Younger children turning on me.

You did the right thing as a mother. They'll understand one day. Tell them they can have relationships now if it's so important to them but you don't have to interact with them. I'd give a lot of love to the eldest.

Say no more 👍

Doesn’t mean they have to agree with her opinions, or indeed her actions.

No, OP is responsible for how she responded to them. Her youngest children disagree with what she chose to do in response, and that has in turn resulted in there being long term negative repercussions she’s living with, and will have to continue to live with.

Her in laws weren’t unkind to her eldest, they just didn’t treat her as a grandchild because she wasn’t and isn't one. Again, that’s not an unusual occurrence. The reality is that blended families are different to nuclear ones, and trying to force them to operate in the same way is only going to result in situations like this.

I agree with notlucreziaborgia.
OP, you need to understand that the damage you’ve caused through the choices you made might take years for your younger two to get their heads round. And you need to begin by owning it, by telling them that you are sorry for the resentment and alienation that’s happening. Without being martyred about it, or fussing about your eldest.
Family counselling might help.
Two of your children feel that you had an older, golden child and they were punished over and again in lots of tiny ways for years. So now there’s a period of anger as young adults. Hopefully they’ll move through that and reform a new relationship with you.
But without honesty from you, to them and yourself, there won’t be any real healing.

Op is their mother not a random auntie. She was right to protect ALL of her children. I wouldn’t stand for special treatment of some and not others either. What decent mother would?
The children are adults mow and can have a relationship if they want one. Yes it’s really disappointing that dh’s family were not kinder and a close relationship was not possible, but that is a matter for them, not op. The responsibility lies with them.

It’s almost like she posted on an open forum where people respond with their opinions.

So no solutions, support or constructive advice – just berating the OP repeatedly?

It matters because biological relationships tend to be maintained where relationships break down, the non biological kind simply don't

You only have to read MN any day to know that this simply isn't true. Even more so these days when we are actively encouraged to cut people out of our lives.

I'm very firmly in the 'all children in the family' should be treated the same camp. There is no excuse for treating children, who all live together as a family, differently.

OP now your children are grown, and clearly upset by the decisions taken, maybe sit down with them all and explain why you chose the route you did. Not facilitating a relationship is not the same as stopping it, their dad could have easily stepped up to maintain a relationship. Hopefully they will understand your reasonings at the time even if they still don't agree with them.

I don’t want OP to do anything. Maybe it’s something she can fix and maybe it isn’t 🤷🏻‍♀️ whatever she does or doesn’t do is up to her, after all she’s the one that’s got to live with it.

No, there isn’t universal opinion. Op will of course have people telling her she’s right, but she’s the one that has to live with the consequences of her decisions. It doesn’t seem like she’s enjoying doing so.

What do you want the OP to do, beat herself with a stick and perform hari kiri?

They were nice to her, they just didn’t consider her their grandchild because she wasn’t.

You can blame them if you like, but clearly their actual grandchildren don’t. They blame OP for what she chose to do, which is deny them a relationship with their grandparents. You may think she was justified in that course of action, but that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that her children do, and the consequences of their actions have hardly resulted in a great outcome. How do you think the eldest daughter feels to have, despite what you or OP think should have happened, grown up with two sisters that resent her? That are estranged from her? How do you think OP feels now she’s realised what her decisions have meant for her relationships with her two youngest? Clearly she isn’t feeling great about it. ‘Being right’ has come at significant cost, and she’s paying it.

Simplification much? OP hasn’t stated anywhere that this issue is the sole, main or even a cause of the DC’s current relationships. I’m sure there is more to this family’s lives than the few lines we know of here.

And no one has suggested OP tell her kids to f* off. The OP can handle the situation in rl how she wants, but what she’s trying to establish is if she should feel as rotten as her daughters are trying to make her feel. She can still hear them out either way, but sometimes it’s useful getting a sense check on a situation and assessing where your own judgement lies. It seems in this case opinion is fairly evenly divided, meaning it’s clearly not some universal standard that the OP has failed to meet – it was a tricky situation with no clearcut consensus on the right way to handle it.

Think you are blaming the wrong person here, her in laws chose to treat the eldest non bio daughter ( a child by the way) differently . they have also with the blessing of the dad given the youngest children to treat her differently too too weak to stand up to his family. Imagine how bad the eldest daughter treatment would have been by her own siblings if they had earlier contact with fathers family. I wouldn’t have had children with this man if he treated my daughter so poorly.

