I think those are two different questions.

One is whether I believed I had some independent right to be written into your mother’s trust. I did not think that in any simple sense, and I agree that spouses are often not included directly.

The other question is what became fair between us once the trust existed and our marriage was structured around it. That is where my feelings were. My position was never “your mother owed me an inheritance.” It was that once your inheritance became the long-term backstop we were both living around, and I made real decisions in reliance on that, it became relevant to fairness between us.

And that is why I was so upset when I realized I might not be able to rely on it. I had been assuming your inheritance would provide my retirement security too. I thought that was our plan.

So if the roles were reversed, I would not assume I had a right to your family’s money as such. But if we had built our lives around it and you had relied on it in place of building separate security, then I would think that mattered.