My mother passed away peacefully on September 18. My brother has made my life miserable by threatening and accusing. Any advice?

Readers, this is a September post that somehow popped up again.

Make sure that you take a screen shot and also SAVE all messages, texts, emails, voice-mail, etc.

I am very interested in the answers, as I am going through nearly the same thing. My mama died September 8th. My brother moved in with our dad who has Alzheimers. Bro is a difficult, angry person.

So sorry for your loss of your mother. My goodness, stay clear away from your brother. Do not accept any calls, texts from your brother. Times like this you need support not grief from family members. Be strong and go on with my mothers wishes. Thoughts and prayers sent to you.

I have two suggestions. First stay away from him completely. No answering phone calls, e-mails, nothing. Document everything that happens and seek the counsel of an eldercare attorney who may have to contact him to stop, etc. This is horrible. And plan to sever all ties with him forever.

All great advice here. Hoping you have followed it. Know that there are many, many dysfunctional families are out there. I know his antics are making it hard to grieve, but first and foremost, your last gift to your mom is to carry out her wishes. You have the legal and emotional support of others with credibility and mental stability. Follow through with those wishes no matter what. I lost my mom in February - trust me, you will have plenty of time to grieve. For now, just take care of business and when you do grieve, it will be healthy grief because you will know you did everything right in the end. Take care!

Don’t respond to brother. Save texts & seek legal advice. Were you caregiver? Living with parent who passed ? You’re executor...he sounds crazy! I feel sorry you have to go through this. Do not speak to brother or allow him near you. Maybe get restraining order HUGS 🤗

I am so sorry about the loss of your mom.

Right now, all you need in your life is "peace."

Turn the phone off.

Butterfly, I am very sorry to hear of what you see going through right now, and especially as you are so recently bereaved - I am so sorry for your loss.
I can relate a little to your experience and hope that my advice and the actions I took might be of help to you. When my father died in 2019, my stepmother transferred all her anger and grief on me, starting a few days before he died and continuing up to the funeral and beyond. Anyone who has read some of my previous posts will know the details and the effect this had on me. I decided early on that I would deal with the funeral and the other formalities and then cease contact with my stepmother. I too got the interference with the funeral arrangements even though she had asked me to arrange everything, and also got general abuse on a daily basis up to and including on the day of the funeral. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that I was soon going to walk away for good. Immediately after the funeral she started to text and phone me several times every day and became abusive if I wasn't available to pick up calls instantly. Every call and message had me in tears, and frankly close to a nervous collapse, to the point that I had to block her number and ask my husband to deal with her calls/messages. Do you have someone who can field your brother's calls for you? In terms of sorting out my father's estate, to avoid direct contact with my stepmother I instructed my solicitor to handle everything and just to run things by me that needed approval, so that I never had to have any direct contact with her. Is this an approach you could take, too? It is so important that you look after yourself as best you can right now. Your brother is responsible for his behaviour, not you, and if this leads to a period of reduced or no contact between both of you, it will not be your fault in any way, but merely a way for you to stay well. 15 months on from my own experience, I know I took the only route that stopped me from having a nervous breakdown. I hope some of this might help you, and that you can take comfort in knowing you are not alone with the difficulties you are having.

Butterfly,

Its now five days since ur post. Have you had the service. Hoping it all went well.

What is his biggest gripe? If you could give him a bit of a say, then maybe he will feel less disenfranchised by it all.
However if he is beyond that I agree with the others, you can only make sure you are not his whipping post and stop replying to him. Just inform him when you have to and write him off until he has more control.
I fell out with a brother after my dad died. We got over it eventually.
It is all easier said than done and good luck.

Honey is he violent? I would make sure I had a shotgun and knew how to use it.

that’s so toxic, If it was me I think I would be done with his mentally ill self.

if you have an iPhone you can screen shot all those text messages and email them to your self. Plus you can block and unblock him, as in unblock him send details then afterwards block him so he can’t harass you

Butterfly72: I am so sorry for the loss of your mother. Brother's cannot override a legal document. Block him via phone, text and social media.

Unfortunately, loss of a loved one sometimes brings out the worst in a family member. I have seen this happen over and over. Sometimes the offender is otherwise a sweet and kind person. As others have said, try to keep your distance from your brother now, but leave a way to make contact again in 6 months or a year. You may be able to redeem your relationship with him in time.

For now, do whatever you can to ignore him. You might want to ask him to write a letter documenting everything that he feels should be done and why. This may give him a way to vent that is less intrusive. Read it or not, depending on your frame of mind, perhaps one day you will feel up to it. You might also want to send him a copy of the will and any letters of instructions with a note saying that you are explicitly following your mother's wishes. If many of those wishes were only spoken, not written, this might not be very effective.

