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

I assume you can’t finance this stuff for your eldest daughter? Is that where the inequality is coming from?

The op knew the score , she selfishly thought she could bully , push the wider family into accepting her daughter despite them saying it wasn’t going to be the case
she gambled and lost
but it’s only her kids that will eventually lose out

This in a nutshell. Her first daughter has a shit dad. She was hoping that landing this husband and his rich family would make up the financial gap left by her elder daughter’s shit dad. She was wrong.

But she just out her foot down with her DH... who has been on the same page as her. I just cannot fathom why the DH ends up.divorced and the kids all get fucked over even more by having the family split up more than it already is...

The OP and her DH should have put a united foot down with MIL and said no to the big expenditures without prior discussions and agreement from them in case they couldn't afford for the oldest child.

I can understand why the DH has said there's no going back now though. He's probably a bit fed up of OPs rants but her not making any meaningful decisions (based on reading of previous threads).

IMO this is far worse than an ongoing hobby at home, to be honest.

However (yet again) it should really be down to OP and her DH to establish boundaries with MIL. She seems like a meddler.

All of these (except for the inheritance) is something her mum should control. She is not living in a vacuum and her parents are not devoid of any will - unless they deliberately want to create this situation.

Blended families are generally shit for the kids no one really benefits and most of the time parents think it’s great but the kids when grown up often say nah it was crap
They don’t have a voice as kids to say stuff

having step kids is one thing I have 2 DSK they are adults now but at no point was I ever financially responsible for them

when you have a joint / shared kid and one that is older like the OP you can’t be fair and equal if one set of GP are wealthy and want to spoil their grandchildren

it’s why like I posted earlier I / we didn’t have a joint child as my sons paternal family are very wealthy and my own parents were reasonably well off
my son has had private school , gap years bought cars and inheritance and has more to come in the future . Him and his partner are pretty much set up for life at a fairly young age

having a joint child would have probably meant that they wouldn’t have been as financially secure as my son and to he honest
( I don’t like baby’s and kids that much anyway 😂) so not having another kid wasn’t a big deal

The op knew the score , she selfishly thought she could bully , push the wider family into accepting her daughter despite them saying it wasn’t going to be the case

she gambled and lost
but it’s only her kids that will eventually lose out

OP will need to spend some money on some decent therapy for her eldest child

He doesn’t sound like a loss to me if he isn’t treating the kids the same!!!

Well she put her foot down and they are divorcing and her older daughter will now lose DH who has been a good father to her when her own real useless father hasn't been in her life. Amazing result.

And this is 100% how it should be. All children within the family should be loved, valued and cherished equally - their parentage is irrelevant. Kudos to your stepmom - she sounds lovely!

I read the Disney thread.

So DH didn't want to marry, OP got pregnant and guilt tripped him into marriage. Now she's trying to force DH's family to fund pay for her own DD the same way as they do for their DGC. And if not, she's leaving them.
I'm very much team MIL, well done for protecting her son's inheritance.

OP caused enough damage, I hope she's not trying to hide facts from the youngest - she will find out and will never forgive.

Oh her.

You need to stop playing the who would blame who game, OP.

Your youngest child needs to learn that her parents are the ones who make decisions about what she can do, not her grandmother. And your eldest child needs to see that is the case as well. You constantly blame your MIL, without taking the action needed to be a half-decent parent in this scenario yourself (along with DH). It’s fine for the younger one not to ride ponies or go to Disneyland, but you have to make it clear that it is your decision.

Frankly, the only way any of this is going to work is for your DH to be more committed to you and your family unit than his mother. But you also need to stop measuring fairness like this, and start taking responsibility for making sure your two daughters are treated fairly within your own family unit.

The children should get treated the same. If MIL only wants to pay for one and you cannot afford to pay for the other then it’s not on at all to just treat the one child. Imagine how that would feel as a child! People that can treat kids this way disgust me. I would be putting a very large foot down and saying a firm NO to MIL.

The older girl already knows she is in a worse position. And it is not something that is going to change. H's family will not stop paying for SD and youngest. She will know this for life.

She knows it now, because SD and youngest get to do a hobby she doesn't.

She knows it now because SD and youngest have two parents, and she doesn't.

She will know it in 10 years when youngest is getting loads of pocket money from her father's side and she isn't.

She will know it in 15 years when they go to university and youngest doesn't have to worry about or get a job to meet rent or tuition.

She will know it in 20 years when youngest gets a house deposit and she doesn't.

She will know it in 30 years when youngest gets a big inheritance and she doesn't.

Pretending that these two girls are equal is not going to work. They are sadly not.

Their circumstances are not going to change. Even with a divorce, youngest will still get to do her hobby etc.

The best thing that can be done is to try to communicate this to eldest and help her make peace with the disparity and find other things she enjoys, rather than letting her grow up resenting her sister and mother.

