Open Letter to "Need Help" in today's Dear Ellie column

From today's Dear Ellie:

I've been married for three years and am increasingly frustrated with my mother-in-law.

She has a gambling problem and often cannot pay her rent, or her basic bills. She has major health problems, yet smokes and is extremely overweight.

My husband and I help her financially when she needs it, but it's more difficult for us lately. I'd like to arrange an insurance policy for her, to help with the cost of her funeral expenses should she pass away. I feel that due to her careless lifestyle and health problems, she may not be around very long.

No other relatives are in a secure financial position to assist with final expenses. Or they'll refuse, since we're always bailing her out.

How do I bring this up to my husband? How do we talk to my mother-in-law about signing a policy for funeral coverage?

I cannot take one out on her without her knowledge. I feel my husband should be the one to talk to her. When I've mentioned this before, he got very angry and didn't want to discuss it. I'm just trying to avoid a disaster, not looking to make any money off her.

Need Help

First of all, broach the subject with your husband by talking about funeral planning/wishes for after death in general. Do your own wills and plan your own funerals if you haven't already. Bring up Baby Kaylee who was recently in the news to steer the conversation towards organ donation. Then once you're on that, ponder whether you know your own parents' wishes (aging parents, you know) and ask your husband if he knows his mother's wishes.

Then your husband can use the same technique to find out his mother's wishes.

Allow some time to pass and price her wishes to find out whether you can afford them. Then, at a calm and neutral moment, have your husband say to her "BTW, Mom, remember a while back you said you wanted to be buried in a solid gold tomb? Today I just happened to stumble upon how much that costs and there's no way I can make that work. Do you have insurance or pre-planning or anything?"

At this point she should either agree to insurance or take responsibility for pre-planning. And if she doesn't, she has been duly informed that her wishes cannot be fulfilled without some action on her part, so you're off the hook for not doing more than you can afford.