I am so sorry that you are suffering this treatment when you need to be grieving, but be assured that you can and will get through this. Promise yourself a nice little vacation when everything is done. If nothing else, make a staycation in your favorite room, stocked with treats and a long list of online travel photos. Make a few serious plans now so you have something to look forward to other than just the end of the nightmare. This kind of thing has helped me through some tough times. I hope it might work for you too.

What I have done to ignore unwanted calls and texts is to change the sound made when that person calls or texts. One phone I had let me choose silent. My current phone lacks that option so I assign those numbers a short but gentle tone. That way I don't even have to look at it, but the messages are there if/when I have the inclination to see what is up.

So sorry for your loss, and for the miserable behavior of your brother. You deserve peace during this time.

Plain and simple, refer him to the trustee and let the trustee take care of dealing with his unacceptable behavior. Block him from calling, texting and social media. Keep ALL contacts from him as it sounds like you really will need them as evidence for the future.

Your mom chose you to handle things because she knew you would follow her wishes, so keep doing what you are doing and let your brother go.

Everyone else has covered everything. I can only add ((MANY HUGS))

So sorry for the loss of your mom. Certainly pass on dealing with your brother directly. He is trying to manipulate you. Don’t allow it.

If you haven’t done it already block him on your phone and social media.

Alert all concerned about his behavior and let them deal with him. The facts will speak for themselves. Be at peace with your decisions. No need to second guess yourself. You know the circumstances and what your mom desired.

Best wishes to you.

Your brother is in the war path. Excommunicate him from your life, as it is apparent he only seeks conflict. Certainly you are not alone on the concept of a divided family, ugly behavior has no boundries, family or not. Block his calls if available, protect your peace of mind at all costs. Family are not always kind to one another. Report all activity, keep all records, and keep your guard up. Of course, each side sees it however they want, but legal papers rule the day. Peace and best of everything.

Your brother has no authority. He can deny all he wants but he cannot change your mother's wishes if they were legally expressed/written down. Sadly, you will have to put grieving on back burner. You must ensure your mother's wishes are followed and that is all I would confirm to your brother. "Mom's wishes must be fulfilled." Keep your responses to him simple. You are strong. Your mother chose you for a reason. Hang in there!

Butterfly, so sorry for your loss. My mother also passed away on September 18, just a few days shy of her 99th birthday. Her wishes were to be cremated with no services of any kind. Because she didn't write down her final arrangement wishes, the funeral home insisted my 2 brothers sign a Delegation of Authority for Cremation Arrangements. Luckily my bros are on board with everything. Sorry you have to go through this at such a trying time.

However, it was a wake up call for my husband and I to specify in writing our final wishes. Don't just assume telling your loved ones what you want will be enough. My mother even had a paid-in-full contract with a funeral home in another state expressing her wish to be cremated. Wasn't enough.

My 101 year old mother went throught this with her two sisters when she was forced to take guardianship of her mother. My grandmother had lived with the younger sister and her husband for 17 years after she retired and sold her business, a neighborhood tavern. They drained her bank accounts. When there was nothing left to take the younger sister uncerimoniously dropped my grandmother off in my mother's driveway and announced "it is your turn to take care of her". My mother took took my grandmother in. She got power of attorney and then my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia, my mother finally went to court and was given guardianship. My mother wisely arranged for my grandmother's funeral too. When she passed, the younger sibling was furious that she was not told anything about the plans. This in spite of the fact that she would not communicate with my mother regarding grandmother's care in any way shape or form during the entire time my mother had charge of grandmother's care. Sadly, from the day of my grandmother's passing until today the younger sister, now 99 years old still does not communicate with my mother. The older sister did wise up after grandmother died and did re-establish a relationship with my mother. You cannot change people. The only thing you are in control of is how you react to them. The funeral director was notified about the younger sibling's anger about the arrangements and handled her anger quite well. He allowed her to come in early before the first day of visitation and let her arrange the floral arrangements around the coffin as well as "check" her hairdo. I suspect he did even more to calm her but I am not privy to it. She showed up each day of visitation but kept her distance from my mother as there was a rather large security guard present at all times during visitation hours. The funeral people should be able to deal with your difficult brother in a professional way. As for you yourself, if you had to make all the arrangements on your own, you owe your brother no explanations. You cannot control how he is treating you but you can control how you react to him. Remain calm. If he wants info give him the facts. Under no circumstances feel that you must defend yourself to him. Do not enage with him on an emotional level. It will drain you. You are grieving and that is enough on your plate right now.

sounds like he feels guilty about something so now he wants to squak about everything cause he didn't help with anything before.  I am surprised the funeral home hasn't told him (or you) that IF he continues he will be faced with harassment charges.  And of course they (the funeral home) knows who is actually in charge (you) so they or you need to tell him that he no longer will be tolerated with harassing calls.  Tell him that once things are finalized he will be notified.  You are doing correct in only responding to him to provide information concerning the funeral, etc.  Do NOT respond in any other way to his attempts to get you mad enough to respond (because then he will have something to hold against you).  Too bad he isn't on Judge Judy, she would rip him a new one.  Sorry, just needed to say that.  I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you can soon find the time to grieve.

