'AITA for telling my son if he keeps the grandkids away he'll lose his inheritance?' UPDATED 3X

"AITA for making it clear that if he keeps the grandkids away then he will not be getting an inheritance?"

I will try to keep this short, my son and his wife home needed repairs. Before living together we had a good relationship, the problem came when his wife wouldn’t follow the home rules. They are pretty simple like clean up after yourself, don’t be loud at night and the big one was no drinking in the home. No alcohol in the home.

We made this really clear and my son knows his mother has trauma related to alcohol. We informed DIL in general terms also. The first few months seemed fine and it turned for the worse when the weather got cold. We couldn’t prove it at the time but we were sure they were drinking. It came to head when cleaning my wife found wine in the attic. She was pissed and poured it out.

Apparently, it was a 300-dollar bottle and it caused a huge fight between her and DIL. We let them stay until the renovations were done and they have been out two weeks ago. Relationship has been tense and I figured we just need time apart. My son met up with me and told us we can’t see our grandkids anymore. That the incident made him rethink our relationship.

I told him that was bulls#$t, the he knew the one big rule in the home, caused stress to his mother (my wife). He told me it was final and I told him if he goes through with this he will be out of the will. This started another argument and he is pissed at me.

People jumped in the comments with all of their thoughts.

andromache97 had a crucial question:

"That the incident made him rethink our relationship."INFO: What part of the incident made him rethink your relationship? Were there things said and done during the fight (after the wine was poured out) that are being glossed over here? Or is this really just over the wine?

And OP responded:

He says the whole thing no sticking point. They refused to apologize when it happened. They were really pissed she threw out the wine that one thing they have brought up multiple time. From my understanding, nothing horrible was said to either parties.

NZafe wrote:

NTA. Don’t know why everyone thinks it’s acceptable to be so dependent on alcohol that being asked to not drink it for a little while is a crime. You were kind enough to offer them to stay in your home, and gave them some rules to follow. When they didn’t follow them, you didn’t even kick them out.

If there was some special reason for them to be keeping that expensive wine in the house, such as “we didn’t want it to get stolen during the Reno’s” then they should have discussed that with you rather than hiding it. They resulted to punishing you because they refused to follow a couple of simple rules. Your son and his wife are being massively entitled here.

2inthestink45 wrote:

ESH. These are all pretty draconian responses to conflict here. Your wife didn't need to empty the bottle. This was the first offense and it could have been a serious conversation/warning. Your son withholding your grandchildren in response is another extreme. And of course they should have just followed your rules.

And your threat to take him out of the will only escalated and maybe proved to your son that he was right to rethink the relationship. Cooler heads need to prevail to find the appropriate responses. Your entire story was just escalation after escalation from all involved. There has to be more history here because in a vacuum the entire thing is ridiculous.

Tabernerus wrote:

There is roughly a 0% chance this is only about the wine. I wonder what other past events factored into them not letting you see their children anymore.

yourlittlebirdie had a question:

INFO: did they break any other rules like not cleaning up after themselves or being loud at night?

And OP responded:

Yes but overall we were able to move past it. When this happens I thought we all figure how to live together peacefully but no.

Mindless_Whereas_280 wrote:

ESH. They should have abided by your rule, though I wonder how your wife functions in society if she's so traumatized that someone having a glass of wine in their room is triggering. Your wife should not have poured out their wine as it was not hers. He shouldn't withhold the kids over something this stupid.

You shouldn't write him out of the will over something so stupid. Honestly, you're probably all better off just going your separate ways.

After receiving lots of feedback, OP jumped on with a few updates.

Edit: The wine was open.

Edit 2: I called my sister, and asked her to tell me to track down the price of the wine. My wife sent a picture of the bottle when this happened. You were right, it wasn’t 300 but around 25. I need to talk to my son and find out why she lied about that.

You were right, it wasn’t 300 but around 25. I need to talk to my son and find out why she lied about that.

Edit 3: long night, I had a conversation after I sent a text sayin that the bottle was only 25. During the argument when that price came out DIL thought my wife poured out all the wine, there was a case up there worth 300. My son removed it when he realized she just found the one left out and went with the price instead of informing us there was more wine.