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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]So you are begrudging your stepfather money from a business that he has successfully helped run for 25 years? Stop it.[/b]

Apologize to your mom, and then leave it alone. [/quote]

No, I am not begrudging him money.

The issue from my point of view is that [b]he is not our dad[/b].

If my mom leaves him her estate when she dies, it's very possible that he could remarry and not leave my brother or I anything at all later on. The thought of that is upsetting because I already feel a great deal of resentment about neglect due to her relationship with my stepdad, which i feel she prioritizes. My mom sent me to boarding school when I was 9 years old so that she could spend more time with my step dad. My step dad was not open to bringing my brother into the business, which would not have been true if it was his own child. However, he did lead him on about it for several years, during which my brother worked for the business with the hopes of being brought in in a more serious way. This is time he could have spent preparing for a different career.

As I said above, the issue is loaded with emotional baggage. [/quote]

Well in your original post you said it was something you thought was very normal to ask, but clearly given the backstory you knew it wasn't.

If your mom sent you away at age 9 to spend more time with step father why in the world would you think she would prioritize you now over him?

Also you are assuming if your father lived he would have ran the business successfully and passed it along to your brother.
Neither of those things are guarantees, though I have much empathy for your loss and need to almost fantasize about your father and create such a wonderful image in your head of who he was and would have been.  (I do that as well)

However the fact remains that your step father ran the business for 25 years and the successes are due largely to him and your mom. 
It doesn't take away from what your father started, but business's fail all the time and this one didn't.

[/quote]

I get that, but, my mom runs the business just as much as my stepdad does. In fact, she is far more prudent. My step dad would objectively NOT have done as well without her.

I think most moms would want to make sure that their kids (or even skip over kids and go right to grandkids) got part of that hard work. If she leaves everything to him, someone who is [b]not our dad[/b] then that's not really looking out for her own family. I'm prepared that it might happen. But I felt compelled to make my point in light of the fact that you seemed to assume that my stepdad was the brains of the operation. [/quote]

[b]OP, in a situation like this, it would not be uncommon at all for someone to leave everything to their spouse rather than their kids, or perhaps to put it all into a trust for the benefit of the spouse during their lifetime and with the kids to get the remainder.[/b] I understand you're in a lot of pain and it sounds like there are very valid reasons for that, but your expectations on this issue (that parents should leave a business like this to their kids instead of the spouse; that your mother would tell you her estate plans) are not, objectively, reasonable, let alone reasonable for your family situation.[/quote]

OP again. I actually disagree with this. Especially because he is wealthy in his own right. And for the record, they have always maintained separate personal finances. They are planning to sell the business in the next few years (this was one reason given for excluding my brother) as well as handful of properties in an effort to simplify when my mom retires. My stepdad has another, separate business on top of the other one that is completely his. That is where is time is going to go when my mom retires and they sell the first business.

To be clear, I wouldn't expect my mom to take something out from underneath my stepdad when she dies. I am really referring to what will be liquid assets of her own. [/quote]

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