So ften problems arise when a parent and or other relative makes a legal will and or signs instructions when he or she is no longer of sound mind.The caregivers andor will recipients can and sometimes do make very false statements about their siblings(that they never cared, never helped,etc. When large sums of money are involved, greed sometimes overwhelms some people.If there are wittnesses to the signing of legal documents they are apparently aways upheld in a court even if the dead person was not of sound mind at the time of signing.Trying to force any changes is pointless and useless.All older people need to arrange wills and orother important arrangements and leave them in the safekeeping of a very trustworthy lawyer while they truly are still of sound mind. Later, they may become very vulnerable and be persuaded to sign thingsthey really never wanted.Life is strange and difficult. I do realize that most wills truly are valid and that sometimes selfish disinterested people do try to unfairly harass caregivers at the death of a wealthy person.i am just saying while we are of sound mind we need to try to prepare ahead of time for every eventuality as best we can because we may become demented and vulnerable later on. I am hoping to stay in my right mind until i die and incredibly some people do. however, we cannot count on that.

((((HUGS)))) Family dynamics suck! Funeral homes go thru this kind of stuff all the time. When my husbands brother passed, he had signed paperwork for my husband to handle all his arrangements. I went to the funeral home and took care of everything the way he wanted it done. When he passed, mom called the youngest sister and had her contact the funeral home to with an obituary. He didn't want it. That sister never even went to see him even tho she knew he was dying. I pulled the obit. The sister that wrote it called and chewed out the sister that was caring for mom and brother that passed and mom called and chewed out the funeral home. They told mom that the kids didn't want to be included in the obit.

Butterfly72, I had virtually the same experience with my brother when my dad passed, and I am sure to have the same one when my mom passes. If you see my previous posts it's all in there. It really sucks because dealing with the grief is hard enough, but you can't even grieve when you have someone threatening you constantly. I saved all of his texts and emails and have them in a file. I was close to getting an order of protection on him, but a couple of lawyers and one psychologist had told me that in this case, they thought he'd derive real satisfaction out of "scaring" me so much into it. So I just did what you did and only communicated the barest essentials, with no reaction to any of his ridiculous provocations. Don't give him the emotional reaction he wants! That's what these a**holes feed on. Train yourself on the Gray Rock technique. After the funeral, when he sent more texts and threats, I ignored him completely. He eventually crawled back under the rock he came out from, but when he comes out again from my mom passing, I will do the same thing--only communicate what I need to and have a lawyer answer everything possible so I don't have to. Believe me, if there is any money at stake, he will stop communicating with you if he thinks it's going to cost him money, as I can take that money out of the estate. Which is his money too.

DI what your mom wanted and don't worry about your brother.

Tell the Funeral Home to ignore the brother.

Dont' answer any of the brothers calls anymore.

Text the brother that you are following moms instructions and you will let him know of details as you get them.

Normally siblings fight over money and things.

I don't know why the Funeral Home needs a copy of the Will.

Tell them to text or e mail you a copy then text or e mail it to your brother.

Tell the brother you will schedule a meeting for with the Trustee.

Let brother know that everything will be out in the open and he doesn't have anything to worry about, that you as the Executrix will follow mom's wishes and he will be able to read everything for himself in the Will.

I am sorry to say that this is a common occurrence.
Death seems to bring out the true colors of people.
Continue to save his texts. He may get more aggressive as time goes on.
I am so sorry you are going through this.
You have my prayers.

You might want to point out to your brother that things would have been simpler if he hadn't tried to fraudulently award himself your mother's POA when she was in no state to give it. Now there's a court-appointed trustee because he can't be trusted. He can't expect you to trust him when the courts don't. Stop trying to accommodate him. He's a crook, and he's taught his offspring to be one too. Everything you've described is not grief; it's greed, pure and simple. Hold on to the texts; you probably will need them. Get a restraining order if you have to. And find out from your lawyer if his inheritance (if any) can be deducted from any money he managed to steal from your mother.

Medicare provides a psychologist for you. A psychologist can give you a plan that will get you back or out of this so you can have some peace in your loss. He cannot change anything that is legal. He is angry and greedy and not dealing with his loss. He wants to fight over money and what else and it is a losing battle. He needs the help of this same psychologist. This kind of anger affects total body functioning if not dealt with. Do not attempt to deal with an angry person.

Your brother is grieving and not handling this well. You too are grieving and trying to handle the loss with grace. Time for a little more matter of fact talks with your brother. He needs to understand that you - not him - are the Executor and will complete your tasks to the best of your ability. Maybe he will be amenable to texting - or better yet emailing - his "suggestions" so as to not confuse the funeral home or others regarding your parent's estate. You can then incorporate or disregard his demands... and others will be spared his tirades.