Stepdaughter and Daughter's Wedding

I wouldn't give it dramatics like this and wouldn't do this to anyone else

Then again, can’t OP suggest walking her daughter down the aisle ? That might be nice, why shouldn’t it be mum? It’s 2025 not the old days !

Could it be an idle threat from step daughter? Is she really going to cut her dad off over this? She might be angry & hold a grudge but she’ll get over it .

Because she’s an adult who’s decided to ruin her step sisters wedding for the sake of it. If my adult child expected me to pass this ultimatum on to my ex I’d tell them to grow up and stop being such a spoiled brat.
Op I think your only option is to walk your daughter down the aisle yourself, if I were you daughter though the stepsister would no longer be invited.

Of course she’s not an awful human, she’s just human.

As a young girl she had to deal with her parents splitting up and then her dad went and got himself another family.

If he prioritised his children and at least not moved in with the Op until his kids were adults his kids could have felt prioritised and had somewhere to stay with their dad.

Wow your stepdaughter sounds like a spoiled, manipulative and vindictive little cow! She is being very unreasonable.

As for your ultimatium @WickedMotherofthebride thats also unreasonable to put your husband in this position where whatever choice he makes it has bad consequences for him but I understand why you're so upset by this. OP think it through carefully because if you decide to divorce you're playing right into SD's hands no doubt she will love that you divorced her dad its a win win situation for her.

Personally OP I think you should walk your DD down the aisle yourself. However the SD's utter nastiness would damage the relationship beyond repair for me.

I wouldn't invite the SD to the wedding either now as I can imagine she would sit there being smug and smirking she got her own way with the bonus she gets a front row seat to see the upset she caused and I would bet my last tenner SD would expect to attend your DD's wedding too so I'd make this 100% clear to your DH and if he protests tell him his nasty DD can't have it both ways.

After this I would completely cut the relationship dead with SD, don't ever do anything for her again after this including going to her wedding if she has one in future. Don't do anything nice for her again no matter how small a favour, SD has shown her true colours so take her at face value because she can't have her cake and eat it too. She's freed you of any obligation to her by behaving so bloody nasty.

I would also point out to your husband that if whilst its his choice if he gives in to this emotional blackmail and manipulation it will set a precedent and where does it end? What if your DD has children will your SD demand he not be called grandad? Will she demand he 'prove' his bio grandchildren are favoured? Once SD realises emotional blackmail will result in her getting her own way her behaviour will get 10 times worse.

Why is she an 'awful awful human'?

What has she actually done? According to the OP the daughter hasn't made contact

The mother is supporting her daughter by warning the father so it doesn't get out of control and he can speak to his daughter

The OP is the one throwing ultimatums and threats of divorce around not the daughter

Unless OP would like to comeback to clarify some details ...

He is being put in an impossible position, What does your daughter think?

I would feel the same OP, if my DH did this I doubt I could continue the relationship. It would be so devastating for your daughter for the person she views as her father to refuse to walk her down the isle. If any man hurt my child like that I very much doubt I could forgive them.
Sorry you and your DD are going through this.

I totally agree with this.

My perspective. I don’t think a man shouid move in with another woman and her daughter while he has a young daughter.

His focus should have been on creating a home environment where his kids could come & visit him.

He put his need for a romantic relationship ahead of that.

The way to get around this is for you to walk her down the aisle.

If I was your son I would have a few choice words for my sister.

That said your ultimatum puts you and his daughter in the same level of nastiness tbh. Respect he need to maintain a relationship with both his daughters and you walk your daughter down the aisle.

Where did you get the last line from?

She’s your daughter walk her down the aisle.

Your husband’s daughter is an awful awful awful human. Absolute trash. And his ex should have been talking their daughter around not supporting her.

I feel so sorry for your husband (and your daughter).

Once again his daughter is an absolute See You Next Tuesday.

Well DD certainly won’t get over it if her mother acts like it’s something she can’t get over.

The DD is so secure in her relationship with DH that she declined meeting her bio’s father’s family.

The DD appears to had more parenting from DH that his own children. She has years of being with him full time.

