Can caregivers with step relationships please help? How do you work together to care for husband/parent? Finance and housing? Experiences?

My husband's father created a trust and made the eldest bio child and eldest step-child co-trustees (or executors, not sure which is the correct term). He passed from cancer and before he did he made provision for his wife separately from his children. When she passes whatever's in the trust will get distributed. Your adult step-children may not embrace you fully as the Real Wife but hopefully your husband does. What provision has he made for you? Hopefully this pending diagnosis will prompt him to see the need to see an estate planner who will be well-verse in these scenarios and will have creative solutions to consider. Please advocate for yourself in this situation...you've been married quite a long time and he is your real husband. Good luck!

Have you asked your husband how he plans to care for you? If not, I would inquire and make sure that everything from a legal standpoint is in place.

I would suggest that you meet with an Estate Planner, there are many options and things to consider...like the IRS.

Get an attorney. Have money in your name. Right now my husband's niece wants our home. She is trying to kick me out and he isn't even dead yet.

I know at least 3 women who are second wives and the husband's kids have either tahen everything or in court trying to.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Don't expect him to do it.

This is a subject that has been mentioned a lot. Ex: not long ago it was a child caring for a mother and her step sibs took the step father away. Not leaving money for the mothers care. There have been other like situations.

You need to protect yourself. You need to get POA assigned to you by husband. He needs to stop "gifting" his kids. If you ever need Medicaid you will be penalized. You need to talk to a lawyer.

Actually most states won’t require that you inherit 1/3. And in fact in your state, as his spouse you are only legally to entitled to half of the property acquired or earned during your marriage. You aren’t entitled to anything he earned and acquired before the marriage. And he can disinherit you but hopefully he won’t.

Technically, I was a step-mother to DH's 3 children.

Sadly, when his money ran out - they ran out on him. At least you are looked upon as a caregiver. As the 2nd wife after #1 passed away, I felt like I was treated like a concubine at best and a whore at the worst - and we were married 32 years and together 33 years.

No, I'm not bitter - I have no children and I will not claim DH's children as mine since they never accepted me as Dad's wife, even after 32 years of marriage.

You can do what I did - when our income was halved, I told DH there was no more money left to assist his grown children. All 3 have college educations and I helped to pay for the youngest child's education. No monies were ever repaid. At first he struck out at me verbally and then he was appalled at what he accused me of and he apologized. After that, we sent no money to his children.

Thankfully I had invested 75% of my income so when I had to stay home with him at the ripe age of 45 (he was then 75, he was 30 years older than me) at least I had planned for our present and my own future. He passed last year, almost 97 and thankfully I believe I have enough money to support myself for the rest of my life now.

My DH was a veteran of WWII and he received his medications from the VA; since we had good medical coverage on him (I couldn't afford it for myself) - most of his needs were taken care of. HomeHealthCare helped us too.

Since I was never accepted as step-mom, they are not even step-children to me. They barely exist to me.

First and foremost immediately contact an eldercare attorney for advice. You must have a means of protecting yourself and need to find out how. Have you talked to your husband and does he understand the critical scenario. Can someone else come in and talk with him. At any rate, get immediate advice from a specialist. I will send prayers.

A lot of issues here.   If he is not deemed incompetent by a court, he can go on gifting.  He may not want to give you POA.  Unless you signed a prenup or he put property in trust before your marriage, most states will require that you inherit 1/3 of his estate.  You may want to discuss some type of compromise, with him establishing a trust whereby you get income for life, and then principle to kids. 

You are not going to change how they feel about you.

First make sure your wills are in order. My mother had step kids. Her husband of 20+ years never got around to adding her to his will or changing the beneficiaries from them to her. She cared for him thru out his ALZ with very little help from one, none from the other and they got the bulk of his estate. Not to be greedy but you need to think about the future. Why is your husband giving them stocks now? Maybe get long term care insurance policies

This situation is why elder lawyers and financial advisors exist. Get to a lawyer to draw up POAs, will, trust funds... Talk with a financial advisor - bank-type and insurance-type - to get advise. Do what will provide enough finances for your husband now and for you, if he passes first. There should be enough through life insurance and medical insurance to ensure "enough" for you to live on. If you get to a place where you have some dementia, you can always make a lawyer or banker your POA. They will manage your affairs and help to make sure you are placed into a competent facility.