AIBU - second marriage 'blended family 'loyalty issue

[Carolamc]

I think I am being unreasonable, but feel he has been disloyal. My husband of 10 years (together for 13) have 2 children each. We live several hundred miles from all of them. I have tried to get on with his children (now adults 30 and 28) but have only met his daughter once - not for want of me trying.

My children get on well enough with my husband and cards, presents etc are exchanged. My husband tends not to want to come back to the uk very often, so I see my children when I come back (every 2 months) and he sees his (once a year)

We sent cards today, and I have discovered that he has sent a card signed 'love dad' to his daughter and 'love Dad and Carol' to his son. Was I unreasonable to get upset and accuse him of trying to erase me in some way. The fact he did it deliberately was telling.

I did confront him, and he said he did it to 'keep the peace'. ???? I did reply that I didn't know there was a war on. After a long discussion, tears etc, i think he realised that I was upset and he was sorry he did it. That won't mean he probably won't do it again though.

But am I being unreasonable? Is it just the natural way things may be in second marriages? Shall I just get over it and concentrate on maintaining the relationships with my own children ? I can't change how she thinks of me. I may well have answered my own question but it would be interesting to hear the views of others who have been on a similar situation.

I think you should let him sign the card as he sees fit. You’re not a blended family in any tangible sense.

YANBU. He has chosen to exclude you from the greetings. She will think you aren't sending your best wishes based on that. He is definitely making any divide bigger by doing that

You dont know his dd and it's not because you aren't interested it is because dd doesnt want to make the effort. After this amount of time try and accept that and move on, it's no reflection on you. Your dh signed the card appropriately in my opinion. There is no point sending a card that will irritate dd if his intention is to show he cares/best wishes.

If dd was excluding you from Sunday dinners or christmas dinner etc I would think that was rude. But as she only sees her father once a year it is probably easy enough for all you to keep separate. And difficult to build a relationship even if all parties are willing.

YABVU

You aren't a blended family. You aren't even her stepmother in any meaningful sense - you are the woman who married her Dad. You're not a part of her life. That's a shame, but that's her choice to make. Of course she'll want a Christmas card from her Dad, and he was right to send one.

Accept her boundaries, continue having a great relationship with your husband and your own kids, don't sweat the small stuff.

If she's made it clear that she doesn't want a relationship with you, then she would probably see it as him being provocative if he insisted on signing every card from you too.

try and actually get to know ur children’s sister.

Give over. The OP has said that she has tried. If her husband's adult daughter isn't interested, there isn't much she can do or necessarily should do now.

I’m not seeing it as a loyalty issue.
She is an adult and doesn’t have or want any relationship with you.
I still might want to be on a card to show her I bear no ill will (if you don’t) if there is no active hostility.

I don’t think getting upset with DH is reasonable.

I can see why you would raise an eyebrow when you saw it, it does sound like things have been said at some point that you don't know anything about if putting your name on a Christmas card will somehow disturb the peace.

My best advice to you is to let sleeping dogs lie.

Thanks everyone, I think you have all nailed it, and as I said in my initial post, best thing is to get over it and get on with our life. She will always be welcome here, and, as I said to my husband, his feelings are the more important to me, and I will always support him. No way
Would I ever force him to choose between his children and me, that way lies trouble!

I can see where you are coming from. You are trying to have a blended family when he inst trying at all. You have this idea that by being married to him, his family becomes yours and vice versa.

The fact you are living abroad orobably doesnt either to establish a relationship.

What I would say is that

• your dh doesnt have a deep connexion with his own dc. He isnt making an effort to see them, they havent come to see him. In 10 years, it says a lot about HIS relationhsip to them.
• this means it will very hard for him to 'create' a blended family with you and his dcs. So he now has 'his' family with you abroad and 'his' family in the uk with his dcs.
• his dcs have no relationhsip with you. They dont know you bar the fact you are married to their dad. They won't be happy to be forced to look like you are a family if they very rarely see you. And your dh is basically smoothing things over so he can carry on having the feeling everything is right under the sun (which i dont think it is)

Basically the issue here is your dh and his relationship with his dcs.
The 'blending' of the family should have happened years ago,. by making the effort to see them when you were officially a couple and then got married.
I am not sure you can create that now :( So I would let it go, being aware of who your dh is and the complexity he has created. After all, it is HIS issue if he basically has two families that coexist along side of each other wo ever talkig to each other.

Bollocks to the ‘blended family’ crap. That’s only relevant when the offspring are children. In this case, they’re all (supposedly) adults.

You’re married to her dad. That’s a fact his adult DD can’t pretend hasn’t happened.

He was totally wrong not to include you in the greetings in his Xmas card as you’re his WIFE and I would be very clear about this. He can’t pretend you don’t exist just to appease his daughter.

Luckily, my adult step kids are fantastic and even refer to our DC as their younger brother/sister without the step title when introducing them to their friends.

I don’t think OP wants her DH to choose her over his daughter but to acknowledge their relationship. They have been together for 13 years. I think the daughter needs to grow up and see her Dad as a person and his right to have another relationship

The daughter must have been in her teens when you got together yet you've hardly met her? She's very unlikely to change her mind now, so you are not part of her life anyway.

