10 year old snubbed at wedding

Was your DD aware there was a photo being taken without her, before you made a scene?

There is no way I would allow anyone to treat my DC like this. And there is no way I would ever allow another DC to be treated like this either. It’s awful, cruel behaviour. It’s a photo, not a kidney. Some people either have no hearts or they actively get a kick out of being spiteful towards children who aren’t ‘blood’.

OP you are not listening. The only thing you can change in this scenario is your own response. You are never going to get these people to act as if your eldest DD is family because they don’t see her that way. The longer you fight this the longer you will be miserable. Your choices are stay miserable, accept and get over it or leave your DH so both children are ‘equal’.

Don’t be so ridiculous

That's what they did. OP says there were lots of group photos where they were all included. The MIL wanted one photo without relatives-by-marriage and the OP stormed up, interrupted, burst into tears in front of a bunch of children and generally caused a scene at someone else's wedding!

That’s crap they could have done a few with and a few without if it really mattered . How do they think your dd felt??

YABU…and coming across as a little unhinged.

Given you were all at the wedding and there were many different combinations of group photos, some of which you are in, I can’t fault your DH here.

Why can’t you MIL and siblings have a photo with just their children and grandchildren? Your and your older daughter are neither, same as many of the other wedding guests?

Why do you have to make everything about yourself? Why was the hysterics necessary?

One of the cousins has now invited my youngest to a party in September even though he has a daughter nearer eldest one’s age.

So now they are either trying to teach YOU lesson, or actively showing their feelings towards your eldest daughter.

Either way they are pathetic and I hope your H starts to support you and his step-child rather than let you both be treated like this

Your husband should be supporting you, his family sound like unpleasant people. I would book a weekend away over the weekend of the party in September, that is a cruel way to treat your eldest.

I think it’s quite offensive to make out adoption and being a step child are interchangeable. They are not they are very different legally. A fully adopted child is legally your own child. A stepchild isn’t.

In a will for example the word “child” automatically includes a legally adopted child but does not include a stepchild.

I don't understand how anyone can equate adoption to becoming a step-parent.

One is a long, arduous process that ties you irrevocably to a child, giving you full parental rights and responsibilities.

Another involves signing a legal contract with another adult, one which can be undone even the next day if you'd like. It does not give you any parental rights whatsoever.

OP I think you need to accept that your behaviour isn't going to get you what you want, if anything it seems to be further alienating these people.

I'll ask again, have you looked into getting any sort of support for your feelings towards your oldest DDs family abandonment of her? Or support to help you come to terms with your family dynamic not being what you hoped it would be?

Doing the same thing again and again is only going to give the same results and could even drive a wedge between your DDs.

This was my thought. We have couple of cousins who adopted children, and every single member of the family treats those children exactly the same as the bio kids. Family is family.

My step nieces and nephews are just as important as those related to me by blood. Thankfully they are all treated as equal grandchildren by their grandparents. I am so sorry op that there were all so insensitive and actually cruel imo.

OP definitely has a DH problem, for sure.

I'm from a family in which my Mum and uncles were adopted and I cannot imagine anyone behaving like this in the family, especially to a child.

They all want to bash Op but all she was doing was being a Mum who is prepared to stand up for her kids.

Nothing shameful in that.

Good, because adopting a child means you become that child's parent.

Marrying someone does not mean you become their child's parent. You become a step-parent, without the same rights or responsibilities of a parent.

If a step parent wants to be a child's actual parent then they should adopt. That's what adoption is for - to become a child's parent with all the normal parental rights and responsibilities.

My DH is adopted. The only blood relatives he has are our DC. No one in his family has EVER excluded him from anything, photos or otherwise because he isn’t related to them by blood.

DH and his sis (also adopted and not blood related to DH) were treated the same by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Of course biological grandchildren are different to step grandchildren. I love my grandchildren with a passion and would do anything I could to make their lives better, just as a parent would do. I have no stepgrandcgildren but could never feel the same if one came into my life.
I have also been in the situation of becoming a kinship carer for a grandchild due to some unfortunate circumstances, I doubt social services would have recommended me if I'd been a step grandparent.

Well now you know exactly where you stand.

Your husband fully supports and agrees with his family only treating his biological child as actual family.

Now you get to either argue with him about it or come to terms with it.

This is common and there are lots of threads on here about children in blended families being treated unequally.

No matter what the rest of the world does or thinks, no one can be forced to treat everyone the same. Maybe it would be nice if they could. But it should be understandable why they choose not to and it's their right to do so. After all, the blending wasn't something they chose to do, it's usually something that for better or worse was forced upon them.

If how the blending works is going to be important to someone then that should be sorted out before the blending and not after it and then at least you know where you stand from time zero and can prepare the family for it and explain the differences consistently and over time, rather than just expecting it all to happen the way you want it to be.

I still think yabu.

I understand you're sad that your DD doesn't see her dad or paternal relatives. That is a normal thing to be very sad and angry about.

I'm wondering if you're displacing that sadness and anger onto your DH' s family. Strong emotions rarely let us be rational.

Crying and making a scene in front of the kids is just not on though. Even if your in laws were horrible the best thing would be to quietly leave, distract the kids while you manage your emotions, and then when you're feeling up to it calmly explain that X was being mean and that why you all left etc.

For what it's worth I believe my mil would have had my step-nephew in a picture like that.
Very similar circumstances, he has no communication with his paternal family and has been in our lives since the age of 4, now 12 with a younger bio sibling. There's no way my mil would have left him out of that photo and nobody who would have asked him not to be in it.

I still think yanbu.

I would be telling my husband that his priorities should be with you and your direct family and not with his mother and aunt. Make it clear to this mummy’s boy that you will do what you deem to be appropriate at that given time regarding your children. He needs to acknowledge that you were also upset by their behaviour. I would be furious if my husband said this to me.