me and was able to get her into memory care, thanks to the money in a trust left to my mother. I’m so grateful that my stepfather thought of my mother in his estate planning, but my stepsiblings are upset at the cost of my mother’s care. I resent them for adding additional stress to heartbreak and I know they feel that the expenses are draining money that should go to them. How can I work with them?

(Letter edited for length and clarity.)

Barry Jacobs: As the common expression goes, your family situation is shocking but not surprising.

It is shocking because your stepsiblings are complaining about their shrinking inheritance while you are grieving your mother’s diminishment from dementia. They pose as victims when it is your mother and you who are being robbed by her relentless disease. For them to begrudge her necessary support for her condition — even though your stepfather set up a trust expressly to pay for her needs — is simply appalling.

Join Our Fight for Caregivers

Even worse, your stepsiblings had the nerve to tell you that they are upset as if you should feel guilty for being your mother’s caregiver and protector. What do they expect you to do? Stick her in an inadequate facility that costs less to save them money? Provide all her care yourself in your own home to better economize? Renounce the trust and hand over all their father’s assets to them?

Most Popular

While shocking, their reactions are not surprising, unfortunately. In stepfamilies (sometimes called blended families), the bonds of love and loyalty may not be strong among members who are only loosely related through marriage. This is especially true when two families are united through a romantic relationship forged late in parents’ lives. The adult children of these parents have not had many years together to develop close, trusting relationships. They also sometimes harbor ambivalent feelings about the second marriage and remain emotionally distant from the other parent and that parent’s family. Your stepsiblings would not be the first to feel entitled to the bulk of their own parent’s money and bridle at having to share it with that a stepparent. In the worst-case scenario, stepsiblings may paint that stepparent as an opportunistic “Johnny come lately” or, worse, a cunning gold digger.

If your stepfather never told his children that he created a trust for your mother’s care, then you could imagine the range of powerful emotions they may have experienced when his will was read to them — shock, hurt, and anger at being financially abandoned by him. Unable to express those feelings to him directly, they could be subconsciously re-directing them at your mother and, by extension, you in the forms of envy, resentment, and criticism. Is this understandable? Psychologically speaking, yes. Is this, by any measure, fair? No way.

Perhaps you are motivated to find the means to work with them out of kindness or discomfort with being unfairly blamed. The chances of salvaging your relationship with them may be slim, but it is worth a try. Here are some approaches to consider:

Be clear about your goals and expectations

Before responding to your stepsiblings, clearly define what you hope to achieve. In short, how far are you willing to go to regain their good graces?

Are you willing to forego some memory care services for your mom, hopefully without negatively affecting her well-being? Or are you considering paying part of her expenses from your pocket? Both would entail sacrifices by you and your mother that your stepfather was trying to avoid by establishing the trust. The money saved might be enough to ensure that there will be enough left after your mother dies for your stepsiblings to receive a substantial inheritance. But that is still no assurance they will appreciate your gesture. Down deep, they may still believe they deserve more and that you and your mother have usurped them.

Be compassionate and transparent, but don’t over-promise

Your stepsiblings may be upset partly because they think you are purposely running up the tab on your stepfather’s trust and don’t care about what they are losing in the process. To allay those suspicions and restore some degree of trust, express your compassion to them, saying, for instance, “This is a terribly awkward situation. While I want my mother to be well cared for, you should benefit from your father’s money as well.” It may also help to transparently explain why the doctors think your mother needs memory care and why the costs for her facility are reasonable compared to similar places.

But being empathetic and transparent shouldn’t imply you are making any promises to them. It means you care about them and don’t want to inflame whatever injury they’ve suffered because of their father’s choices. Your priority is caring for your mother with dementia — as your stepfather intended.

More from Barry Jacobs

I'm a caregiver but still want a life. Help!
Uses and abuses of caregiver silence
Pros and cons of receiving pay as a caregiver
Strength, challenges of immigrant caregivers
How to handle ‘gut check’ moments

Accept limits and low expectations

A family’s emotional distress about an inheritance is only partially about dollars and cents. It is at least as often about love: Whoever receives the greatest slice of the inheritance is assumed to be the favored one. Others feel the sting of being less cherished.

Do you think your stepsiblings have been stewing about whether their father loved your mom more than them? If so, it is better to keep your expectations low for working with them. For all the concessions you make or compassion you express, your ability to heal their hurt is limited, and you and your mother may remain villains in their minds. Their father inadvertently cast you in those roles in this family drama.

%{postComment}%

Barry J. Jacobs, a clinical psychologist, family therapist and health care consultant, is coauthor of the upcoming book The AARP Caregiver Answer Book, scheduled for release on July 9, 2025. For more information, visit aarp.org/bookstore. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.