My Parents Tricked Me Into Thinking They Cared, So I Tricked Them Into Regretting It.
He had his laptop open to a community Facebook group from my hometown.
“You need to see this,”
he said grimly. On the screen was a post from my mother claiming I was withholding a family inheritance that was meant to be shared.
According to her post, I had tricked my grandmother into giving me money that was intended for the whole family. The post had dozens of sympathetic comments and shares.
“What inheritance?”
I asked, bewildered.
“I don’t have any inheritance.”
“Maybe your grandmother knows what they’re talking about,”
Tyler suggested. I called my grandmother immediately, asking if she knew anything about an inheritance my parents might be referring to.
“Oh dear,”
she sighed.
“I was going to discuss this with you in person, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”
She explained that years ago, she had set up a small trust fund for me that would become accessible when I turned 25. My parents had discovered its existence somehow and had been trying to get her to change the terms so they could access the money as my guardians, despite the fact that I was an adult.
“How much money are we talking about?”
I asked, wondering if it was enough to explain their renewed interest in me.
“About $30,000,”
she said.
“Not a fortune, but enough to help you get started in life. I specifically structured it so only you could access it, not your parents.”
My upcoming 25th birthday suddenly explained my parents’ timing. They had figured out I was about to gain access to the trust and wanted to position themselves to get the money.
“Would you be willing to make a statement about this?”
I asked.
“That the money was always intended for me?”
“Of course,”
she said.
“We’ll talk more when you get here tomorrow.”
After hanging up, I felt both clarity and disgust. The graduation visit, the sudden desire to reconnect, the attempts to make me feel guilty—it all made sense now.
They had been playing a long game to get to my trust fund money. As I finished packing for my trip, Tyler kept monitoring social media and found more posts from my mother, now claiming I was mentally unstable and unable to manage financial decisions.
“They’re laying groundwork to challenge your competency,”
Tyler said.
“If they can convince people you’re unstable, they might try to get control of the trust legally.”
The thought chilled me. I called my lawyer again and explained the new information about the trust fund.
She advised me to get a notarized statement from my grandmother about her intentions for the money and to collect any evidence of my parents’ attempts to access it. The morning of my flight, I woke up to a text from an unknown number.
“We know about your trip. Running to Grandma won’t help. Family money belongs to family.”
I showed the message to Tyler, who insisted on driving me to the airport and waiting until I was through security. As I boarded the plane, I felt a weird mix of emotions.
Fear about what my parents might try next, but also a strange sense of power now that I understood their motivation. For once, I was a step ahead of them.
This wasn’t just about money; it was about control. And for the first time in my life, I was taking control away from them.
As the plane took off, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what my grandmother had said on the phone.
“You’re stronger than them. You always have been.”
Maybe it was true. Maybe understanding the game meant I could finally stop playing it.
My flight to my grandmother’s was the most peaceful two hours I’d had in weeks. No calls, no texts, no way for my parents to mess with me at 30,000 feet.
I actually closed my eyes and slept for most of it. When I landed, I half-expected to see my parents somehow waiting at the gate, but instead I just saw my grandmother waving at me with a warm smile.
“There’s my boy,”
she said, giving me a real hug—not one of those fake ones my mom had tried recently. We drove to her house in comfortable silence for a while before she spoke again.
“I’ve prepared the guest room for you, and I’ve already called my lawyer to come by tomorrow morning so we can get everything sorted with that trust.”
Her house was exactly how I remembered it from my childhood visits: neat, comfortable, and smelling like cinnamon. We spent that evening catching up, and she pulled out old photo albums I’d never seen before.
“Your mother tried to get rid of these,”
she explained, showing me pictures of myself as a baby.
“Said they were cluttering up the house when you were about three. I kept them safe.”
Looking at those photos was surreal. There were dozens of pictures of me that I’d never seen—moments of my own childhood that had been hidden from me.
In some early ones, my parents actually looked happy holding me. Something had clearly changed.
“What happened to them?”
I asked.
“Were they always like this?”
My grandmother sighed.
“Your mother was always difficult. But it got worse after your grandfather died when you were two. The inheritance dispute brought out something ugly in her. Your father just follows her lead.”
The next morning, her lawyer came by as promised. He was an older man named Joseph who’d known my grandmother for decades.
He explained the trust fund details. It was money my grandfather had set aside for me specifically, with my grandmother as trustee until I turned 25.
“Your parents have tried repeatedly to access this money,”
Joseph explained.
“They’ve claimed it was for your education, your healthcare, various emergencies. Your grandmother refused each time because she knew they would keep it for themselves.”
