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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Brother‘s Wedding and step-Kids

609 replies

ByScott · 31/12/2018 20:50

I am a 42 year old man and have created an account as I have no one to talk to in real life.
My wife is perfect and has not asked me for anything in 10 years. On Boxing Day she asked me to refuse to be best man and not to attend my brother’ Wedding.
My brother is in his late 30s is marrying for the first time, a good 10years older than when my cousins and I first got married. My mother did have a cry when her sister wasn’t invited. Over Christmas the invitations were given. My wife and children are invited but not my step-children. They are 13 and 15 and have lived with me for 8 years.
I did speak to my brother but he said he couldn’t justify inviting steps and not aunts and cousins. I cannot imagine my own kids refusing to go. I am shocked by my brother not including them and shocked about my wife‘s stance.

OP posts:
HannahnotAgnes · 02/01/2019 16:03

@minionsrule he did speak to his brother & his brother clarified - it was in the op.

PrettyLovely1 · 02/01/2019 16:04

"Well youe wife is nice but in your position I wouldn't go and would focus my attention on why my children don't care about their step siblings and step mother. There is obviously a conflict and division there you might not be aware of. 17 year old sobbing because they won't be at the wedding with their dad is also a problem..very manipulative behaviour."

Totally agree with this too.

MrsDannyRicc · 02/01/2019 16:08

I feel for you, you are in an impossible position.

Respect to your wife for acknowledging that.

Apple103 · 02/01/2019 16:10

Utterly pathetic of you. Your wife is a better person and really doesnt deserve a disloyal husband like you. The right thing for you to have done is send your kids and you dont go. You do know your wife is going to resent you for this and you've shown your hand regarding where you stand with her kids.

WestBerlin · 02/01/2019 16:12

I didn’t say the stepkids did choose it, but like the other children they have to live with it and like the bios you can’t dictate their views on it.

You can’t force people to feel or think a certain way because you want them to, in a situation you created.

rookiemere · 02/01/2019 16:19

I think you are doing the right thing OP now you have your DWs agreement. The alternative is not going to your own DBs wedding and denying DCs the ability to go as well. DB should have invited all and I suspect the reason they haven't is down to space at the venue and they don't perhaps know the level of upset that they've caused through their actions.

FuckingYuleLog · 02/01/2019 16:19

If your brother was that bothered about you being best man he wouldn’t have left out your non bio children who live with you!
I personally think you should tell your teenage kids to catch themselves on unless you usually give them whatever they want when they turn the waterworks on. You’re not asking them not to attend but you have every right to decline your own invitation. They’re old enough that they don’t need accompanying to be at an event with their family. Maybe you could offer to drop and collect them? No doubt your brother was relying on emotional blackmail from your eldest children to get you there.

NailsNeedDoing · 02/01/2019 16:48

Your wife is right that you should go with your oldest children, I think she was out of order expecting your oldest children's to either miss out or go alone to their uncles wedding in the first place. I totally understand why she was hurt that her children weren't invited, I'd be gutted in her situation too, but the fair response would be for her not to go, not to try and control what everyone else does.

OP, I think you've been fair in how you're trying to handle having been out in such a difficult position, and no one could expect any more from you. And I really don't understand all the angst at your older child not seeing the problem, they will have much better knowledge of the family dynamics and the relationship (if there is one) between your brother and your step children.

Frankly, the children from a first marriage are more important than a second wife, and what's best for them should come first. After that, the only problem is the youngest child and I really have no idea how you solve that one if one parent wants them to go and one doesn't.

EWAB · 02/01/2019 16:52

“Hey! I’m the groom’s niece/nephew....where’s my Dadyou ask? Oh he’s at home with his step-kids who he sees every day because he lives with them. Where he would rather be than spend a day with us at a family wedding.No we’re not bitter or humiliated. Our little half-sibling.. no s/he isn’t allowed to be with us either.”
14 pages ago the OP told us he had confronted his brother immediately. The brother couldn’t ‘justify’ their presence.... he doesn’t see them as family. I imagine that this is actually nobody’s fault... just life. I would bet my house that the brother has no idea what the sister-in-law’s reaction could have been and is not relying on older kids to blackmail his brother to attend his wedding... he is just living his own life not giving a thought to anyone and really wouldn’t think that these step-kids are his problem. Actually probably really likes them when they are passing through his realm but not enough to ‘justify ‘ their presence. Sad but life!

Lizzie48 · 02/01/2019 16:57

Frankly, the children from a first marriage are more important than a second wife, and what's best for them should come first.

Strange comment, what about the children from the second marriage, are they actually less important than the children from the second marriage?

The second wife's feelings should matter to the OP as well, he did make vows to love and cherish her, and her DC are part of the package.

