I (50F) want to leave the family business to my "adopted" son, and cut off most of my family financially for not accepting him.

I am immuno-compromised, and have only recently recovered from COVID-19. I wasn't on death's door or anything, but it was serious enough that I decided it was high time to get my affairs in order. My primary concern has been what to do with my family's business.

I am the sole proprietor of a family business that my father started back when I was a baby. It's a stereotypically male business (I'm a woman) which has my family's name (for example, if it were a plumbing business and my maiden name were Smith, it would be called "Smith's Family Plumbing"). When my father died, he left the business to me because none of my siblings had shown any interest in taking over, and I was very much involved. My mother and my brothers put up a stink, saying things about how it was a man's business, etc. Ultimately they let it go because none of them wanted to manage it. That was 25 years ago, and since then the business has done very well. I've continued my father's tradition of splitting the profit between the members of the family (when we were kids, my father put the kids' shares into college funds for us) because he told me when before he died that he wanted the business to always help support the whole family. He was very generous man when it came to family. Over the last five years, this has averaged about $50,000 yearly each for my mother, my sister, and my two brothers. Also over the last five years, one of my brothers, Joe, has started to show an interest in the business, and I've tried to include him some in the running of it.

My husband and I have one son, Thomas, who is 21. Since he was about 10, his best friend has been another boy, Daniel, who is also 21. When Daniel was 13, his parents found out that he was gay and kicked him out of their house. We said he could stay with us, thinking he would be with us for a week or two, enough time for his parents to come to their senses. But when we called them, they told us they didn't have a son anymore and they weren't interested in ever seeing Daniel again. This broke our hearts because what kind of shitty person would do that to their child, and they had always seemed like nice, reasonable people. We decided then that we would be willing to have Daniel stay with us indefinitely.

"Indefinitely" ended up being ever since then, because he had no aunts or uncles or grandparents who were interested in taking him in now that it was known that he was gay. It turns out his family are all homophobes. His parents were not very cooperative, but we were able to be appointed Daniel's legal guardians just after he turned 14. Until he turned 18, we were his legal guardians. We never actually adopted him, because his parents absolutely refused to discuss the option.

We have worked very hard to make sure that Daniel is treated as a member of our family and not as an intruder. It would be a lie to say that I love him as much as I do Thomas, but I do love him, and my husband and I have made sure that we never showed favoritism. Their responsibilities, privileges, etc, have always been the same. We have tried to spend quality time with both of them, together and separately, and we have encouraged both of them in their interests. We have also paid for both of them to attend college (they go to the same one). Essentially, we have done our best to treat Daniel like a son.

My husband's family, bless their hearts, have been amazing over the years and have also welcomed Daniel with open arms. My family has been, shall we say, less than stellar. A couple of my relatives (specifically, my sister and her husband) have done well, but my mother, my brothers, and most of my extended family have done very little to hide their perception of Daniel as an interloper. They never treated him poorly outright, but I think their feelings are obvious. We have mostly limited our interactions with my side of the family for this reason.

Thomas has not shown any interest in taking over or being involved in the business, because he has totally different career goals, which is totally fine with me. Daniel, on the other hand, has shown an interest in the business since he was in high school. I have tried to include Daniel in various aspects of the business, and in the past six months he has told me several times that he would be very interested in a position in the business once he graduates. I am thrilled, and I have discussed with my husband that I would like for Daniel to eventually be co-owner of the business with me.

I hadn't shared that intent with anyone except my husband until last week. As part of getting my affairs in order, I decided to share my intentions with my family. Thomas and Daniel are currently living at home because their college closed, and I told them I was hoping that Daniel would take over the business from me. He and Thomas were both happy with the idea. But when I told my other relatives, they were (as expected) not happy. Joe has said that he was expecting to be a co-owner with me at some point, since he's been learning the business over the past few years. My mother and my other brother both said that leaving the business to Daniel would be wrong because he isn't family, and want me to have Joe or Thomas be the co-owner.

This pissed me off because I *do* consider Daniel family. They said that Daniel doesn't share our name (neither do I anymore), and isn't a "real" son to me. I basically told them off for never accepting this child whose parents kicked him out, and I called them all assholes. I also said that the business was mine, and Daniel would be a co-owner whether they liked it or not. Joe called me selfish, my other brother called me a bitch, and my mother called me ungrateful. I was done, so I told them if they couldn't accept my family, they could get along without help from my family business. Then I hung up.

I was planning to cut them all off (except my sister, who hasn't had a problem with the idea) from their yearly family business checks, but now I'm having second thoughts because my husband, my sister, and Daniel are all expressing some misgivings. My husband says that I should take some time to think about it before I make a decision, because it's my mother's only income apart from social security, and I should think about my nieces and nephews and how the change will affect them. My sister says that it isn't wrong for our brother and our mother to be upset that I would leave the family business to Daniel instead of Joe, and that our dad always wanted the business to help all of my siblings, so cutting our brothers off is something our dad wouldn't have wanted. She thinks I should try to work through the issue with Joe. Daniel says he doesn't want to cause problems with my brothers and my mother. But I'm still angry that they refuse to accept Daniel and I feel like they're taking advantage of me.

TL;DR: I want to leave the family business to my "adopted" son, and cut off my family financially because they refuse to accept him. I'm getting pushback from some people and want some second opinions.

Submitted June 23, 2020 at 04:51PM by SmithsFamilyPlumbing https://ift.tt/2YsnW4v