[Smbs]

Hello, Im trying to understand what happened to myself and my family. We have suffered a profound betrayal from my mother and sister over two years ago.
I was the president of a family farm corporation and worked for my parents since I was 10 years old, I'm now 61. I literally work two lifetimes by the time I was 40. I built the company with my dad and worked 7 days a week often more than 12 hrs./day. I worked hard with the promise of good fortune.
After my father died, my mother took ownership of the company and died a few years later. One year after her death I received a copy of a living trust that I'd never seen. In it were me, my wife and two sons who were to receive collectively $950,000. My sister, who had a career as a flight attendant, never had anything to do with the family farm, a fruit orchard, but was also na med in the trust tof receive $800,000 of her own. The living trust drawn up by both my mother and father in 1995.
For reasons unbeknownst to us, six months before my mother's passing, she abruptly changed the trust, giving my sister everything, leaving me andy family with $250,000 in debt after years back to back of hardship in the fruit industry. We've been left with nothing. I'm in fairly good health, but with arthritis in both knees I'm at the mercy of my age with the prospect of starting over. We'll be lucky to even pay the property tax and keep our house and farm. There is no more orchard as I was forced to pull the trees due to labor shortages and other challenges within the apple industry.
My sister ended up with everything that I worked for over 50 years and has so much as made us her enemy. This was all done in secret. Mother lied to my wife and I
and and told us there was no money.
How could anyone be so cruel? How could you have a son work so hard, make every sacrifice, and do this to your son and daughter in law? My wife sacrificed years of her own time caring for my mother who had health issues and needed to be driven 80 miles to her doctor.
My problem is I can't seem to get it out of my head and need to figure out a way to come to a level of acceptance. Every time we can't pay a bill, everyday you get up is a reminder of what the sick distorted actions of others can do. This is a dark cloud that we are left with. My mother and sister felt none of what we go through and how it has ruined our memory of them. We were a close family, spent every Easter, every Christmas and every birthday together at my mom and dads. Then one day you wake up, questioning what was real and what wasn't. It makes everything seem fake. Was this a giant bait and switch? How could you screw with so.eine like rhis? It's like a sick joke. How will we ever climb out of the financial , mental and psychological storm we are in? Betrayal at this level will make the past, present and future altogether different than you perceived it to be. My greedy sister I can understand, she's just a mean, unhappy alcoholic. My mother sent me to her attorney without disclosing the trust to us and hade as the president sign it over. It was a trick! My mother sent us to her lawyer under the guise that I was to receive the orchard, but in fact we signed an unknown trust over to my sister. It's like my mother to us to the edge of a cliff and pushed us over. I can't think of a more disgusting act. It's more than the money, it's more about the lies a deceit in order to make the change. It's more ab I ut losing a mother. Who was she? My whole life is just one big lie. I sacrificed everything. I lost so much time with my boys when they were growing up. I was a slave working 70-80 hrs. a week. I was so in denial, my parents always wanted more out of me and I gave it up. This is so sick. Now, I wear the badge of failure in front of so many in the community and the fruit industry who see it as me failing . A perfect storm, sweet little old lady who know one would suspect could be so cold. I knew in my heart though that mother was as stingy with money as her daughter was greedy. I don't want to see my mother that way, but facts are facts. How do you forgive someone who hurt us so bad, not knowing that the facts come out after she died? They would have gotten away with it had it not been for a clarical error divulging the teuth. How does one stop obsessing over this? It's been two years and we're still in shock. I bounce back and forth between anger and shock, never really coming to acceptance with each challenge everyday. I finally got my 80 acres of orchard pulled with no money and the pest board down my back with threats. If mother and sister were after revenge, they couldn't have thought out a more devious destructive way to do it. I'm left with so many questions and no answers. Only one glaring fact, the "living trust". How ironic.

