Leave DSD out of honeymoon holiday

[Honeymare]

My DP and I are getting married next year. Like most people we have been through some tough times with covid and throw in aggressive cancer treatment for me, and losing a parent each.

I am really looking forward now, to the wedding, the marriage, the honeymoon. I have started a new business and starting to feel nearly myself healthwise.

We have been saving for the wedding / honeymoon. I haven't been in a foreign holiday in years, we booked then cancelled at three due to illness then covid came. We are really splashing out on the honeymoon (relative to our own earnings and lifestyle obviously).

We have a 3 year old DC and a 15 year old DSD. DSD comes to us regularly (eow and one or two nights for dinner every week) but not 50%. We always include her in holiday plans but she often changes her mind last minute if she gets a better offer from her mum's side of the family who are extremely wealthy. Anything we plan to do is always met with scorn and open sneering, clearly reiterates from the mum's side of the family. This ranges from something as small as a cake we offer "I only eat really good quality cakes from specialist bakeries" to bigger things. I know she is only mimicking behaviour she's observed but it gets wearing. She has siblings but they are older, have moved out of home and rarely visit.

I get on fine with her but I do find dealing with her stressful. She is not pleased about her younger sibling and will only say hello or goodbye under duress. Otherwise she ignores her completely. We have tried multiple strategies and it's not changing. Her perogative i suppose.

Now to the dilemma.

I don't want to leave DC at home for our honeymoon, she's too young so we have planned two nights in a luxury hotel at home then taking her to a really plush resort with us for two weeks. The trip is costing us a lot. I know it would be one of the few things we do up to DSD's standards and she would probably like to come but it won't feel anything like a honeymoon to me with her there, ignoring her sibling and demanding everything is done her way. I know I will not enjoy it.

And of course there is always the risk she will decide not to come last minute if her other family come up with something more interesting (it's happened before). And its way too much money to lose.

I'm prepared to be told I'm BU to consider going without her and explaining that it's a honeymoon but her sibling is too young to be left at home.

Thoughts please..

YABU your DC is going, its a family holiday, of course invite her
YANBU it's your honeymoon, you should enjoy it

I've just read your updates OP, and wow... I don't see why any effort should be made to pander to the 15yo. Her behaviour, especially during your chemo, is utterly, utterly appalling and shameful. The way she treats your daughter is awful and her reasoning for it is worse. I would not be treating her to any sort of luxury trip, and I'd say the same if either of my sons were to behave like that in future.

@ChoppyStu

Can you not tell her the truth?

There is no where 3 year old can stay for that long but you've specifically booked a hotel which has good childcare options so that you'll still be spending a lot of the time alone with DH?

Would people really do this??? Leave a 3yo for 2 weeks or use complete strangers for childcare abroad? Shocking, I don’t think I know anybody who’d consider this

@Honeymare I’ve PM’d you

Have you asked her if she actually wants to come on your honeymoon? I would suggest you tell her that you haven't decided where you are going yet, but it will be somewhere with kids clubs etc as it is a honeymoon and you and her dad want some time alone even though you have to take the little one. And ask her if she wants to join you as you'll make sure there are clubs for her age group too. She might just say no thanks and you can book where you like, once she has declined the chance is over and she can't really back track after you've booked.

@pollylocketpickedapocket childcare in the form of kids club / hotel crèche. Not that weird surely? We will still be close by.

I have read a few of your replies and I couldn’t leave without just saying this is your decision no one else’s, don’t let anyone make you feel bad for putting yourself first after being so poorly.

You go on your expensive holiday with your DH and your DC, you 10000% deserve it and enjoy every minute of it.

Your DSD will realise when she’s older if she hasn’t already realised now that her behaviour towards her half sibling is totally unreasonable and is a contributing factor as to why she wasn’t able to go on this holiday and to me it’s quite unnerving how she is towards her half sibling, definitely wouldn’t ever be leaving them alone together. She’s not missing out whatsoever as it sounds like she gets what she wants from her mother’s side.
Please do not feel guilty put yourself first and show your own child a brilliant time too. Good on your husband to be to put your wants first after being so poorly.

I hope you have an amazing time and get what YOU want x

Reading more of the thread/your posts and first of all, putting honeymoon issue completely aside, I would drop all the prompting and expectations of her interacting with your toddler. Completely. It does sound as if there's enormous pressure on her, however nicely you put it and however many understanding chats you have, to interact in a particular way with her - effectively to feel a particular way about her and demonstrate that feeling. That would explain her distress and inability to articulate what's going on when you put her on the spot about it. Just let her off that hook completely.
For some reason I'm reminded of the thread a couple of days ago with the overbearing aunt who was clearly not respecting her niece's signals to back off. Obviously a very different situation, but this does seem to me to be about a lot of things this teenager feels or is unable to articulate. Those dismissing it as simply spoilt, nasty behaviour, I don't agree. It's not good behaviour, of course it's not. But impetuous egoism has other, more immediately 'satisfying' ways of acting out. This seems to me as if she really can't cope with something.

I stopped reading the thread. Please go on your honeymoon without your DSD. It’s fine and you deserve it

I think that's a very wise post @WeDidntMeanToGoToSea . I've read some of the responses to DSDs behaviour with disbelief- it seems so extreme that to label it as brattiness or being spoiled feels wrong to me.
Thankfully the OP hasn't done that and is much more nuanced in her response.