I'm guessing that since he prefers to treat all three girls the same, his parents have assumed that one third of anything they leave him will end up going to his step daughter, as part of his estate when he dies, and they want their money to stay within their biological family.
TBH though, they could have got round that by leaving 'his' share directly to his two biological children in trust till they reach an appropriate age, with appropriate notes in their wills to head off challenges / deeds of variation. There was no need for all this drama over it.

And what will divorce accomplish? The grandparents will still pay for the hobby and her older daughter will still miss out. Now her older daughter no longer and DH in her life and her own father still doesn't care about her and isn't involved so what has been accomplished?

She is cutting off her nose to spite her face.

This is from her post so please explain how divorce is the right option here:

"I am going to potentially lose some time with my youngest but I can’t go on like this

My husband treats my daughter the same as our youngest but MiL doesn’t and he feels he has his hands tied.

He says that he has been disadvantaged in relation to inheritance etc because he has a stepchild and not once asked to divorce but I now have, over a hobby"

It looks like DH has tested his stepdaughter very well and stepped in when her useless father was there but because OP is upset his mother wouldn't pay for her daughter to have the same expensive hobby she will divorce and older daughter will lose all this how the hell does that make sense???

The issue with this is now you're asking her to punish her other daughter to protect her older daughter. Unfortunately neither of them chose to be part of a blended family and it should be obvious by now that blended families are complicated and you need to manage expectations. Expecting your child to be treated equally by her step grandparents is unrealistic.

Yes I think there should be some degree of treating them the same but if a grandparent decides to buy a house or help the grandchild with a deposit for their house, will you expect that they must do the same for the step grandchild as well? No that will most likely never happen and refusing the gift in the name of being fair will be ridiculously unfair to the grandchild who is losing out.

Her older child's father and his family are not involved in her life and her DH has taken her as his own but in the name of fairness she want her to either restrict her younger childs relationship with her grandparents to make things fair for her older child??? And now it's gotten to divorce her older child no longer has DH as a father figure anymore and her real father still doesn't care about her so what has been accomplished???

Is she going to get into another relationship and try again in the hope this would be less messier, have another child into the mix and create another mess looking for fairness and now dealing with 3 fathers and families all treating the kids differently?

Yes it's nice for grandparents to treat the step kids nicely and as the same as possible but there's a difference between getting them all Christmas gifts, birthday gifts etc and huge commitments like helping with house purchase, demanding they must do the same for your other child is ridiculous, and depriving your other child is also ridiculously unfair. She doesn't get to demand that the grandparents must pay for an expensive hobby for the step child and it's also unfair to deprive her younger daughter because she wants to be fair to her older daughter. This will also lead to resentment in the you her child who is being punished because adults couldn't make their marriages work and created this blended family mess.

This OP needs extensive professional support I think.
For herself.

In the end of the day all of this is OPs fault - unless her husband and his parents massively lied to her at the beginning of the relationship. This is what happens when you think you can force your child onto other people who have no interest in it.

All I can say - poor kids.

Her husband has left because the blending hasn’t worked out. They are prioritising his daughter and their daughter over her daughter.

That she wanted a divorce. At least that's how I read it.

MIL is seriously crap for saying she can’t relax when your DD is around though
if you read ops- if she is the prolific poster on this matter, plethora of threads on this issue you will see why though.
no photo can be taken of her grandchild without ops dd being in it.
no time can be spent with her grandchild without ops dd being included
No present can be bought for the grandchild without ops dd also getting exact equal…
that may not be this op, but it’s always been a sorry mess that situation

Stepdaughter (who I assume is not living with the OP) can live her own life but the two girls who live together should have same things available to both of them. I can even understand the SD wanting to see her half sister but not the step sister - fair enough. Everything else in OP is really wrong - especially MIL not wanting to see the stepdaughter and being openly shit about her.

But honestly, blended families are fucked up.

But the problem is that they are not divorced at the moment, they are a family and live together? No matter how much the IL dislike it, the kids are all their grandchildren now. At least, this is how it works in normal families that dont split their blended children along the lines of "mine" and "yours". If they cant accept it then its best for OP to divorce so the IL can continue excluding older girl - but this time actually having grounds to do so.

Grandparents can fund the granddaughter - but they also should understand that its parents right to decide who is getting what, and to stop massive inequality between kids affecting the family. If I was the OP I would definitely knocked it on a head and only accept activities she can pay for herself.

In any case, seems like the OP wanted to be part of a wealthier family but it backfired. Having another child with her husband was a stupid move.

So DSD goes to private school as her mother pays.
DH and you can’t afford to send your joint DD to private school so Dh feels inadequate
MIL pays for things for DSD and joint DD
Your eldest DD misses out on things MIL pays for
your eldest DD and your joint DD miss out on things DHs ex pays for for DSD

this is the reality of blended families. Yes we all think how nice to treat everyone the same but in obviously DHs ex isn’t going to pay for private school for 2x DD that are nothing to do with her and she isn’t going to not pay for private school for her own DD just because you can’t afford it for your others.

MIL is seriously crap for saying she can’t relax when your DD is around though. The big issue is your eldest doesn’t have decent paternal relations

He said theres no coming back from what you said - what did you say to him?