Will My Husband Ever Find Out If His Father Died?

Flugelhorn

This can happen in families sometime, unfortunately there is no system for letting people know other than relying on families to let you know.

Is there anyone back in the local area (friend / neighbour etc) who you are still in contact with who could just call you to let you know ?

fallen121

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

I do wonder why your husband is so bothered to find out whether his father has died and when he has died when he has no interest in him when he is alive.

That isn't actually completely true. My husband went to visit his parents and fell out with his Mother when she accused him of lying. The supposed lie was to do with information he had found out about his sister and had documentary evidence of. She was in financial trouble and he was considering giving her a loan. Checked out her finances and discovered multiple CCJs. His Mother said that he had falsified these documents and that it was not true. She threw him out of the house.

Over the years my husband made several attempts to stay in contact with his parents, writing letters begging them to at least stay in contact with their only Granddaughter. Nothing until the letter came to my daughter on her birthday telling her that her Nana had died several years previously. A letter which went into graphic detail about her illness and final hours. Not something that you write to a child but I suspect it was not intended for her but for my husband. It was my daughter that was first to read it though. It was in her birthday card. I can still hear her anguished cries from upstairs. It breaks my heart.

My husband, on reading the letter, wrote to his Father telling him that the letter was not appropriate to send to a young girl and had upset her and that the reasons he gave in the letter for not saying anything previously (that he was following the dying wishes of his deceased wife) didn't explain why he had suddenly and unexpectedly decided to write in such graphic detail to his Granddaughter.

I think it is very unfair of you to assume that my husband had no interest in his parents. He made regular trips from Scotland so that his parents could meet and get to know their Granddaughter and to help them out with household tasks. They, on the other hand, never made the effort to visit Scotland and didn't even come to our wedding. The source of the disagreement was that following his decision to lend money to his sister, he carried out due diligence and discovered that she was in such dire financial straits that both her house and car had been repossessed. But was then told that this was complete lies which he had fabricated in order to somehow discredit her in the eyes of her parents.

I think my husband has been treated quite shabbily, actually.

Ms_Chocaholic

fallen121 wrote: »

That isn't actually completely true. My husband went to visit his parents and fell out with his Mother when she accused him of lying. The supposed lie was to do with information he had found out about his sister and had documentary evidence of. She was in financial trouble and he was considering giving her a loan. Checked out her finances and discovered multiple CCJs. His Mother said that he had falsified these documents and that it was not true. She threw him out of the house.

Over the years my husband made several attempts to stay in contact with his parents, writing letters begging them to at least stay in contact with their only Granddaughter. Nothing until the letter came to my daughter on her birthday telling her that her Nana had died several years previously. A letter which went into graphic detail about her illness and final hours. Not something that you write to a child but I suspect it was not intended for her but for my husband. It was my daughter that was first to read it though. It was in her birthday card. I can still hear her anguished cries from upstairs. It breaks my heart.

My husband, on reading the letter, wrote to his Father telling him that the letter was not appropriate to send to a young girl and had upset her and that the reasons he gave in the letter for not saying anything previously (that he was following the dying wishes of his deceased wife) didn't explain why he had suddenly and unexpectedly decided to write in such graphic detail to his Granddaughter.

I don't think it is very unfair of you to assume that my husband had no interest in his parents. He made regular trips from Scotland so that his parents could meet and get to know their Granddaughter and to help them out with household tasks. They, on the other hand, never made the effort to visit Scotland and didn't even come to our wedding. The source of the disagreement was that following his decision to lend money to his sister, he carried out due diligence and discovered that she was in such dire financial straits that both her house and car had been repossessed. But was then told that this was complete lies which he had fabricated in order to somehow discredit her in the eyes of her parents.

I think my husband has been treated quite shabbily, actually.

I agree that all of you have been treated unfairly, especially your young daughter, that must have been terrible for her.



I do wonder however what is the purpose of your husband needing to know about his father, would it not be better for him to try and forget what's gone on and move forward, not easy I know but this may be preferable for his own mental health.

fallen121

Flugelhorn wrote: »

This can happen in families sometime, unfortunately there is no system for letting people know other than relying on families to let you know.

Is there anyone back in the local area (friend / neighbour etc) who you are still in contact with who could just call you to let you know ?

The "local area" is in fact not the area my husband grew up in or knows anyone. It was an area where my in-laws retired to several years ago because the house prices were much cheaper than in the South of England where they were previously located.

To my knowledge, several of the houses in the street are holiday homes and several of the neighbours are elderly and have possibly died since we last visited and probably wouldn't remember us or care enough to contact us if anything happened. Even if they knew how to contact us. Which is unlikely. We certainly don't know how to contact them.

fallen121

I agree that for his mental health this is possibly best left alone but with the New Year comes a period of reflection.

Our daughter is on the point of going to University and is well aware that her choices are severely constrained by our limited financial circumstances. We are probably going to have to consider selling our house to finance her education as my husband is finding it difficult to secure employment, whereas I have a job which pays just above the threshold at which she cannot get any financial assistance. It's quite cruel when you consider that her Grandparents are wealthy and made many promises which will now no longer be kept. So I suspect my husband blames himself and wonders sometimes if there is any possibly that she might be provided for somehow. I know it's unlikely and that he genuinely doesn't want anything for himself but you do wonder...

Ms_Chocaholic

Did you say you earlier you live in Scotland? Are University fees still free there or does she want to study a subject that is not widely taught in Scotland.

Ms_Chocaholic

Just a thought but your father in law could also be reflecting on what has gone on, especially as he is getting on in years. could your husband not make one final attempt to get in contact, book a cheap Travelodge room and catch the National Express coach to the area and see if he can find his father and put the past behind them.

