Several years ago, my brother told me that he intended to leave his multi-million dollar estate to my sister, me, and our female children, because he understood that women are at a disadvantage in this culture. It struck me as a meaningful gesture, even though he’s younger, healthier, and vastly wealthier than I am–able to fly himself to the Mayo Clinic while I struggle for even basic care–and I won’t likely outlive him. The point wasn’t about expecting anything. It was about the recognition that he saw systemic injustice, including our father’s sexism, and wanted to respond in some small way.

Then two years ago, everything changed. My brother decided he didn’t approve of how I’ve spent my money, the funds I’ve poured into trying to survive in a culture that has never held my abusers accountable, and a medical system that nearly killed me with its standard treatments and continues to harm me over and over again. So he changed his will.

He let me know by email :

“I’ve updated my estate plan. If I were to pre-decrease you, you would receive a monthly payment of $1,200 until such time that the portion of my estate allotted for this runs out (which does not seem likely, but none of us can predict the future). I have no plans of passing away anytime soon. For those heirs I have told what they would receive, I am committed to 100% letting them know about any changes in my plans. I hope your therapies are going well.”

Delivering such news impersonally, via email, treats something deeply relational as a business transaction. His message was cold, clinical, and dismissive, packaged in polite language that pretends to be caring but isn’t. He wanted credit for his supposed transparency and generosity. But I never asked for this. He made a unilateral decision about my future. A decision that, were it implemented, would jeopardize my access to social supports, without improving my quality of life. It wasn’t generosity. It was control.

The language my brother used reveals a lot. “Pre-decease you” is a euphemism that distances him emotionally from my mortality, which I’ve been facing head-on. It avoids the gravity of my situation and the stakes I live with daily. His “letting them know” paints him as generous or honorable for giving notice, as if transparency cancels out harm. He treats inheritance like a ledger entry, not a relational act.

“I hope your therapies are going well.” reads as obligatory and hollow, given that he undermined the very efforts I had been making to survive, which he used as justification to reduce my potential future security.

Also telling was the language that was missing. My brother’s email didn’t reference that he previously intended something different, or that this is a reduction. That omission sidesteps any emotional responsibility. It also deprives me of the dignity of being seen as someone who might have feelings or context tied to the change.

Overall, his message conveys control, detachment, and subtle moral judgment dressed up as administrative politeness. It’s a denial of my reality, agency, and worth. 

Since the likelihood of him “predeceasing” me is slim, my brother’s shift wasn’t about money, but changing the relational field.

Since the likelihood of him “predeceasing” me is slim, my brother’s shift wasn’t about money, but changing the relational field. There was no conversation, empathy, or curiosity about what that might feel like on my end. No recognition that his decision for my financial future could harm me by disrupting access to a little bit of social safety net, without providing enough to make a difference. It was unilateral, controlling, and ultimately depersonalizing. His real goal wasn’t to show support; he could have supported me in a dozen ways that did not involve letting go of his precious wealth before or after he dies. No, this was not about finances or support, but creating the opportunity to treat me like my life, perspective, and reality don’t matter.

This wasn’t the first time he acted as the Replacement Patriarch since our father died. He’s made other major family decisions without consulting his siblings, about our mother’s estate and her remains. This brother steps into the role with the kind of entitled confidence that doesn’t ask questions or listen. In my experience, the family patriarch’s prime intention is to control and even intentionally harm others, particularly through money.

My brother’s latest attempt to establish his dominance was reminiscent of what my father did for my 26th birthday. He invited me to dinner, just the two of us, something he’d never done. We went to a nice place. He told me to order the oysters Rockefeller. I felt like a princess. While we had dessert, he handed me a humorous birthday card with a check for $50. Half of what he usually gave his kids for birthdays or Christmas. And then he gave me a little lecture: “You can’t count on anything.” I found out later that he did this because my brother told him I was counting on that money to help me get through a hard transition: changing jobs, moving, barely scraping by. So my father premeditatively used that moment to humiliate me by teaching me a lesson, intending to control me with money. And expect a thank-you on top. That’s the pattern, and the Replacement Patriarch took up the beat.

This brother’s behavior highlights the enormous gap in how we relate to suffering. He judged my choices from the comfort and certainty of financial security so great that he could afford to keep a small herd of cattle as pets. Meanwhile, I’ve spent years making life-or-death decisions under extreme duress, navigating a system that punishes the poor and the disabled, especially women. Especially survivors.

From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) perspective, these moments are not just emotionally painful. They rupture the relational field. They destabilize our sense of safety, belonging, and dignity. It’s not just what they did. It’s the way it reinforces a message I’ve been handed my whole life: your needs make you unworthy. Your struggle disqualifies you. Be grateful for crumbs, or go without.

When the people with the most resources choose control over connection, center their judgment over our reality, and treat our lives like a balance sheet, they’re not supporting us. They’re harming us. And when that happens in a body already carrying the weight of trauma, the nervous system feels it as another injury. It’s not simply disappointment. It’s dysregulating. It’s a deep, internal punch that says: you are on your own. Again.

My reply was simple, setting a boundary:

“Thank you for the information. When you update your will next, please designate the allotment for my children directly and leave me out of it.
Also, I’ve been meaning to ask you to please unsubscribe me from the group texts.”

This reclaimed my integrity. I will not let a patriarchal legacy of control and conditionality shape my life anymore. Ultimately, I had to go “no contact” with this brother, as his ascension to the patriarch’s throne made him far too toxic for me. 

I know my brother’s behavior is not entirely his fault. He modeled himself after our father, a cruel and selfish man who used money as a weapon and control as currency. My brother spent his life in environments that taught him he was entitled to dominate, dismiss, and decide for others without ever truly seeing them. I can feel sorry for him. I wouldn’t trade places with him for anything. I’d rather go through everything I’ve endured again than become someone so cut off from empathy, so sure of his righteousness, and so defended against vulnerability. But that doesn’t mean I need someone like that in my life. Compassion doesn’t require contact. Understanding doesn’t mean accepting harm. I can grieve what shaped him and still refuse to carry the consequences of his choices.