I have been with my partner for 5 years, we have a very good relationship. He is Russian, he has 2 children, a son and a daughter who are 24 and 26. His daughter lives in Lisbon with her boyfriend, his son lives in Moscow, we live in London.
We don’t see his children very much, he goes to see his son about once a year but I don’t feel comfortable visiting Russia so haven’t gone with him (first it was Covid now it’s the war and travel difficulties). He hasn’t seen his daughter since 2022, when she visited London and spent exactly one hour with him.
Now I don’t know if it’s cultural or if they just aren’t close but he seems to be unworried about it and I’m not going to push, he messages them both often.
Any way this year we planed our family holiday around his daughter, so are spending this week in Lisbon, we told her the dates 9 months ago, she said she would be around and could meet for dinner. We were meant to be seeing her tonight but she’s cancelled, saying something has come up, we have asked to reschedule for tomorrow or Sunday as we come home on Monday but she has said she can’t as she is flying to Rome to see friends tomorrow afternoon.
Realistically we wouldn’t have come to Lisbon if it weren’t for his daughter, lovely city but we tend ti prefer more rural holidays. He still sends her money every month and he seems genuinely hurt that she isn’t making any effort to see him.
She seems to avoid us and we don’t know why, like last year she went home to Moscow for a week but when my partner said he would go too she lied and said she had changed her mind but then her brother told him afterwords that she had come home.
My partner claims he doesn’t know why she is doing this and that they were close and they still message often.
AIBU to be really frustrated about this? I wouldn’t mind if she had just told us she didn’t want to see us but we have come all this way, gave her plenty of notice and now she cancels?