My ex (33M) was flaky and procrastinated on everything. He was a mama’s boy and the last straw in a relationship was he took his mom to an Ash Wednesday service on Valentine’s Day and I broke up with him that night. We were together 5 years and I was his emergency contact at work. We lived together but I moved out right after that.
He died in a car crash shortly after that. It was tragic and hurt. I never reached out to his family because of the bad blood because of his mother. I found out I was the beneficiary of his 401k. I remembered us discussing it a few years back when we first lived together.
For 5 years we split the bills so I feel like I should get it because we wasn’t broken up that long. I remember that 401k discussion distinctly now. It was after he got that big bonus from the project I helped him prepare for, and he talked about aggressively saving it towards the down payment on a house we wanted. His mom hated that idea. She thought that money should be used differently, maybe for his future alone or towards her needs.
His mother is angry with me about it saying I broke his heart. I still feel like him and her are to blame for the relationship. His family reached out to me and I told them to sue me over it. I told them I wasted 5 years with him so it’s Karma I get the payouts not them. I do believe that. It feels like double Karma because this specific money was tied to our shared future, something his mom disapproved of, and now she’s not getting it either.
But some people think it’s me being petty to his mom over it.
AITA for taking my recently deceased ex-boyfriend’s 401k payout, for which I was the beneficiary from years ago, despite our recent breakup and his family’s anger, when a significant portion of those funds were tied to a shared financial goal or earned through efforts related to our relationship that his mother specifically opposed?