And she and her father don't have much of a relationship either if he can't travel a few hundred miles more frequently. I would be more concerned about that.

In the circumstances I wouldn't worry about my name being on the card.

Unless you were the reason her parents’ marriage broke down or you are some kind of despicable despot, at the age of 28 I think she’s being incredibly childish that she couldn’t bear to receive a Christmas card with your name in it. Whilst she might have been upset when her parents divorced, it’s presumably been around a decade and a half since and she’s an adult now.

That said, don’t make this the hill you die on. It’s trivial. Your husband is trying to keep the peace, not erase you. For whatever reason, his daughter doesn’t want to know about you and I can’t imagine either of your lives are much affected by that.

You’ve met her once. I wouldn’t even class you as a step mum. Sorry to be blunt but your overreacting.

Are you my dad's wife?

We are far more "blended" than you have described. We all live in the same country and see them 3 or 4 times a year. My DC call her grandma.

I haven't seen my "step-siblings" for a couple of years. I don't consider us step siblings as we have never lived together, all being adults when our parents got together.

My dad's wife would like us all to be a happy blended family. She has rowed with my dad if he doesn't write about her DC in Christmas cards to his family, when they have never met. It would be far better to try and make peace with the reality rather than trying to manufacture some idealised blended family and being upset when it's not like that.

CanIhaveadrink's post is spot on.
He has a distant relationship with his own DC. You are even more removed. Remain open to them and don't worry about it.

I don’t think you are being unreasonable at all.

This level of non contact with his kids is like you are a secret. However, he only sees them once a year? It sounds as if he hardly has a relationship with them himself which is truly where the problem lies.

If I were you I’d accept that his kids probably don’t feel very close to their father. I’d encourage him to see them more often and to invite them over too. I think at some point in the future I’d even write to them myself and just say to them that they are very welcome, you don’t want to barge into their lives but that you are open to any contact at any level they feel comfortable with. And then send cards yourself for Christmas and birthday from you.

as I said to my husband, his feelings are the more important to me, and I will always support him.

Then why were there tears?

You’re not a blended family, as most people have said. I have one and have meaningful relationships with my step children who spend a lot of time in our home. You’re talking about an adult you barely know.

I do not think you are unreasonable, at the end of the day you are a couple of longstanding, ignoring it or brushing it under the carpet doesn't change anything. Does he do this with other people he knew before you were on the scene? Friends, parents, siblings???

I do think its time kids that are grown up grew up and stopped being mean and petty with new partners of parents, it doesn't make their other parent less, perhaps more tricky if they are the OW in terms of having had an affair but marriage means so little these days generally that it seems really petty to cause difficulties in other peoples relationships because their parent met someone else when they were late teens, and now at approaching 30 they are still playing silly buggers

It so really sad, and I sure hard on your husband. If you have been together since she was 15 it’s really odd you have only met her once, and suggests a distant relationship between her and her dad. Did he not see her regularly or have her to stay during holidays etc?

I think as others have said the window for acceptance has probably passed. I assume you know what the problem is, and it can’t be resolved. So probably just accept your husband will have a distant relationship with his daughter that doesn’t involve you.

It’s all very sad, more so for your husband and his daughter who don’t seem to be close at all.

It's really no problem if his daughter doesn't want to get to know you. I'm 28 and I think I would find it very odd for either of my parents to marry someone else (they recently split after 30 years of marriage).

But.

I do think it's weird not to sign the card from both of you.

He can try and keep the peace all he wants, but unless you've done something to his daughter, or you broke his first marriage up, she would be incredibly immature to not accept a card with your name on it, I think.

A 28 year old not accepting her dad's marriage of 10 years. Very mature. It's called 'pandering'. He is pandering to her and her irrational dislike of things. Unless you were the OW or you were cruel to her as a teenager (unlikely given you've met her once) then she needs to grow up. If she has a distant relationship with her dad, she needs to take that up with him and not blame you

This is a difficult one. Loyalty is important in a marriage. My DH's family were absolutely awful to me and my youngest dd who is their bio niece and granddaughter. Yet, if he sees them in town he goes over to talk and ignores me. It sends me wild but I contain it. I admit I think less of him for it. His response is why should he ignore his family and I am dictating who he should speak to.

A few months back I was verbally abused by a distant relative of his who always addresses him and pointedly ignores me. I have never ever done a single thing wrong to her in my life. I told him. I feel I am just waiting for it to happen again.

Op doesnt have any relationship with a woman she has met once, but she needs to feel acknowledged as a couple and her name should have been signed on the card.

Oneborneverydecade, yes you have summed up my feelings.

Shes not a part of your life really anyway.

More to the point, she’s not really part of her father’s life if he only chooses to return to the UK once a year.

My father has been with his bidie-in for the best part pf 2 decades. I’ve never met her. If he started signing his cards from both of them, I’d think she’d killed him and buried him in the garden.

To be blunt, you both are actually nobody to each other. You only have your dh in common, apart from seeing each other once in over a decade. I'm sure you see your postman more than that. Your dh sees no relationship between you two as it is a fact so he is treating it as such when sending the card. She isnt your daughter, you arent her stepmum in any sense other than by marriage, I think you need to pick your battles.