[Open Eyes]

((Smbs)), first, welcome to PC and the PTSD forum. I believe that you have been totally blindsided by this challenge and you are genuinely stuck in "I can't believe this happened". I also believe that you did work very hard and that whatever had value was because of all your dedication and hard work. You did not deserve to be left out when it came to being given money from the estate either. I am deeply sorry that you are reminded of this devastating loss every day as well because of how it left you with so much debt. Yet, as hard as that is, the shocked feeling of betrayal can most definitely be emotionally crippling. It's not surprising that you can't find any way towards acceptance either. You are still dealing with the disbelief right now so acceptance doesn't come when still experiencing "shock and disbelief". Also, you have been a responsible, honest, hard working individual and you did take care of too. This is not something you have in your own wheelhouse so that makes this challenge extremely difficult to understand and accept.

The truth is ((Smbs)), it is not unusual for people to really not understand and value and respect the hard work and dedication involved when it comes to maintaining a farm or a business. This is especially true when it comes to "farming" because there is most definitely a lot of hours involved when it comes to working any kind of farm where the individual doing a lot of work is not really getting compensated for a lot the time put in.

Apparently, your mother did not really appreciate all that you did the way you thought and deserved. God only knows what it was that made her angry enough to change the way her trust was set up either. Also, when a person gets ill, the illness they deal with and even the medications they take for their illness can actually affect their personality and thinking too. It sounds like your mother was declining in more ways than you realized after your father passed away. Also, her mental state may have been a lot more challenged the last six months before she passed away too. What did she finally die of?

[mc2ed]

Man.....I am so sorry this happened to you....I have had betrayals in my life...from family...it eats away at you....You are never going to be able to understand what would make another person do this...because if you stand from a place of integrity...it won't be possible....EVER....I think you may need to actually grieve....because your mother died in a way far beyond just the physical....she died in the way you held her in your heart...the promise of what a mother is....that has to cut so very deep...it is a wound that opens over and over again....

I wish I could tell you what to do to help...often people tells one to get over it...or to deal with it....and that always drove me to the brink of violence...if I knew how don't you think I would....it frustrated me....especially in the case of injustice....someone had me read a book they wrote....and out of all the things in it...one thing stuck with me....that when people said things like deal with it...the author said...change the word deal to be.....be with it....sometimes...facing what is...is the only way to move....beyond something....and I found that I could be with it...or just be with a situation...it is the falsehood you struggle with...so just be with the reality for a while....your mother and sister are thieves...liars and untrustworthy...be with that for a while....

When people say something to you about your situation...tell them your truth....it is like women getting beat up...they don't want to tell people...so the abuser gets no public repercussions...I had a friend whose husband gave her two black eyes...she didn't hide she went out in public and when someone asked what happened...she told everyone her husband beat the **** out of her....he never hit her again....

Did the lawyers do something unethical?....because there can be recourse from that if so...

I know how the mind will go over and over and over something....it is reliving something that is gone...yet it brings it back for you to live over and over....there is something I do...when I can catch myself...repeating thoughts...or mentally reliving an event....bring my mind back to what is at the end of my nose.....what is present in this moment...it may be your wife...or a child....or a garden...often where we are in the moment is lovely and comforting....it does help....

Through therapy I know that men gather their own worth by how well they provide for their family.....You did provide for your family...hindsight is a cheater.....in the moment you were doing the best that you could...with the information you had...the effort for what you believed to be true....no one thinks their mother is going to rip them off...mother is the first embedding of trust in our human lives....they are our mother's...!!!!!...of course you are going to believe them....and you were working....
towards a goal....don't beat yourself up for that...betrayal is not from you.....

It took me years to get over the betrayals acted upon me....it changed me forever....and I never looked at the family the same....other family came into my life....opening up about what happened.....instead of keeping it bottled up....allows solutions to arrive from places you might not have thought of....

I have just rambled on at you...writing words...when I know they are just words....I can't reach in and take the ache out of your heart...or smooth over your life....I wish I could....just as you wish you could for your family....just be there for them....love them.....for you are what matters...your presence....that is the comfort of love.....I hope you can find peace....talking about things helps....it really does....