Take it from the Stars: Blended Families

In general, Mississippi’s statistics on marriage and divorce mirrors the United States’ average.¹ Almost fifty percent of the people who marry will divorce. What I find interesting, however, is that of the majority who get divorced, eighty percent go on to marry again for a second or third time. Of course, some of these people do so after the death of a prior spouse. The point, however, is that second or third marriages create a lot of blended families - children from either spouse’s prior marriage, or from their current marriage all blended together as one family. However, living in blended families means dying in them, too.

It is easy to see why blended families require estate planning to ensure your wishes are followed after death.

First, if there is no estate plan, meaning no Last Will and Testament or Trust, it can lead to unintended results because the state’s laws of intestacy will control the estate and distribution of the assets. Such intestacy laws vary by each state. In Mississippi, the spouse of a decedent who dies intestate will get one “share” and each child will get one “share,” (with the descendants of any children or grandchildren who “predeceased the decedent” splitting what would have been their parent’s share). But, note that this provides no inheritance in an intestate estate for step-children.

In my mother’s case, it meant that she ended up not sharing in her father’s estate at all. Her father was married and owned a house when his first wife died at a young age, leaving him with young children. He remarried and had more children with his second wife, with the entire family living in the same house. He died with a Last Will and Testament that left the house and all his possessions to his second wife (my mother’s step-mother) upon his death. She died years later, owning the house, but she did not have a Last Will and Testament at her death. The intestacy laws provided that each of her children would receive one “share,” but nothing for the step-children. So, my mother did not have any inheritance from the estate, which she felt was not the result that her father initially intended.

Second, if there is no estate plan in place, it can lead to bitterness and fights between family members. The fact that the children have either been through a prior divorce or the death of a parent leaves conflicting and emotional issues that spring up, especially in times of grief. Sometimes, even when an estate plan has been put in place, the raw emotions cause the children from different marriages to fight, or the children from prior marriages to fight the decedent’s widow or widower.

Take, for example, the estate of the actor and comedian Robin Williams who died in August of 2014, leaving an estate estimated at a worth of more than $100 million to his children from two prior marriages and his widow.² Robin Williams had prepared a Trust in which his widow was to be allowed to live in the couple’s home in Tiburon, California until her death and to receive enough money to maintain the home. His three children from his two prior marriages were to receive his Napa Valley estate and contents, and specific items including his memorabilia and awards.³ A dispute arose, however, over personal items, including some of the 50 bikes and 85 watches that he collected. It turned into a dispute telegraphed to the nation after his widow filed a petition in Court before it was ultimately settled. ⁴ Such a public dispute was probably not what he intended.                    

Third, many intensely personal issues and preferences arise when a loved one is dying.  Even a blended family that has been civil may face challenges when they find themselves in a situation where a person that is a spouse to one person, but mother or father to another, is dying. At those times it is often difficult to talk about what seems like small matters, like who should get the memorabilia of one’s life. I recall the shock that one client described when she discovered at her father’s bedside, as he lay dying of cancer, that her stepmother was the next of kin and, by default, outranked his children in end of life decisions or choices about who could remain in his room at the end. After he passed away, the disappointment and disagreements only compounded on other decisions about the funeral and as she watched mundane but cherished items being given away or discarded. She felt not only a loss of her father but a loss of her history after his death.

Therefore, particularly for blended families, it is vitally important for each individual to complete and put in place a Healthcare Directive to explain who will be the decision-maker for treatment and care in emergencies or at the end of life, or for funeral arrangements -- and even for the mundane decisions about who gets the memorabilia of your life because to someone it may just be a watch or a bicycle, but to another it may feel like it is all that is left of you for them to keep.

1. In 2016, the marriage rate was 6.9 per 1,000 people nationally with 7.0 per 1,000 people in Mississippi getting married, and the divorce rate for both the nation and Mississippi was 3.2 per 1,000 people for that year. “CDC Statistics,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

2. “Widow, Children of Robin Williams Settle Dispute Over his Estate,” L.A. Times, October 2, 2015.

³ “Robin Williams’ Widow Starts A Court Battle – But Why?” Forbes, February 3, 2015.

⁴ “Robin Williams’ Family Ends Legal Battle Over Estate,” People, October 2, 2015.