More of a WWYD more then a AIBU
Me and my partner have 2 children together, age 4 & 6 and my partner has daughter from a prev relationship who is 9. We have her EOW, and they text during the week etc now she has a phone.
Last weekend we decided to book a trip for march half term and take the kids to legoland for 2 days and 1 night, my partner text his ex and asked if his daughter would like to come also. We gave her the dates and she confirmed she would like to come. Great! Trip booked shortly after and confirmed to the ex.
Step daughter comes over last weekend like normal and when I asked her was she looking forward to legoland (her little sister was talking about it) she burst in to tears and said actually she didn’t want to come, she doesn’t like rides and her mum had persuaded her to say yes. We tried to reason her that they were not big rides etc but by the end of the weekend she was still saying she didn’t want to go. Clearly this is abit annoying as we have already paid, had to get a bigger hotel room, extra ticket and it cost roughly £100 extra just to bring her which we have no problem paying but only when she isn’t upset saying she doesn’t want to come! My partner text the mum to say ‘step daughter has been upset, doesn’t want to go and we don’t want to force her so we will not take her’ ex just replied ‘ok, fine’. We confirmed to my step daughter that she didn’t have to go which immediately cheered her up.
This is not the first time this has happened, this is the 3rd time! She’s been offered to come to a caravan holiday and a different weekend away before, initially says yes but then changes her mind, the last 2 times the ex has then said she’s not coming tough and we lose out on money etc. She also declined a holiday abroad with us this year when we asked her direct before booking it.
She’s now text my partner today having a rant that its unfair we take our kids away all the time and don’t include our step daughter yet she is asked every single time and that he should be paying for step daughter and his ex to go away on these trips together so she gets mini breaks as well!!! She’s being a CF and of course my partner told her no.
We are fed up of wasting money to be honest but we don’t know what to do either when it will happen yet again. Do we force her to go and maybe be upset the entire time ruining everyone else’s trip away or do we just not offer anymore? We do a couple of breaks away every year normally like the legoland one above but other places such as alton towers for cbeebies land, London were we go to London zoo one day and shreks adventure the national museum the next day etc..
So WWYD.. we’re planning to start taking more abroad holidays and don’t want her to feel left out but we are not made of money either.