To have called time on my marriage. A family of two halves.

Seems weird to end a marriage over kids extra curricular activities?! You’ve worked yourself right up over this. Ours barely remember their extra curricular activities now. Hope this is worth it op.

I don't think the OP understands she will never achieve a nuclear family. Even if she didn't have s step-daughter her own two biological daughters have different fathers, grandparents, extended family etc.

It's all well and good treating all the kids the same in terms of "if we do for 1, we do for all" within the family household but it will never work outside those 4 walls.

I have a stepchild and we have a shared child. My stepson obviously has maternal family who will never have anything to do with my son... and likewise he has lots of experiences that my child won't have. However, when he is at his mums house our world doesn't stop and we do age appropriate activities with our younger child.

Plenty of things the OP could do with the 9yr old that she would surely love as 1 on 1 time without the other girls. A trip to the cinema, movie of her choice at home, a pamper day at home, going out for a walk or a cycle, just playing a board game etc. It doesn't need to be extravagant to be quality time.

There is the OP, her mother and all the OP’s siblings and nephews and nieces. That is a lot of biological family for the oldest daughter. Yet, the OP wants to control how her MIL spends her money in favour of her own child, the MIL’ step child. The OP does not speak positively about her step child, her husband’s child from his first marriage. I feel so sorry for the OP’s step child and I wonder how much money is spent by the OP’s large family on the OP’s stepchild. None I would think, but still the OP is bellyaching about her MIL not paying out for her step grandchild. It is immoral how some women think they have the right to spend the money of another woman in favour of their own children.

Tbh ‘they should all be treated equally‘ really doesn’t work when you consider how hurtful that would be for the stepdaughter. They aren’t equal. His daughter should be special to her actual father, over and above OP’s daughter, and it’s no surprise that she hasn’t responded well to the girl being shoehorned into her family.

I can’t imagine how I would have felt if my parents split when I was a child, and my father had met woman and not only acted as a full time father to her daughter, but claimed to consider her equal to me in his eyes. I know I would not have been smiling beatifically and singing fucking kumbaya about it.

I get the impression that OP resents her stepdaughter for 1, being privileged, and 2, not buying into the nuclear family fantasy.

The divorce is not going to bring equality, only upset for your youngest and probably even less money. What you need is giving your eldest a nice time when your youngest is doing her activity and make her realise that not everything is equal in life but they are both loved equally.

My mother never misses out my stepdaughter at Easter, Christmas or her birthday, she gets thank you cards for her trouble but my stepdaughter while polite in a formulaic way has no interest.

What about other times, say days out or lunches, do you wait for Step daughter to be around so she can join in, even if she’s not interested, it should be fair right? What about your mums will? Is there an equal share left to her step daughter?

fwiw, I think you sound so overly entitled. You and your dh chose a blended family, your extended family didn’t, yes it’s lovely if all children are treated equally, but they aren’t. YOUR dd gets to live with Sdd dads, how do you plan to ensure equality to that resource? Or does it only work When it affects your dd.

If you really want your dd to go to pony club, you and Dh will need to either make cut back, or extra hours.

You've tried to make your eldest's emotional state your MIL's problem.

It's not. It's yours. You've lacked some boundaries here with your inlaws and stepdaughter spending time with youngest and your eldest and they tried to let you know. For example, when your SD was spending time with her little sister, you let your eldest horn in and when SD pushed back, you "dealt" with her. Why didn't you tell eldest, hey, let SD spend some time with little sister and we'll go do x? Hey, SD only gets to see little sis every so often and you live with her.

SD also dealt with inequity here, but hers is of time. She lacked alone time with her dad and sister that your eldest had full time with.

By bringing up the big gun of divorce, you've now removed one of the pillars of her family, a stepdad who treated her well. Why didn't you suggest therapy to deal with your eldest's jealousy and misery before now? Do you think your husband being out of the home will fix that?

If you're not very, very careful, your eldest might feel responsible for this breakup and likely to be more needy and insecure rather than less.

It seems to me that a lot of this mess may have been caused by the fact that DSD doesn't get enough time with her sister and Dad because her step sister always has to be included.

As another PP said MIL has already experienced her son divorcing and tried to keep a relationship going with her grand-daughter. Her excluding OP's daughter may not in fact be solely to do with the fact that she does not regard her as family (although that will probably have a part to play) but that she is trying to make sure that her two grandchildren have a good relationship and that DSD also spends time with her cousins.

The whole thing is a mess and no-one is going to benefit from a divorce.

