When do we tell DSC we're getting married?

[Whentotell123]

We're recently engaged and we've booked our wedding abroad so it'll just be the two of us. We then plan to have a big party when we return and everyone (including DSC) will be there.

We're unsure when to tell the DSC that we're marrying. The relationship with the kids is great but their Mum can be a little difficult at time. We know she's going to put negative things into their heads about my DP not loving them etc.

I know this because recently we've had DSD in tears asking why DP loves them less now he is getting married. When asked where this has come from she's said Mummy said so. There are multiple examples like this so it's not a one off.

DP will miss two afternoon visits to the DC when we're away. These don't affect overnight arrangements and are simply go out for dinner. DSiL has said she can have the children on those days so it doesn't affect their Mum too much but I still am debating when is the best time to tell her?

We're booked to marry end of April so I was thinking maybe tell in February time. Or we were debating about just going on holiday then surprise them with the party. What's best?

DSC are aged 13, 10 and 6.

Provide them love, support and happiness........and then prove that they aren't that important at all actually by booking a wedding they aren't invited to

Inviting them to your wedding is definitely a perfect opportunity to show them love, support and happiness.

Don't lose the money. Go on your holiday, have it blessed there on your anniversary.

And have a registry office or celebrant ceremony beforehand with the children there followed by a slap up meal.

I was referring to the jibes about their mother- even more so now. The more I read the less I think it’s her having influence and it’s you confirming everything they fear.

How can you not see that? Everything you do and they way you speak is reinforcing it. Christ. You can lead a horse to water...🙄

@SarahH12

I don't think anything changes from SD's point of view nor do I subscribe to the idea that I'm marrying her too. I'm not. I'm marrying her Dad. We are already a family, I already care for her, do bedtime stories, feed her, have fun with her, help with homework, bathtimes etc. Nothing changes for her when we get married. I don't suddenly get parental responsibility nor will I suddenly stop doing anything I already currently do. I just don't think it's that big of a deal or changes anything for SD or in the day to day relationship with stbDH

I completely agree with you, my step son already calls me step mum though we are not yet married, because that's the role I have in his life and he's 6, why would he be bothered or even understand the legal/financial side of things? Being married to his dad wouldn't make a jot of difference either to my parental responsibility to him or to whether I would still be allowed to see him if we were to split. It doesn't make any difference to him.

@AE18 to a child just the concept of 'getting married' is a big deal. They don't have the foggiest idea about the legal or financial connotations of it. Still doesn't mean the child won't feel left out at not being part of, what to them, is a big deal

whatthehell its only a big deal if they've been brought up to think it is....

I v much doubt ds will think weddings are a "big deal" because we have kind of made it seem like not a big deal.. nothings changing for him or his brother.. or even me and dp other than legally (which doesn't affect the kids anyway!)

If you honestly think marrying on your anniversary will have a bigger longterm impact on your life than making a significant gesture to kids who already think their dad doesn't care, then you crack on.

Not RTFT but my stepmother and dad excluded myself and my sister from their wedding and I've never forgiven them. It hurt immensely. You are being beyond selfish and if you expect your relationship with them to ever be positive you need to change your plans to include them.

I am no contact with dad these days, and it all started with his wedding.

I was early twenties when my DPs remarried. One wedding was big and in U.K. I was asked to be a bridesmaid with the proviso they guessed I wouldn't want to, so I just went as a guest. I hated it and was so anxious I spent most of the day vomiting and fainted before leaving. However I would have been damaged by not being invited. DF has a history of not being able to juggle his new relationship with his kids and I would have gone postal at him if I or Dsis were excluded.

The other was abroad and DH and I both went all expenses paid for us.

So in short, you're so wrong.

DP and I have been talking about marriage (just waiting for him to pop the question!). But I'd be having a serious rethink if he suddenly announced he didn't want his or my children at the wedding.

@Whentotell123 just seen your comment about not losing money. You need to learn children are more important than money. Immediately. Leaving the kids behind is a massive two fingers up at them.

Pls listen to me. I speak from actual, proper experience. Your DP is foolish to think it won't hurt the kids. They will be deeply hurt. You have one chance here to set your lives together well. Please, please take it.

It's the MARRIAGE that matters, not a romantic wedding. Set the MARRIAGE up for success by doing right by your step children.

