Step daughters 18th meal

If you enter a relationship with a man who has a child you should be grown up enough to support him in putting his child first. It’s the right thing to do.

For me its healthy for a wife to speak to her husband about her feelings, whether or not those feelings are convenient for others. It is up to the op how they feel and how they want to proceed with their own husband in any case.

It's her 18th, regardless of who's organising or arsed.

It's not about you or what you've done or haven't done. It's about someone's important milestone birthday.

You come across as needy and quite self centred. You've managed to make this entirely about you, your feeling, and how you would like an invite. Different if you'd had a positive, loving, familial relationship but you don't.

You are equally as coloured by your experience as a step mother as a birth mother would be by hers.

When you say you wouldn’t be comfortable with your husband attending I’d you didn’t get along with his ex, why do you feel entitled to express that? It’s not about you, it has nothing to do with your relationship at all. He’s not meeting his ex to gaze into her eyes they are doing it as co-parents of their child. It’s about the child. It should always be about the child.

The child in this case doesn’t like the OP. Even if she did she is entitled to a celebration of her milestone with her parents.

Could have been two days a week - could have been one Friday a month. We have no idea.

but this girl doesn’t consider her a parent- and rejected every effort. That girls has become an adult - it’s not fair to continue to force her into a relationship she didn’t choose.

Well if she didn’t meet the sd’s needs, she definitely did a hell of a lot to try. She helped with homework and made sure she was fed and had a clean room and clean clothes. She took her out to places she wanted to go to. She was there at the beginning and the end of the school day. It does sound like a decent amount of time spent together.

I don't think you're being unreasonable. You said you weren't bothered about the meal but you were bothered about the comment, which is fair enough. People read bits that they want to and twist things. I think without that comment you wouldn't have thought about. If she'd have said, because we are her biological parents, you can disagree with that. Her comment however made a point that you could disagree with

They raised her and it doesn't seem like they have done a particularly good job of it from the sounds of it. She doesn't sound like a happy child and it doesn't sound like it will be a particularly enjoyable evening to miss. Have a fun night doing your own thing!

It's her 18th birthday. All that matters is what she would want.
I think it sounds like a lovely idea, as long as everyone is civil.

In other words... she was raising her step daughter.

I am wondering why you think she would want you at her birthday meal if she hasn't wanted you around before now?

Raising a child involves meeting their emotional, physical, financial, educational and moral needs.

OP wanted to help raise this girl - but the child wanted nothing to do with her.

it all depends on how much time OP spent with the girl. It doesn’t sounds like she was able to meet the child’s emotional needs.

school lifts and washing really isn’t enough.

she doesn’t like the girl and has no relationship with her. I don’t think she raised her.

So how isn’t it raising her if it’s doing the stuff the man who is raising her should be doing?

Not meant disrespectfully but just wondering.. did your DH leave ex to be with you? Just wondering if this could be the source of SD's issue with you

Why not just step back and let her Mum and Dad take her out. After all, it is her 18th birthday. She didn’t ask for her parents to divorce. This is her day not yours. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, I don’t mean it to. Just let it be and let her have her parents to herself. It’s her one and only 18th birthday.

Perhaps because you two don't get on. Would you spend your birthday with someone you're not very keen on?

You have said you don't get on with her so why would she want you at her 18th birthday meal and why would you want to go? I think her birthday celebrations should be about her not her parents or step parents

You have not raised her. You literally said you barely have a relationship with her.
Her 2 parents want to celebrate that their child had become an adult, What's the issue. You're not her parent.
And, like you said, you don't really get along with the daughter - so she would not have wanted you there anyway.
Would probably be nice for her to have kids her mum and dad, who she presumably don't spend much time just the 3 of them.

Us women are really our own worst enemies! So many of us fall for lousy men & if he has children already we pick up the parenting role & do the childcare, cooking, cleaning & laundry for our new ‘family’. But then considered to be nothing to the child when it comes to celebrating big birthdays, graduations, weddings etc. i get why you’re upset OP.
I will be advising my own DD to steer clear of men with DC. They are just not worth the hassle & often just looking for a replacement to do all the wife work. Resentful SC then treat you like dirt.

You don’t get along with her but want to go to the meal?
The meal is for her, get your head out of your behind.

I find these kind of situations strange. I have been excluded from step children's invitations (from their mother, of course) so dh has declined.

As a daughter of divorced parents who wouldn’t even be in the same room together, I would absolutely have loved this. Take the gesture in the spirit in which it is intended and put the child first - ask her what SHE would like

Being step mother is usually a thankless job, so unless you are emotionally Teflon coated, it’s best to avoid get in relationship with someone with kids.

But it’s not OP’s fault. He step dd does not like op for some reason. While it makes sense op does not go to step DD’s birthday given she does even like op, father’s comment to op was a bit weird - only parents are going because they raised her for 18 years.

Let who have this last night as family? Mother, father or daughter? Op didn’t stop them being a family 9 years ago when they decided to separate.

Op is not husband’s new wife. Because OP’s husband is not mother’s husband. He is mother’s ex, and op is not new wife. She has been wife for 9 years.