HannahnotAgnes · 02/01/2019 16:57

I agree @EWAB. Op, FWIW, I agree with your DW - you should attend the wedding with your 2 DCs. Leave the youngest at home as at 6 years old, they really won't know what's going on & what they're missing (which in reality is nothing - weddings are boring for kids that age).

Hope it all works out for you & the projections of individuals on this thread hasn't put you off posting again / in future.

Lizzie48 · 02/01/2019 17:00

are they actually less important than the children from the second marriage?

Whoops, I meant to say, are children from the second marriage actually less important than the children from the first marriage? Very strange comment.

FuckingYuleLog · 02/01/2019 17:03

You don’t leave out some children in the same family. The op isn’t some bf who’s just moved in with a woman and her kids. He is a step dad who has been a father figure to them for years and they have lived with him full time.
I think ideally none of them should go but obviously the older children can make their own choice.
If asked then the children just need to say that dad didn’t want to come because only half of his family were invited. A teenager should be old enough to understand that and not take it as a personal slight.

chillpizza · 02/01/2019 17:07

The children born from the second marriage haven’t had their family torn apart and only living with one of their parents.

The first children see mum/dad playing happy family’s with step children/new siblings 24/7 only getting to share their parent a couple of days a fortnight. Then they are told that dad doesn’t even want to spend one day/night without the other children to be with them, yeah that’s shit and puts the first children right down the stack of things/people that actually matter way below the steps or new. It’s the type of stuff that leads to the first children not having a relationship with the nrp once adults normally what the newer wife wants anyway.

FuckingYuleLog · 02/01/2019 17:10

I’m sure the op would love to spend a day or more with his eldest children in circumstances where his step children weren’t being blatantly excluded from a family event.

Categoric · 02/01/2019 17:12

Child of a blended family here. Obviously I am a dreadful person because I like some of my steps and not others. I don’t consider them all family either...

I am always polite and smiley but why should I feel related to people to whom I have no connection other than that one of my parents is sleeping with one of theirs or did so in the past and has now moved on to someone else. My parents made choices and I got no say at all in who my new step brothers and sisters are.

In the present situation, I suspect that the OPs biological kids are fine with/indifferent to his step kids but they don’t consider them family. And that is their choice, which they are allowed to make. How controlling of people to think that close family ties should be foisted on these kids if they don’t want them.

Some of you may have lovely blended families, other’s don’t. Stop being so judgmental.

And I may be a dreadful person but I am no monster so of course all the nieces and nephews are treated the same for presents and treats etc. I just cannot fabricate closeness with people were randomly chosen for me, even if I have known them a long time.

MinorRSole · 02/01/2019 17:13

But the op's step children have all that too! They are also children from a first marriage who aren't living with both parents and have to adjust to a new adult living with them (one they might not even like for all we know). It's no use playing the 'who has it harder game' as the situation is not perfect for anyone.

I am a little surprised by some of these comments but on the plus side it's made me appreciate dh and his family more - we've never had any of this and my older 2 have never been excluded from anything.

FuckingYuleLog · 02/01/2019 17:13

However the eldest children feel about their step siblings their father needs to treat them the same.

EWAB · 02/01/2019 17:22

There is only one child from the second marriage who has been invited it is the kids from his wife’s first marriage who have been excluded.

chillpizza · 02/01/2019 17:28

Maybe if people weren’t so quick to worry about their Beds being empty every night then the issues of blended families wouldn’t happen so much.

Op should be putting his biolocal children first.

Ops wife her biological children.

That’s where the problem lay, op apparently was quite happy to dump two of his in the end to keep her happy for hers.

I grew up in a blended family and will never myself put my children though it.

Myimaginaryreindeerhasfleas · 02/01/2019 17:37

Your wife is right. Your step children are part of his extended family and should be invited if other family children are. I’m not a big fan of childless weddings but if it’s a matter of economy I think your brother should be saying all kids or no kids.

Be prepared for your wife to remain hurt even if he rectified this. I’m not sure the damage will easily be fixed. It’s very important you show her that you have your priorities right.

Myimaginaryreindeerhasfleas · 02/01/2019 17:38

Sorry, x posted and missed your update.

Tessabelle1 · 02/01/2019 17:40

Absolutely appalling that your brother thinks this is OK! If it was me I'd be asking you not to go too and for the sake of your marriage I think you should abide by your wife's wishes

Kikipost · 02/01/2019 17:44

“Bro, i totally get your position re not wanting to offend people, guest lists can be equivalent of a hand grenade.
The problem is that but inviting my biological children but not my step children, that live with me, you are splitting my family in two. This isn’t a question of being offended. This is an issue that goes to the very heart of my family. Please would you consider inviting my step children.

TigerTooth · 02/01/2019 17:45

Just tell your kids that he's invited them but not your other kids so you'd prefer it none of your kids went. Attend on your own.