Initially I thought that this was a rich family who were rejecting their son's step-daughter and who treated her poorly but as the thread has gone on it turns out that this is not actually the case.

I don't think the OP has handled this well and I feel that her daughter's upset about the situation has been made worse because of OP's attitude.

Although, as far as the OP is concerned, she has behaved in this way because she wanted her daughter to be included I think she could have made the situation easier by explaining to her daughter that where people have different families the reality is that often they will be treated differently.

Honestly you're just rambling now, contradicting yourself and not making sense.

You've already made up your mind to leave, well at least your DH has so I really don't get the point of this thread anymore.

Most posters have told you that you're overreacting and cutting your nose to spite your face and yet you keep jumping from DSD to MIL to your DM to DH and back while claiming you don't expect MIL to pay for your DS yet also upset she hasn't.

From what it looks like your DH is done anyway so you might as well focus on preparing yourself, your daughter and your finances ahead of divorce.

What about your eldest daughter's peace? 🙄

Posters saying OP should force them to include her eldest daughter are missing that the in laws are intentionally creating an opportunity for OPs stepdaughter to have time with her younger sister without OPs daughter. That's the whole point.

OPs stepdaughter clearly has no interest in bonding with OPs daughter, and wants time with her dad and sister without her. She's not allowed that (she was "obviously jumped on" for saying so previously) so her dad's family are engineering it for her.

Things would have gone much smoother if OP just accepted this and allowed it, and enjoyed the time with her daughter.

I was a stepchild and I naturally understood my stepdads family were not mine, and his children were more important to him, even though I lived with him and they didn't.

i Know I’ll get flamed for this but when you have children by different men that means they have different families.

You don’t just get to force children onto the relatives of new partners because that’s what fits for you.

This is just the reality of having children by different men, like it or not.

Your eldest has her own relatives it’s not your MIL’s problem if they’re not involved in her life and she shouldn’t have to make up for that financially or otherwise. That’s up to you to compensate for. No one else.

I agree with all the above posters except that I do think your marriage is over. You have such resentment to your in laws and stepdaughter that it is not fair to continue with the marriage.
Don't do what your mother tells you or even what MN advises. Do what feels right in your heart and stick with it. You clearly have lots of family in that you mention your mother, who is very present in your life, has other grandchildren. So your oldest daughter has a lot of family on your side anyway.
This is perhaps a text book case about why people who already have children should make them a priority and not complicate things by trying to blend unwilling existing families.

She thought my younger daughter would be troubled by having half sisters whose parents were married but hers weren’t,

There's no longer social stigma about unmarried people having babies. The legal protections it grants are the main thing. What odd thinking. And it gave no consideration to your eldest and the possible inequities that would arise if you married someone who was from a family with more money and whose family did not see her as a member of their bio family.

You and your mom are not in a financial position to gift your eldest experience gifts and extracurriculars. Why not do something cheap or free with your eldest while your youngest is doing her activity? Maybe a get together with some of her cousins on your mom's side?

It's really obvious that you do resent your MIL not paying for your eldest to do things she's paying for her bio grandkids to do. That's why you give lip service to her not paying your eldest's way but then say you could never treat a child like that. Your mom treats your SD the same way your MIL treats your eldest. She's polite and nice and the relationship is superficial.

Your eldest has apparently gone from putting a brave face on things to be completely distraught and making your life miserable. How is your youngest handling her sister making the home miserable? Will she be guilted into giving up whatever her sister doesn't get?

You didn't blend families. You have groups and subsets and blending isn't possible. Just getting your husband out of the home will not address your eldest's jealousy. You have to be straight with why little sis gets things that she doesn't. You expected your husband's family to step up and replace the paternal family she has no contact with and that's an unreasonable expectation and entitlement on your part and your eldest has absorbed that from you.

I grew up with various halves and other partner's or spouses kids and we were kept more separate. We didn't think they were automatically family just because our parents hooked up or got married. I didn't go to my brother's grandparents' house, and vice versa. Because relationships were more adhoc and frankly, temporary, the bio relationships took precedence.

I agree with your mother - you are massively overreacting. It’s not your MIL responsibility to treat a girl that is no relation to her the same way as her grandchildren in relation to this hobby, and your expectation otherwise is completely unreasonable! If you want your eldest included then it should be out of your own pocket. I think if you had been a lot more reasonable then perhaps your DH may have sympathised more and contributed, or even your own mother if finances allowed.

