CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: I’ve been happily married to a wonderful man for the last four years. My husband has a teenage son from his previous marriage, but we’ve decided not to have kids of our own.

Last week I was boxing up papers from our office and came upon a printed email from my father-in-law to his financial planner. In the email, my father-in-law asked the financial planner how to ensure that my stepson receives the remainder of my in-laws’ estate after my husband dies. The financial planner suggested a couple of options, one of which was a generation skipping trust that would pass to my stepson upon my husband’s death, regardless of whether I or my husband pass on first.

I was surprised and incredibly hurt by the question from my father-in-law, since I am younger than my husband and there is a good chance I will outlive him. While I sympathize with his desire to pass something down to his grandson, it seems cruel and unnecessary to do so by leaving me with nothing when I am a widow.

Am I wrong to be upset? Should I ask my husband to talk to them about it? — Anonymous

Your being upset is understandable. It would be a mistake, though, to stick with those hurt feelings as your only response.

No one wants to be called untrustworthy, which is the message you’re getting from the letter.

But if you were this teenage boy’s mother, how would you feel if his inheritance from Phil went through a stepmother before going to him — if in fact it ever did go to him? You’d stand for that?

I have to think not, no matter how highly you regarded the stepmother’s character.

In fact, it’s such a huge thing to entrust to anyone that not being trusted is — for these purposes as least — not even a personal slight.