“Father, can’t you just live alone?” ... Why a daughter-in-law took a hard line over her 72-year-old father-in-law’s remarriage

[Financial News] A story about a daughter-in-law who opposed her father-in-law’s remarriage out of concern over how his estate would be divided after his death is drawing attention online. The father-in-law, who is in his seventies, announced he planned to marry a woman he met at a welfare center.
A post titled “My 72-year-old father-in-law says he’s getting remarried” was recently shared on an online community.
According to the author, identified as A, her father-in-law lost his wife four years ago. He began attending singing classes at a welfare center to ease his loneliness, and started dating B, a 68-year-old woman he met there. He later formally told his family that he intended to marry B. Her husband and her brother-in-law and his wife welcomed the news and were in a celebratory mood, but A alone could not readily agree.
A’s main reason for opposing the remarriage was “the property issue.” Her father-in-law currently owns an apartment and a rice paddy in the countryside. According to A, these assets were painstakingly built up by her late mother-in-law, who worked at restaurants and in other jobs. A was especially concerned that disputes over the inheritance could arise when her father-in-law eventually died, since B already has two grown children.
When A voiced her opposition to her husband, asking, “Couldn’t your father just live alone?”, he became furious and shot back, “Have you ever even taken my father to the hospital?”
A said, “I can’t argue if people call me materialistic,” but also expressed her sense of unfairness: “I received no financial support from my in-laws when I got married, and I sacrificed by taking on all the difficult chores for my in-laws in place of my better-off brother-in-law’s family, such as preparing holiday meals and making kimchi for the winter.” She added that it weighed on her that her mother-in-law had once said, “You should protect this house,” and described her feelings as complicated.
Opinions among internet users were sharply divided over the story.
Some users sympathized with A, saying, “Remarriage in later life is becoming more common, but with inheritance disputes after death all but predictable, it’s hard for children to celebrate without reservations,” and, “It’s entirely understandable to worry that property the first wife amassed through sweat and toil could pass to the new wife’s family.”
Others, however, responded critically, saying, “A daughter-in-law has no right to interfere in her father-in-law’s life or how he disposes of his property,” “The first priority should be supporting the rest of his life after he spent four years alone and lonely,” and, “It’s excessive to regard an inheritance that hasn’t even arisen as one’s own share.”
Legally, even if A’s father-in-law and B register their marriage, B’s children would not automatically gain inheritance rights to his property. When he dies, legal inheritance rights would belong only to B, as his legal spouse, and his biological children. For B’s children from her previous marriage to inherit his estate, they would need to be adopted through a separate process (either full or ordinary adoption), or he would need to leave them a bequest in his will.


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