Otherwise you should be a lot clearer to your daughter (age permitted) about the dynamics and perhaps do something else that’s special between you and her.

you have handled it appallingly, thrown your marriage away as a result, and made it explicit to your daughter about the difference with your attitude. Your negativity towards your DSD as well is shocking.

I never expected my new in-laws to step up and they haven’t.

I don’t mean to sound unkind, but reading this thread (and I do remember reading your first thread at the time), it strikes me that the problem is that you do expect them “to step up” and the problem is that they haven’t.

Theae things are inherently tricky. In the olden days, there wasn’t divorce, so step parents meant that a parent had died, taking out one layer of complexity. And there were pretty strict rules about who inherited what from whom, taking out another. But these days, families come in all shapes and sizes. One of my DDs has a friend who lives most of the time with her mum and stepdad and half sister from her mum, with her stepdad’s DD coming on some weekends. And the rest of the time she goes to her dad’s and stepmum’s house, where she has a half sister from her dad and a stepsister who lives there most of the time. The idea that all five kids in that scenario are treated exactly the same is completely impossible, but it all seems relatively harmonious. Two of the kids go to private school (paid for by their shared dad(; another goes on fancy holidays with her (own) maternal grandmother. But everyone knows that everyone else has their own set up. if your older DD saw her dad and paternal grandparents, I doubt this would be such an issue as things would “balance” a bit. And I can understand your frustration that they don’t, as your older DD must feel left out as a result. But - to be fair to your MIL - that isn’t her fault, not is it really her problem to solve. You say they are ”always kind, and always polite” - so, while they’re maybe not the heroes in this story, they’re not the villains either.

I suspect that, from MIL’s point of view, she’s seen her son separate from his first wife and been worried about losing touch with her granddaughter (your DSD). So she’s probably put extra effort into her and that relationship. And then another grandchild comes along (your younger DD) and she’s keen not to leave her out. And, harsh though it sounds, your older DD won’t be at the forefront of her thinking in all of this. Just as you are focused on your two DDs, she will be focused on her two granddaughters. You have different perspectives on the same situation.

I think I would try to reorientate your - and your older DD’s thinking - on this. If you think of and refer to your MIL as “Rosie’s granny” it probably seems simpler. “Rosie is doing X with her granny, so we will do y or you could do Z with your friends”. They don’t see her as a grandchild. She isn’t their grandchild. Take away the expectation on all sides that she should be treated as such and it probably becomes easier. And, of course, it’s perfectly possible that you arrange a treat for your older DD while Rosie is having a treat from her granny. But I think you need to change the expectations here or you are setting everyone up for upset and disappointment.

Thats because he does...

Its unreasonabke to expect your mil to pay for things for your daughter.

Maybe try your inlaws via her father

I think many MN posters do not encourage a second marriage if they have children already because they don't want their own children to lose out in terms of inheritance.
There was a poster yesterday who said she would never remarry athough she was happy to date because she did not want her children to miss out on inheritance.

Your mother by your own admission put a lot of pressure on you to marry your husband. It was clearly the wrong decision because you now want a divorce. Why do you take so much notice of your mother? Does she always tell you what to do?

I wonder that as well @MrsKateColumbo
The OP hasn't said anything positive about her stepdaughter .

Your coming across very snide about DSD, I wouldn't be surprised if she is picking up on it too, so instead of worrying about treatment in a GP relationship you should worry about how SD is feeling in her own home. I wonder what her mother's view if it all is

@Hotandpointy
Exactly! a brilliant point.

It would be completely unacceptable to them if I tried to shoehorn my elder daughter in at the expense of my MiL and the progress of my younger daughter.
But is that not the whole premise for the divorce being set in motion?

Latest spat has come about because of an extracurricular paid for by MiL.

@ForCosyLion
You are so critical of the MIL. What about the OP's own mother, the eldest biological grandmother. Neither of the grandmothers are wealthy according to the OP, it is just that the MIl prioritises her granddaughters. By the OP's admission the MIL treats the grandchildren the same when they are together, buys them all ice creams etc. It is her funding a hobby that makes the OP and her mother so angry even though her mother is the biological grandmother of the oldest daughter.
So many posters want to criticise the MIL whilst totally ignoring the huge part played by the maternal grandmother. The maternal grandmother clearly has loud and vocal criticisms of the MIL. A desire to decide how the MIL spends her own money while being openly critical of them.
The eldest daughter has her very own grandmother who is very involved in her life. She is fortunate in that relationship. It is one the stepdaughter does not have.