Look at it another way, OP, if you get legally married with your step-children present, along with witnesses off the street if need be, in a registry office and on a different date from the anniversary of your meeting, you can then have two anniversaries to celebrate each year - the one for the legal date and the second for the honeymoon wedding date! Wins all round! Actually, I've just remembered, some friends got married in a registry office in England before moving to a different country where one of them originally came from. They had a church wedding in that country a year or so later, and that is the actual anniversary they celebrate, not the legal one a year earlier, even including the number of years they've been married! So you'd actually be on to a winner celebrations wise, your step-children's feelings aside!
As to your OP about when to tell the step-children about the wedding, I still feel you should ask at least the eldest one how they would feel about your getting married far away without any guests, and then participating in a big party with family and friends when you get back from your honeymoon, or whether they would prefer to be the only guests at a registry office wedding before you go abroad/the after party. And whatever you decide, ask/tell them now. That way, if they're interested, they can get started on the planning/preparations for the party, at least. If they're not at all bothered, fine, your DH is proved right, but just in case he's wrong, if I were you, I really wouldn't risk your and his future relationship with his children simply because you are determined to get married on the anniversary of your first meeting (if I understand your reasoning correctly). And I'm a great one for remembering anniversaries and I can tell you it's really good fun having two celebrations, one for the day you met and one for the day you got married!

The expensive bit of a traditional wedding is the reception. As you said you plan to have a big party in the UK after you get back and invite the kids to that, then you aren't saving anything, you are still budgetting for an expensive wedding if you are genuinely planning on having a big party later on. You could have a registery office wedding with the DCs earlier in the day.

Your DP's exP is already using your wedding to cause problems, what will you say in response if your DSC say "Mum says you don't like us, or else you'd invite us to your wedding." or "Why don't you want us there?" or "XXXX got to go to his Dad's wedding, and YYYY was a flower girl at her Mum's wedding, why don't we get to go?"

Or worse, what if they don't ask you, or your DP, but ask their Mum/friends/grandparents so you can't control the answer? What if at your big party they go round saying to DP's family they wished they'd been allowed to go - will people be saying behind your back what a shame DP's married a woman who doesn't like his children?

Not inviting the kids to the wedding is a massive, massive statement. You don't get to decide how everyone else interprets that, including the step-children.

I very rarely comment on threads like these, but I've just read through every response including yours.

I honestly cannot believe how utterly selfish you are. You clearly don't give a flying hoot about the SC, and this whole thing is about you and getting what you want. You have not thought of those poor children at all, but hey, it's ok isn't it because at least you get to marry their dad when it works for you.

I honestly hope karma bites you in the arse. Those children deserve a better Father & Step-Mother, and I hope their Mum can pick up the pieces you two leave behind.

@whatthehelldowecare

to a child just the concept of 'getting married' is a big deal. They don't have the foggiest idea about the legal or financial connotations of it. Still doesn't mean the child won't feel left out at not being part of, what to them, is a big deal

Really depends on the child, my SS is a typical 6 year old boy and really isn't interested in marriage. He already knows me and his dad come as a package and plan on being together for life, he would be appalled if we split because he already sees us that way. And let's not forget the main marriage he was aware of ended in divorce and he has been raised from a young age to know that married people frequently split just like everybody else, so it's really not going to make any difference to how committed we are to each other in his eyes.

He WOULD be upset not to have been invited to a family party, however, and if we were having one of those (which we are) he would of course be invited. But I disagree that I am marrying both of them and have no doubt that he will be begging for a phone and wanting to get up and play during the actual ceremony. It's the party he cares about.

@AE18 this isn't about your 6 year old stepson. OP sounds absolutely naive in her updates and she's spectacularly missing the point in most people's opinion.

Your 6 year old stepson is a completely different thing to a 13/14 year old and a 10/11 year old whose parents were together 15 years.

You have a point in some of the things you say but a lot of it is not relevant.

My stepdaughter was 10 when her mum left and 14 when her mum married without including her. I can't believe how much that one act affected her but it did. It stood out amongst a whole host of other awful things to happen in her life. There is a chance this could happen here.

Why would you encourage the OP to potentially risk her and her DPs relationship with three kids based on your stepson?

