Rebecca thought bonds held the answer. The answer to living a worry-free life while preserving her wealth to pass on to her sons.

And for a time they did. When stock prices continued to decline, Rebecca’s bond portfolio looked good. And she remained confident she made the right decision to preserve most of her wealth in bonds.

"How could I best provide for my family?"

If only it were that easy. Just when everything was looking fine, interest rates were inching back up. Rebecca began to question her initial decision. With increasing concern about the value of her investments, Rebecca worried that she simply would not have enough to meet the needs of her two sons. Suddenly, bonds didn’t look like the answer at all. Not for herself. Not for her sons. Not for the well-being of her family.

Rebecca’s decisions were well intentioned, there is no question about that.

An active single woman in her early sixties, she was conservative and cau-tious. And she came to us, as so many of our clients do, with a problem that only masked a larger one. The larger one is what we help our clients understand.

For Rebecca, it wasn’t just the value of her bond portfolio that was adding to her anxiety. It was something far more important: the relationship she had with her sons, and her sons with each other.

Sensitivities over the way Rebecca disbursed money and gifts to one son, a writer and editor with a master’s degree, and his older brother, a successful real estate attorney, had reached a critical point. This was complicated by Rebec-ca’s own sense of parental obligation.

“What is fair and right when it comes to my sons?” she wondered. “Does one son need to get exactly what the other does, and at the same time?” She agonized over the best way to give to her sons without their risking what she had worked so hard to achieve, and without adding to the rift that was growing between them.

At one time in history, it was customary for the firstborn son to receive special privileges. What about now? Should Rebecca give any credence to this? After all, she steered her younger son into his career in the arts. Shouldn’t she make his life a little easier because he had chosen that direction and, although professionally successful, did not have the means to approach the kind of lifestyle he had enjoyed growing up? But how would her older son react if he learned that Rebecca was providing funds to his younger brother? Why should she have to keep that a secret anyway? That’s not who she was.

Yes, we are a long way from a bond portfolio. A long way from what Rebecca initially thought was the problem. But we have ventured into the very heart of why we play such an important role in the financial wellness of our clients. It is uncovering where the real problem lies, and the best way to address it, that uniquely qualifies us to work with clients like Rebecca.

Through SEI, Rebecca was able to arrive at the right solution for her family, one that restored a sense of harmony and greater understanding between her two sons.

A gifting program was designed to allow the writer to purchase his own apartment. This took some of the financial pressures off his life so he could pursue his talents in a less stressful manner. And with the help of our Family Legacy Program, Rebecca found the right way to communicate to her sons so they would appreciate the intelligence in the structuring of their inheritance and Rebecca’s own personal values and preferences about the use of this wealth.

"SEI gave me practical options tailored to my family's specific needs."

Finally, we restructured Rebecca’s resources in the context of her life’s goals. Rebecca felt more at peace about her position than she ever had before in her life. She knew she could maintain her current lifestyle and still be prepared for any future expenses, even the unexpected.

We’re proud of the role we continue to play for clients like Rebecca. The unique, yet eminently practical options and programs we present our clients are built on one solid principle: what’s best for their lives. As a client of the SEI Wealth Network, that’s what you can look forward to discovering, and achieving.