Flugelhorn

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

Did you say you earlier you live in Scotland? Are University fees still free there or does she want to study a subject that is not widely taught in Scotland.

Worth OP checking on how uni funding works, not only are there no fees for scottish students in scotland but there are maintenance loans and bursaries available

Mojisola

fallen121 wrote: »

Our daughter is on the point of going to University and is well aware that her choices are severely constrained by our limited financial circumstances.

We are probably going to have to consider selling our house to finance her education

This is totally unnecessary!

If your daughter can't manage with the loans she is entitled to plus a part-time job, she can always delay her uni start and work for a couple of years to build up some savings.

fallen121

Flugelhorn wrote: »

Worth OP checking on how uni funding works, not only are there no fees for scottish students in scotland but there are maintenance loans and bursaries available

Mojisola wrote: »

This is totally unnecessary!

If your daughter can't manage with the loans she is entitled to plus a part-time job....

My daughter's choice of course limits which Universities she can apply to as not all Scottish Universities offer all subjects. She's applied to two English Universities as she has to apply to 5 but I doubt she'll be able to accept if they do offer (one has) because the Scottish System won't fund the full cost - some English Universities charge Scottish students up to £9,250 PA but SAAS will only fund up to £1,820 of that - the rest you have to find yourself or borrow and the maximum loan is at least £3,000 short of what some English Universities charge. This is the reason so many Scottish students at English Universities drop out. The money situation becomes unsustainable because parents are expected to make up the shortfall and I just don't have £9k kicking around doing nothing - if I did I wouldn't be driving a ten year old car.

University education is free in Scotland (or at least the fees are paid on our behalf by SAAS provided you re-apply each year) but my daughter is not entitled to anything other than the basic student loan of £4,750 because I work. So please don't talk about LOANS because there's only one and given rents in a lot of Scottish cities even when living in a cupboard £4,750 doesn't go very far.

The bursaries you speak of are only available in Scotland to those whose parental household income falls below £23,999. The maximum bursary she would be entitled to is £500 and that is in serious doubt because if I do any overtime or receive any bonus or payment that takes my income over that or her Dad finds a job that takes our combined household income over that threshold then she gets nothing.

Travelling to University each day isn't really feasible logistically because of where we are. She HAS applied to a University near to where we live but has yet to receive an offer and I suspect probably won't because she doesn't have the grades and they offer only a small percentage of places to native students and have been criticised in the past for the small number of places they offer to Scottish applicants. I suspect because the fees for Scottish applicants are capped. Americans are more lucrative.

Ideally I would prefer her to be in Halls for her first year at least because it can be quite isolating being in a flat, especially if it's quite far from the main campus All the travel makes getting to know people quite difficult because you can't exactly nip home to change for an evening event or dump your laptop and you've always afraid of missing the last bus home. Also I know that being in a flat she'll be tempted to skip meals to save money which she wouldn't be so likely to do in Halls if they were already paid for. But residence fees here start at £6k and at places like St Andrews can top £9k a year. That is just eye watering.

We've looked at flats which is affordable if there are enough of you but haven't been able to do much planning yet as she hasn't received all her offers. Also as she won't know anyone we'd be reliant on a University accommodation service matching her up with flatmates which may not take into account her age and inexperience.

Yes, she's looking at jobs but is also constrained by her age and location. A lot of the work in this area is seasonal tourist work. As we're over 20 miles from the nearest big town bus fares would swallow a lot of her wages. As she is only 16 she's too young to learn to drive and many employers prefer older students. Her age also prevents her from getting things like bar work. Yes, she could probably find work as a student in a city but it's by no means certain and depends on the timetable. She certainly shouldn't EXPECT to find work or base her plans on the expectation that she would because if she doesn't there's no safety net available.

Yes, she COULD defer entry and get a job which is what my husband did to afford University but I think our location does put her at a disadvantage because travel costs wipe out a substantial proportion of earnings - I have work and commute nearly 4 hours a day when I'm not working from home. My husband hasn't been able to find ANYTHING other than casual handyman or occasional dog walking and insurance for that exceeded the amount of work available.

In terms of deferring entry, she's currently sitting on a couple of offers which I suspect won't be repeated. Students this year were given a lot of leeway in terms of offers because the SQA exam syllabus was revised to make it harder and the results for many schools were much lower than previous years. If she were to defer entry I suspect she wouldn't meet the revised minimum requirements - she has two As and 2 Bs but a single C which many of the Universities won't even look at because it isn't an A level. Scottish Highers aren't as highly regarded as A levels and Universities won't accept re-sits to improve the grades so she's stuck with what she has.

When my husband and I were both at University the student grant covered our residence fees, books and travel home in the holidays. It hasn't been as generous as that since the mid 1990s. We're not complaining but there does appear to be an expectation that if you earn a basic wage then you can magically find £6-9k a year to fund all the extra living costs. There also seems to be an expectation that anything you can't fund can be borrowed from the Student Loans Company and our experience is that in Scotland these loans are capped below the level of basic rent and food. At least the sort of rents being paid in places like Glasgow and Edinburgh. Parents are expected to fund the shortfall and as we're currently struggling to met our bills the basic fact is that we CAN'T. Also bear in mind that this is a situation we would be in for 4 years rather than 3 because most Scottish University degrees are 4 years and sometimes 5 if they do a year abroad. I'm trying not to think about that side of things at the moment.

I'm presuming from your comments that levels of financial assistance for students in England and Wales must be infinitely more generous or something.