@Whentotell123 well then, to go back to your original question. Tell them whenever you like seeing as you know they won’t bat an eyelid and don’t care either way

Normally I'm a fully paid up member of the theory that a wedding is about the two people getting married and if other people don't like it they can fuck off.

However, it's his kids, not just random children off the street and they are at an age when they will know exactly what's going on and will have an opinion. It is likely to fuck up yours and their father's relationship with them, but if he's such a selfish dick that he doesn't want his own children at his second wedding then he deserves the shitstorm heading his way.

And it'll be the ex who has to deal with most of the fallout when they find out as well, so damn right she will be difficult.

I don't get it.

You know the kids are inse ure about you getting married and it meaning they're less important.

Your "D" P doesn't care how this will affect them.

You're happy whether they're happy or not because "D" P has made it clear they dint matter.

That's hardly a good basis for legally recognising yourselves as a family

@crustycrab

Yeah I know, that's why I said it depends on the kid. A fourteen year old girl is much more likely to be bothered about a marriage than a six year old boy for whom romance is so not on the radar at all.

And I'm not encouraging her to do that, I've said I think they need to talk to them about it now and make their own lack of interest in big weddings and that nobody is going clear so the kids have a chance to understand that it's nothing personal and that big wedding they're picturing isn't happening at all, rather than them being excluded from it.

I just also believe that if they personally for themselves actually want a private wedding abroad just for the two of them, then they should go ahead and do that, because in truth their wedding IS all about them and their connection and they should be true to themselves on that day and not just go along with a show for everybody else.

But I've already explained this and we fundamentally disagree about whether a wedding is about the whole family so no point opening up another pointless back and forth.

I think this is just a case of all blended families work differently, and unless youre directly involved in it you'll probably never "get it"

I understand peoples concern but op and their dad actually KNOW these children, we internet strangers don't.

What a dismal update. If your DP was so absolutely secure that his DC wouldn't care about attending the wedding, then he could have asked them anyway, safe in the knowledge that your plans wouldn't be disrupted because 100% they'd say no. Asking would've been a statement that he does care, and cost him nothing, and changed none of your plans.

The fact that he booked it without asking them (even in the most half-arsed, 'I just wanted to check' kind of way) suggests that he knows they may well be bothered, but wants to steam on ahead anyway.

Easier to book it and dismiss their feelings afterwards. If the DC are upset, that'll be society's fault for over-egging weddings, or their mother's fault, or their own fault for being silly and oversensitive and self-absorbed.

When you do something like this to kids, it's not a one-off; a difficult little issue you all weather and forget. Even a child who's too young (or too teenaged) to view a wedding with any real enthusiasm may feel, later in life, that this was a shitty thing to do, especially when they have their own DC, or become a step-parent themselves, or even just notice how many parents take great efforts to include existing DC when they remarry.

Several step-parents have already posted to say what a mistake it was to exclude their DC from the wedding, and how they weren't fully aware of the long-term consequences, and also that the step-parent may assume a disproportionate amount of the blame. There are 3 DC and the odds are this will affect your relationship with at least one of them (and most likely all).

It just seems like a huge cost for relatively little: if you're still getting your honeymoon, what have you lost? Bragging rights to saying you got married barefoot in Bermuda? An anecdote about having your first date on April whenever and then five years later, to the day exchanging vows? Nobody will care about that except you, and after a few years you won't care that much, either. But his DC will always be his DC and they won't have forgotten being excluded like this.

I am engaged to a man with a grown up daughter who actually lives abroad and has her own husband and children. Of course they will all be invited to our eventual wedding as she is his child and therefore important to him and will be my step daughter and therefore important to me.

This is making me feel a bit sick.

You are not a couple starting out and getting married. You have children! His children. They are your immediate family.

How is it possible they are not included? In the planning, in the ceremony?

If it's all booked as you say. I think now is damage limitation time.

Please consider a 'ceremony' in the uk the week you get back. You won't be able to marry but you'll be able to say vows in front of the children, get them involved and have a celebration with family.

It's so very important they are included, I can't stress this enough.

If you and your future husband had three children together, would you honestly leave them with family whilst you travelled abroad to get married? Surely you'd want your children at the wedding? This is no different. His children are yours, if they are not then what has gone wrong?