Ales, I think you're absolutely right, that an N mother dictating the contents of her husband's will is a HUGE form of control, maybe the ultimate form of control. In my case, my mother never worked, and my father, also very successful, earned all of the money. So IMO, that makes the control that much greater. He was the sole contributor to the bank account, and here she is, telling him what to do with it.
Interestingly, my father also gave away all of his money while he was alive, though not in an intentional or charitable way. He spent his life giving money to my brother, the GC. Over the last 30 years, my father has paid my brother's every expense (at M's insistence, of course). In high school, he was sent to a private prep academy, given private figure skating lessons, private fencing lessons, and private acting lessons. They then paid for ten years of university, which included a beautiful apartment, and several new vehicles (he kept crashing them, and they kept replacing them). When he graduated college and got married, they bought him a house.
When we found out that I had been removed from the will, my father actually said, "What's the big deal, there's no money left anyway." The reason there is no money left, is that my brother already received his inheritance. It was just spread out over several decades. The hurtful part of it, is that I could not make my father understand that it wasn't about the money. Sure, I need the money, but always knew in my heart that the GC would be sole heir, so never expected a dime. What crushed me, is that I couldn't make my father understand that disinheriting one child, while choosing to give everything to another, is like waving a flag that says "I don't love you," or maybe, "I love you, but I love the GC a LOT more." It's just so sad, that a father would do something so cruel and hurtful to a child because his wife ordered him to, but I guess that's the nature of the enabling husband. Protect the wife at all costs, even if it means throwing one of his children under the bus.
As far the rest of my family is concerned (aunts, uncles, and such), the sight of the GC being given so much, while I was given so little, was glaringly obvious. I've never complained, or maligned my parents in any way to any of my relatives. I figure they can draw their own conclusions.
