They Say Money Can’t Buy You Love — But In Later Years, It Can Buy You Attention – Linda C J Turner | Trauma Therapist & Emotional Healing Specialist

They say money can’t buy you love.
And that is true.

But what it can buy, in later years, when time is short and emotional distance has stretched for decades, is attention from resentful inheritance seekers — people who suddenly appear, reconnect, or re-engage, not through love, but through entitlement.

When genuine connection has been absent for years, financial presence can become a substitute for emotional presence.

And that truth is quietly devastating.

The Psychology of Inheritance Entitlement

When long-term emotional bonds are weak or fractured, unresolved family dynamics often reappear around money, assets, and inheritance.

This isn’t greed in the simple sense. It is usually driven by:

Unresolved childhood resentment
Loyalty conflicts
Emotional neglect wounds
Perceived injustice
Long-standing grievance narratives
Entitlement psychology

Over time, emotional absence can transform into financial expectation.

Not: “I want to know you.”
But: “I deserve what’s yours.”

Attention Without Connection

In later life, when vulnerability increases and mortality becomes real, some people re-enter relationships not to heal, but to position.

They show interest.
They ask questions.
They check in.

But the emotional tone is transactional, not relational.

It feels different.

There is no warmth.
No curiosity.
No emotional investment.

Just proximity to assets.

And the nervous system always knows the difference.

The Emotional Cost of Conditional Presence

For the parent or elder, this dynamic can feel deeply confusing:

Why now?
Where were you before?
Is this love — or leverage?

Psychologically, conditional connection reopens old wounds:

Rejection
Abandonment
Emotional invisibility
Grief for what never was

It creates the painful realisation that money has replaced emotional bond as the primary connector.

Why This Happens More Than We Admit

Modern families are increasingly fragmented.

Divorce, relocation, blended families, emotional cutoff, unresolved trauma, and generational dysfunction create emotional gaps that money later attempts to bridge.

But money can never repair emotional rupture.

It can only expose it.