Stepdaughter and Daughter's Wedding

Looking back at your OP you come across as quite controlling. You tracked his phone while he was out with his ex? He’d never met up with her in 22 years of marriage to you but you were so desperate to know what was going on you needed to check where he was? That sounds quite unhinged to me. My mum was a second wife. If my dad had said his ex wanted to meet up to talk I think she would have immediately worried that one of his children was ill or in trouble and would have wished him luck and then been available to talk afterwards. She wouldn’t have tracked his location.

And if he’d come back upset because of demands placed on him she would have tried to help, not make her own demands. You husband is upset because he is being pulled between two ‘daughters’ he loves and your initial reaction is ‘well if you don’t do as I say you’ll lose me too?’ I cannot understand that.

I do wonder if the kids not wanting to stay over was because of your behaviour towards them. When he took them out for dinner as children did you insist he be home by a certain time?

Of course they can but not in the way that it’s being communicated here. If he’s a shit dad, accept hes a shit dad and move on. In therapy one of the major things they teach is that we can’t change other people, just how we react to them. So if he’s such a shit dad that she doesn’t want him in her life, don’t have him in your life but own that. Don’t try to force his hand in one isolated situation by threatening to cut contact unless he does what you want. That’s manipulation and clearly has caused the dad stress.
Or communicate to him that you’re not happy and see what he says and whether you can reach an understanding.

I think everyone needs to grow up. He should walk your daughter down the aisle.

If he doesn't, and you'll "never forgive him" you're as bad as they are.

But I struggling to understand what you are saying, it’s reads if I have it right as quite a binary thing (1) civil relationship or (2) reduce/cut contact.

I don’t see anything wrong with an adult having an ongoing relationship with their parents that isnt always harmonious. Why can’t people communicate how they feel?

Err she’s the one who says (apparently) that she will cut contact unless he does what she wants. Yes she can have emotions and she could even communicate those to her dad and maybe he would come to the independent conclusion that he doesn’t want to walk the DSD down the aisle. But cutting contact is very much what’s threatened.

Why the fixation on cutting contact. Why can’t an adult child have emotions around their parent?

It’s almost like the DD has to step back and not express her feelings.

I’ve witnessed many a row around weddings, they bring up all sort of family tensions & issues.

And maybe 14 year old her never got to express her feeling and she observed social norms by being nice & polite. But cracks appeared around things like the surname thing with the son. Or the kids being caught slagging DD off.

The other stuff is speculation. OP has mentioned only two incidents - the son around the surname & now this.

The way the whole thing has been communicated is odd but we don’t really know what all the relationship dynamics are.

Im a big believer in the inner child. I read recently about stuff coming out in ways akin to the screaming you weren’t allowed as a child (badly expressed!).

The SD’s base emotions towards the OP may be you & your daughter took my daddy. And as therapists say if we just sit with that without judgement. It doesn’t have to be “right” or “wrong” it’s emotion.

Sometimes coming from a place of understanding can really help a situation, instead of grow up, you’re too old, you need to share. What if it would help to acknowledge the SD’s devastation.

And people don’t snap out of childhood hurt because they are X age.

Most people come to terms with their hurt by the time they’re in their mid 30s. Either they adjust the relationship accordingly and reduce or cut contact or keep the parent at arms length if the hurt is too much to get over. Or they draw a line under it and have a civil relationship. It’s not normal for a woman in her 30s to issue childish ultimatums that you will stop speaking to your father if he does something nice for his stepdaughter. I could understand it from a 14 year old but not a 33 year old. She knows it will upset her stepsister.
and inevitably if he gives in to this one, there will be more. She will be devastated about all sorts of other things and then maybe in the end, the only option is for him to cut contact with his DSD if he wants to continue seeing his daughter. Maybe some people on here see that as a “win” but I think it’s very sad that someone would be that vindictive.

Agreed they probably aren't secure in his love and maybe he was a shitty dad and maybe he wasn't...

But walking a woman down the aisle or not isnt going to change how much daddy loves them. And it is nuts to make demands like that and think it proves much of anything...because it doesnt

Also i dont understand why your DH can't have a direct conversation with his daughter about this

OP, have you actually asked your DH why he won't speak to his daughter about this?