DH put his own wants for another relationship ahead of his kids. He should do this for his DD.

It sounds like he has. He didn’t speak to her directly (If she wasn’t aware that her mother and brother were going to speak to him about it, she may be angry at discovering they went behind her back), and he didn’t go home and speak to OP before making a decision, he went home and told her the decision he had ‘adamantly’ made was. This, despite almost undoubtedly having a very good idea what the impact of this on his wife and stepdaughter would be, and that this could cost him those relationships.

It reads very much like he truly believes that she would follow through, and he’s not prepared for that to happen.

I do agree with you @commonsense61 that it must be a huge disappointment, but for the OP to say she’ll divorce him if he won’t do it is quite ridiculous. The poor man is probably totally torn between loyalty to his daughter and to his stepdaughter, what I’m saying is there will have to be a compromise or the whole wedding is going to be an absolute disaster.

I assume dh’s daughter struggles with idea that another perosnal, who maybe she doesn’t know well , views dh as dad.

its a complex thing.

my SIL and brother are devout Christian’s. They called each others parents universally as mum and dad. I’ve had a couple of periods in last 36 years when I got profoundly irritated by my SIL calling my dad “dad”…mainly becuase my dad wasn’t always a nice person to me,in fact was a pretty lousy parent in many ways. Not his fault in some ways- I think he was neurodivergent…but he died last year at age 87 so not of generation to find that out. But dad was always on best behaviour with SIL, she only knew one side of him. There was stuff she’d say to him thst id never have been allowed to say even as a 50 year old women. 🤷‍♀️😳

but I love my SIL, she means no harm ..just a bit naive and guileless 🙄. So I kept my mouth shut . Talked to myself to ignore it. Both my parent dead now so don’t have those weird feelings now when she refers to them.

but it sure did wind me up at times . Perhaps becuase I was an only daughter, maybe with my 2 elder brothers it didn’t impact them as much.

I don’t think it was jealously as such, more an irritation of her intimacy with him based on rose tinted spectacles, and not the warts and all I experienced.

so, it could be a lot of complex things going on. His daughter presumably missed out on some of intimacy your daughter had? Don’t right it off as simple jealously…Sd experienced a different dad potentially.

still a bummer…but tread carefully…turn on full empathy and try to talk to her about why she feels this way. Dig into whys in non challenging way..or get dh to do this…even if it doesn’t change wedding outcome it could just help to improve relationships between you all longer term.

as other said, you’re her biological and legal parent, you give her away. One up for female equality…do the mother of bride speach too…and tell your daughter to keep her own name ! 🤣🤣

I had no one walk me down the aisle it literally doesn’t matter. My mum walked out on my wedding saying my husband was a wrong ‘un ( she’s the wrong one) I’ve been very very happily married thirty years now none of that fake stuff matters. He’s your daughter’s dad your daughter and him know how important the relationship is don’t jeopardise that by competing with biological daughter’s tantrum. Be the bigger person he’ll love you more for the support. As for the biological ones it’ll bite them some way some how in the future. It always does if you allow this sort of thing to fester. Don’t you do the same. Your poor poor husband he must be distraught.

Maybe the bride in this situation could try and find a bit of empathy for the girl who grew up dealing with the hurt that comes with knowing your Dad has left you to play Daddy to an unrelated child and graciously step aside.

She should recognise that she was selfish for not considering her step fathers daughters feelings before she asked him to do something special that is usually reserved for dads and daughters.

My mum walked me down the aisle 25 years ago.

@InterIgnis yeah hopefully he’ll be able to gauge it based on his knowledge of his daughter

The real question is can the op and the step daughter get over this ?
Only you OP know this , I doubt your daughter can get over it to be honest as I imagine it’s double trauma and the relationship to him will never be the same again so if your relationship can recover is the actual question .
I know I could not but only you know you capacity to o oversee this

So you are putting this man in the position of having to choose between losing his daughter, or his wife?

He needs to speak to his daughter about this, rather than his ex wife or his son. It may all be salvageable. If not, you can walk your daughter down the aisle and they can do something special later in the day (speech/dance etc)