Indeed. Apparently if she them to fuck off and that she’s right they’ll magically fall into line and agree though. It’s amazing how many parents seem to think they can dictate the opinions of their children, and can’t comprehend this having negative consequences they’ll have to live with.

It’s cost the eldest a relationship with her siblings, and damaged OP's relationship with her youngest two. But that doesn’t matter, because she’s ’right’.

Agree, but seems other posters Agree with op and her eldest, it doesn't matter if the younger dc are hurt or upset, as long as they didn't get something the eldest didn't that's app that matters. And if anyones to be upset in all of this it's the op?

Her kids don’t think she’s done the right thing though, which is surely the most important consideration. She couldn’t force her in laws to consider her eldest their grandchild (she isn’t), so she deprived her youngest of having a relationship with them. What’s that resulted in? A bad relationship with her youngest children who blame and resent her for it, and two siblings estranged from the third. Not sure how that’s a fantastic outcome tbh, or how ‘being right’ is anything other than cold comfort.

Think your wrong actually she didn’t do the wrong thing his family did by not treating all the children the same.
as the non biological child of my dad his family often made remarks, the person that made the difference was my dad he was the one who stood up to them & called them out on bad behaviour. I became probably closer to his family than my own biological family. As my Dad now coming to the end of his life I know I am blessed to have been his daughter even if he is a grumpy arse sometimes.

No. He wouldnt be wrong to do either, he was wrong to do neither.
The right thing to do would be to decide what he thought was right for his family from his full knowledge of the situation. Which may have been that his children should see their family, or may have been that given the step daughters treatment, they should not. The OP says she would not have prevented him taking the children to see his family, so he had agency.
What no parent should do is abdicate all responsibility in the decision making process to the other then sit back and watch them take the blame when it goes wrong.

This is one of these rare threads where it’s possible to see both points of view.

But it’s difficult to know which side has got the wrong end of the stick.

There is a big age gap between your daughters which makes things like gift giving, being flower girls possible to do without intentionally ignoring an older kid. They are just at different stages.

but I do think it’s mean to treat a child ( who is essentially your DH’s adopted child) differently from the biological ones- is it possible you mis read this situation OP?

This May have been a case of family cooing over a baby, when your daughter was now 7 and past the cute stage.

So @5128gap whatever he'd done would have been wrong?
Wouldn't have allowed the partner to stop their family seeing the kids, but would have supported them in their wish to stop the family seeing the kids?

Well I don't know about you, but there's no way I'd allow my partner to prevent me and my children from having a relationship with my family if I wanted that for them. If I thought my partner was being unreasonable or controlling then I'd have stepped up from the offset.
Alternatively, if I thought my family were being unfair to a child I was treating as my own, I'd have been clear with them that wasn't on and supported my partner.
Unfortunately whether due to laziness or lack of backbone this man appears to have run with the hare and the hounds and neither prevented the distancing nor supported his wife in the aftermath. They are his family and his children, he is an equal parent, and he is equally to blame for passively sitting by leaving things to the OP to decide and take responsibility for.

They haven't fully grown up and realised that their parents are flawed but had good intentions... as is the case with most parents.

I'd stick to your guns. You did it for the best reasons. And it wasn't just you - your husband had a say, too.

I have a blended family myself - two are my dc, then there's my dsd, then our shared dd. Neither myself nor DH will tolerate anyone treating them unequally - we'd rather have smaller presents for all the kids than have the stepchildren left feeling 'less than'. It's how we make our unit work and we will never apologise for it.

Family is as family does. We can also choose our family, like when we choose to get married. I don't get all this 'bloodline' stuff, it's silly.

Gosh what horrible children you have, they've obviously inherited their empathy and kindness from their fathers side....so their sister is an embarrassment?!? My brother has a similarly blended family, I often forget which of the children are not biologically his, my family, parents, sisters in laws etc don't treat them differently at all. If one of my daughters is a flower girl so is his, it makes me feel unwell thinking of a child being deliberately excluded because they are related. Honestly I'm always shocked at the attitude to siblings step children on this, thought it was likely an English thing, but no your father in law is Irish, what awful people

OP,

Was there any favouritism shown towards your eldest? Extra attention because you deemed she needed it? Were you more lenient towards her because, in your perception, your youngest two had both parents together and eldest didn't? Even the smallest of things can be seen to be favouritism through a child/teens eyes...

Edit - spelling mistake