It really does sound like a VERY strange attitude to take. I can understand your immediate reaction of jumping to divorce in such a circumstance, but you've obviously got your head around that part of the situation now, and are happy to walk your daughter down the aisle yourself. However, I would be much more angry with him for refusing to discuss the matter with his daughter, as it would seem that no one actually knows, if this ultimatum really came from her. It could be that the step son is the one who really has the problem, and is stirring up trouble, so came up with this ridiculous idea, and made up a story about his sister saying all this, which he then told his mother, possibly saying 'don't talk to DS about it, as she's really upset'. Personally, I would want to hear these feelings direct from the horse's mouth, before immediately saying that he won't walk the step daughter who he professes to love, down the aisle. I also think that in your shoes, I would tell him that if he won't talk to her about it, then you will, but that's just me.

Their “narrative” or their lived experience that DD was prioritised?

I don’t agree his kids are nuts, I think they sound like they aren’t secure in their father’s love for them.

OP are these step siblings going to be at the wedding?
I am also agog at the ex wife deciding to meddle in this and I wonder what sort of narrative she spun to the kids when they were younger which might well have been why they didn’t want to stay at his house.
But honestly if you’d been divorced 20 plus years would you go out for dinner with your ex specifically to tell him that he’d better not walk his stepdaughter down the aisle because it would upset your grown ass 33 year old daughter? Most normal people wouldn’t dream of it.

Their experience is unusual simply because society has evolved to normalise second families. It doesn’t mean it’s easy or that we should downplay the hurt it causes.

And people don’t snap out of childhood hurt because they are X age.

“Terms they wanted at the time”, they could only chose the terms the DH and his ex made available to them. They didn’t get to draft the contract.

His kids are absolutely nuts *but I am guessing they have some narrative about how youd DD was favoured and they were sidelined blah blah.

But I wouldn't die on this hill. They go low, you go high.
Your DD can walk herself down the aisle or you do it.
Your husband can do a dance with her or celebrate in somemspecial way. Do NOT discuss any of it with anyone in advance.

*i cannot overstate this enough

Anyway, OP and DD will just have to be the better people and rise above, but I wonder what the next unreasonable demand will be.

They aren’t “plotting to sabotage” her wedding. Her wedding is still going ahead.

His daughter has emotions about her father walking the DD down the aisle. in her mother’s words she’s “devastated”.

And DD isn’t a cousin or a family friend. She’s a girl of a similar age group who DH moved in with and raised leaving his kids to manage being part of two step families.

I’m just saying that this dad is being vilified for having a new relationship and getting married. Something that their mother did too, before he did yet he is the terrible one. Remarriage doesn’t make someone a bad parent. Being the non resident parent doesn’t make someone a bad parent either.

These are 33 and 35 year olds. They aren’t children or even young adults. Their experience isn’t horrific or unusual- their dad did remarry but he kept contact with them on the terms they wanted at the time. Their anger seems directed at the stepsister not the dad anyway. So they will keep contact but only if he refuses to walk the stepsister down the aisle. Knowing that this will upset the stepsister more than the dad.
Their behaviour is awful but then again there are many awfully behaved people about so they’re just two more of them.

If they were plotting to sabotage their stepsister's wedding I'd be having a stern word, not joining in.

When it comes to their own father it should be about them.

They have chosen to laugh off their experience, it doesn’t mean that other children have to.

So many excuses on this thread for bad behaviour! My ex married a widow, and dotes on his stepfamily to a ludicrous extent, having been a Disney Dad to his own children at best. But they don't tantrum like toddlers about it: they just roll their eyes and take the piss.(I think they realise that he grew up a lot after leaving us, and it's not all about them)

Why are you just making up a new narrative. It's completely irrelevant if the mum was a good mum or not. Is a dad allowed to be shit if a mum is - is that your point??

All sorts of relatives walk people up the aisle.

My dad could have walked half the country up the aisle I wouldn't have cared.

But I would have cared if he’d moved in and started parenting another girl.

Your stepdaughter is being ridiculous. I have a friend whose dad is dead and there is no step dad. At her wedding a male friend walked her down the aisle. (He has a daughter.) No one ever thought it was weird. Because it isnt. I know of many other circumstances where friends or relatives have stepped in to walk a bride down the aisle. Clearly SD needs help with her jealousy around this issue

But what about forcing them to live with an unrelated man and then having a new second family? Isn’t that the narrative on here? Putting her sex life above her children? Shouldn’t she ideally have stayed single until her kids were 18? After all she could have dated her new partner and not lived together. And surely she didn’t need to add more children to the mix 🤷‍♀️