I think if your fiancé is going to speak to his DD again about her behaviour, then he should do it alone.

You are too conciliatory, to avoid her crying at you. The chemo thing - I'm sorry, I get it, but you should have let him rip up at her, her behaviour was disgraceful! You interfered with his parenting at that point and gave her the green light to carry on behaving badly in the knowledge that she will get away with it if she cries.

So you should step away from any disciplining that your fiancé needs to do (and he does need to do it, he clearly sees that too) and let him get on with it in his way. If she cries, too bad. That's not a catch-all that gives her a pass to behave how she wants to.

@WeDidntMeanToGoToSea - ok - but what about the 3yo? Do her feelings not matter either? Do the OP's and her fiancé's feelings not matter in any way? Is the teen to be allowed to completely ignore the small child just because she doesn't want to interact with her, while in her home? I don't think that's appropriate.

@WeDidntMeanToGoToSea , this is one approach but as the pp says, I would be interested in how you would minimise the impact of the DD, given the OP’s primary duty must be her daughter. It would certainly mean there could be no question of the DSD being brought on a family holiday because it wouldn’t be fair to do that to a toddler (or to OP).

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

I think if your fiancé is going to speak to his DD again about her behaviour, then he should do it alone.

You are too conciliatory, to avoid her crying at you. The chemo thing - I'm sorry, I get it, but you should have let him rip up at her, her behaviour was disgraceful! You interfered with his parenting at that point and gave her the green light to carry on behaving badly in the knowledge that she will get away with it if she cries.

So you should step away from any disciplining that your fiancé needs to do (and he does need to do it, he clearly sees that too) and let him get on with it in his way. If she cries, too bad. That's not a catch-all that gives her a pass to behave how she wants to.

This But won’t go down well

I just would not stand for my toddler being treated like this in her own home. In front of her parents.
What message does it send her?

And seeing how her sister gets away with treating her mother.

She will grow up thinking that’s acceptable.

ThumbWitces and Puppalicious - I don't think any impact on the 3yo is going to be mitigated much, if at all, by continuing to enforce the status quo of reluctant, stiff hellos/hugging/whatever. (And I do think that requesting/demanding someone engage in physical contact with another, even a toddler, is an absolute no-no tbh). I say 'any impact' because I'm not sure it really has to be all that severe. The 3yo has loving, affectionate parents, possibly GPs/other family members, presumably a warm and affirming atmosphere at whatever childcare she's in. She will know that 'this is how X behaves' and it will make her sad, perhaps, but - as long as the parents don't make a big deal of how terrible it is - she will understand that 'this is the way X is' and seek, and get, her affection and responsiveness elsewhere. I honestly don't think it has to be all that damaging, particularly because dsd is with the family less than half the time.

I say this as the mother of a young child with two much older brothers (all mine and dh's, so not the same as this situation) who utterly adore her, and have done from day 1, so I know well how special that relationship can be and of course it's sad on a number of levels that this one isn't working out the same way, but the use of (emotional) force isn't going to help at all and seems to be entrenching the situation currently. The fact of her sister being very young doesn't provide a legitimate reason to encroach on her bodily and emotional autonomy.

@WeDidntMeanToGoToSea

My concern is that she will see her parents accepting her being treated like this. In her own home.

Added to which, as she grows up - she could rightfully argue “well you put up with my sister being rude and disrespectful!!”

My lovely sister raises her children very differently to me.

However in MY house, my rules.

She doesn’t say please and thank you. I pick her up on it.
She leaves mess everywhere, I ask her to pick up and repeat until she does
She has a tendency to be very scathing to my daughter. I shut that down the moment I get a whiff of it.

My niece doesn’t really like me! And that makes me sad. But not half as sad as if I thought my daughter felt I was allowing my niece to be disrespectful and nasty to her in her own home.

I wonder if simply not engaging with someone - in a teen (look how many threads there are on here from mothers whose own teens are treating the whole family not much differently from what's described here) - is actually 'rude' and 'disrespectful'? If there was actively nasty treatment, that of course would be a completely different kettle of fish. But I'm not sure there's all that much difference in terms of level of 'respect' - certainly as a young child might perceive it - between a clearly reluctant hello/a stiff hug and 'a grunt, if that'. This might actually be a situation in which the OP and partner can apply the toddler behaviour mantra 'praise the good and ignore the bad' to the dsd as well as the 3yo, who may well then semi-consciously recognise 'oh, X is behaving badly, Mum and Dad are ignoring it like they do my behaviour when it's not good'. Once the 3yo is old enough to articulate 'why does X ignore me', then she's old enough to hear 'we don't know, she won't tell us. We don't like it at all, and she knows that, but we can't make her be nice to you, just like you can't make Emily at school be nice to you even though you'd like her to be your friend'.

It’s much much more than that
Read the detail

* To the posters saying it's not unusual for a teenager to not enjoy toddlers I know that (although some definitely do) but I'm talking about not putting her hand out to catch her if she's falling level of ignoring as "it's not her child"*

The op’s own words

As far as I can see from the OP's posts, it is - as far as the 3yo is concerned - really 'simply' not interacting/not getting involved with her at all. (I see that there's been other stuff wrt the OP but I thought we were talking about the 3yo here).

Did you read that.

The girl wouldn’t prevent her sister from hurting herself

That is actually demonstrating something very very disturbing and beyond normal teen grumpiness