We spent the morning preparing documents: a notarized statement from my grandmother confirming the trust’s purpose, paperwork for me to access the funds on my upcoming birthday, and additional legal protections to prevent any challenges to my competency.
“This should protect you,”
Joseph said as he packed up his briefcase.
“But these situations can get ugly. Be prepared.”
He wasn’t wrong. That afternoon, my phone exploded with messages.
Somehow, my parents had found out I was at my grandmother’s and were threatening to come there. My grandmother seemed completely unfazed.
“Let them come,”
she said calmly.
“I’ve already called the sheriff. He’s an old friend, and he knows not to let them on the property.”
Sure enough, the local sheriff stopped by an hour later to check in. He was a friendly guy named Charles who clearly respected my grandmother.
She explained the situation, showed him the restraining order paperwork, and he promised to have deputies keep an eye on the house.
“Don’t you worry, Linda,”
he told my grandmother.
“No one’s going to bother you or your grandson on my watch.”
That evening, I felt safe for the first time in months. My grandmother and I sat on her porch watching the sunset, and she told me stories about when I was little before my parents had cut her out of our lives.
Apparently, I used to spend weeks with her during summers when I was very young.
“You were such a happy child,”
she said.
“Always trying to help me garden. You’d get covered in mud and be so proud of yourself.”
I couldn’t remember any of it. Those memories had been taken from me along with the photos.
The peace lasted exactly 2 days. On the third morning of my visit, my grandmother received a call from her neighbor saying there was someone taking pictures of her house from the street.
We looked out the window and, sure enough, there was my dad sitting in a rental car with a camera.
“That’s it,”
my grandmother said, pulling out her phone.
“Charles, they’re here.”
The sheriff arrived in under 10 minutes. From the window, I watched him approach my father’s car and have what looked like a heated conversation.
My dad eventually drove away, but the message was clear: they knew where I was. That afternoon, my grandmother received a certified letter.
It was from my parents’ lawyer, claiming she was mentally unfit to manage her financial affairs and that my parents were seeking a competency hearing to take over as her financial guardians.
“Well, that’s a new low,”
she remarked, surprisingly calm, as she handed me the letter.
“Trying to declare me incompetent to get to my money.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
I asked, horrified at this new attack.
“Heavens, no,”
she replied.
“I had a complete cognitive assessment done 3 months ago when they first started hinting about my memory problems. My doctor said I have the mental capacity of someone 20 years younger. Joseph has all the documentation.”
My grandmother was three steps ahead of them. She’d anticipated every move.
I was in awe of her strategic thinking.
“You don’t survive 80 years by being naive,”
she said when I told her this.
“And you don’t raise a daughter like your mother without learning to protect yourself.”
The next day was my 25th birthday. Joseph came by again with the final paperwork for me to access the trust fund.
It felt strange signing the documents, knowing this money was what had triggered the whole nightmare with my parents.
“Once this is processed, the money will be in your account within 48 hours,”
Joseph explained.
“I recommend moving it immediately to an account your parents have no knowledge of.”
That made sense. I called my bank back home and arranged to open a new account with a different bank.
Meanwhile, my grandmother had baked me a birthday cake and bought me a new watch. It was the most normal birthday celebration I’d had in years.
“I wish I could have done this for all your birthdays,”
she said as we ate cake on the porch.
“I tried to send cards, you know, for years. I doubt you ever got them.”
I hadn’t. That night, I checked my email one last time before bed and found a message from Tyler with the subject line, “They showed up again.”
My parents had appeared at our apartment building with a birthday cake, causing a scene in the lobby when security wouldn’t let them up. The card they’d left with the receptionist said something about family money and sharing blessings.
The next morning, I accessed my new trust fund for the first time. $30,000—not a life-changing amount, but enough to make a difference for someone just starting out.
My first instinct was to save it for a down payment on a house someday, somewhere with good security. Looking at that account balance, I felt hollow.
This was what all the drama had been about. This was why my parents had suddenly reconciled with me after years of emotional abuse.
$30,000. That’s what my relationship with them was worth.
I told my grandmother I needed to go back home earlier than planned. I had made a decision: it was time to end this cycle once and for all.
“I understand,”
she said.
“But promise you’ll come back to visit. You always have a home here.”
She drove me to the airport and we hugged goodbye with real affection. On the flight home, I drafted a comprehensive plan with the help of my lawyer, who I called from the airport.
By the time I landed, we had a strategy in place. Tyler picked me up at the airport, looking relieved to see me.
“Dude, they’ve gone completely off the rails since you left. They showed up at my work yesterday asking for your flight information.”
“It ends today,”
I told him.
“I’ve got a plan.”
