Am I being petty?

[MarjorieWinklepicker]

My dad is getting married next month. It's his third marriage and I've met his wife to be about 4-5 times. I don't think she particularly likes me as whenever my dad visits she doesn't come with him.

We have never had a particularly close relationship and he currently lives 200 miles from me, his wife refuses to live in the same town as I do, the town he grew up in. I am his only child.

Anyway, it is DS' 5th birthday tomorrow. I know for a fact he won't have bothered to send him a card let alone phone him up and wish him a happy birthday. He did the same with my other dc's birthday. He will say he forgot but he has Facebook, he would have seen me referencing it during my birthday cake baking struggle

Yet he will phone me occasionally to talk about wedding plans, never really asking how we are.

I'm tempted to tell him to forget it and DH and I won't bother coming if he can't even axle lodge my children. FWIW they are not invited to the wedding, they are being left with MIL for 2 days whilst we travel to his wedding.

He has form for not giving a shit about anyone except the woman he is with, I feel like I've had enough of it now.

Axle lodge? Acknowledge

Not petty at all. However, give him this as one last chance. Just so he can't say you've been unfair.
Love axle lodge.

his wife refuses to live in the same town as I do

Do you mean she specifically refuses to live there because you live there, or just that she prefers to live elsewhere for other reasons.

I don't think I'd bother going to the wedding personally.

I don't think it's specifically because I live here but I don't think it helps either iykwim?

She has lived all over the place, my dad has only ever lived in the town he was born in. Oh except when they emigrated to Spain last year which lasted 6 months. She said they could come back to England but only if they didn't come back to my hometown. I am the only family my dad has got and there are only her family going to the wedding.

I don't think it's specifically because I live here but I don't think it helps either iykwim?

She has lived all over the place, my dad has only ever lived in the town he was born in. Oh except when they emigrated to Spain last year which lasted 6 months. She said they could come back to England but only if they didn't come back to my hometown. I am the only family my dad has got and there are only her family going to the wedding.

YANBU.

In fact, I think you're being remarkably restrained.

In which case, I would say, do whatever you feel is best for you rather than worrying about his reaction - if you would like to see your dad happily married and want to try and forge a better relationship, then going to the wedding would be a good start. If you have reached a point where you are just as happy without either of them in your life, then don't bother.

I'm just going to wait and see if he does say anything about ds' birthday tomorrow.

I'm in the midst of PMT (I suffer badly) and i tend to speak first and think later at this time of the month. Just hope I don't say something I regret, I've only ever stood up to his shit once before (he said he couldn't afford to get my dd a birthday present and could she wait til pay day yet very next day his wife to be posted a very large bouquet of expensive flowers on her Facebook page from him) and it was cathartic.

Oh I'm quite happy to live without them both tbh. He only ever wants to know me when he has nobody else. I only really got to know him after his second wife left him.

I think it sounds like the new wife, where your dad lives or even his wedding are not really the issue. The issue is that your dad doesn't make enough effort with your DC. Have you spoken to your dad about this and asked him to make a more of an effort? Perhaps if you explained that his relationship with them is important to you then he might buck his ideas up. Not going to the wedding is not going to make him improve his relations with the GC, and it sounds like that might be what you really want from him. So why not think of ways you could achieve this rather than going straight for the nuclear option of reducing your contact with him. Of course, if you've had many conversations about it and there's no change that's a different matter.

Fwiw, I have a Granny who lived far away and didn't (and doesn't) usually remember my birthday, and I've always had a very good relationship with her.

I came to the conclusion about 18 months ago that life was too short to suffer fools. If he makes no effort to acknowledge his Grandchild I'd keep contact to a minimum and like hell would I be bothering to travel without Grandchild for 2 days to a wedding.