Ex and his wedding

[tukker]

My ex is getting married next year and DD is meant to be a bridesmaid. Dd is nearly 18 and we live in Europe. Dd has a boyfriend and wants him to go to this wedding too but exh and gf aren't so keen.
Firstly they expected me to pay for flights, I said no. Then they said they would pay for DD but not her bf..
The wedding is in July so plenty of time. Dd had an argument with her dad about it all a couple of weeks ago. Exh gf has now accused dd of ruining the wedding as there's now an extra guest and she says the plans can't be changed.
Dd just wants to support her dad she doesn't really like the gf or her family.
The gf has now text dd this morning with an ultimatum about whether she really wants to be a bridesmaid or not and they will pay for some of the flight but they will have to pay for their own food for 2 days! , and she needs to let her know ASAP! I'm really trying to stop myself texting Exh because it will be a sh!tstorm if I do, but why hasn't he rang and spoke to DD?!
It's his DD and yes it's inconvenient that she wants to take her bf but so what?! Surely you accommodate that?! Or am I being unreasonable??

Im going to offer an opinion as a divorced Dad with a daughter and how I would weigh up the situation. I would 100% want my daughter there, it’s the start of a new chapter and I’d want her to feel part of it.I think we can all agree that’s not what the issue is.

The boyfriend situation needs some consideration. How well do I know the boy and most importantly do I feel comfortable with him sharing a hotel room alone with my daughter at my expense.

Thinking back to when I was that age, my GF’s parents at the time didn’t want us going upstairs alone, we did sneak upstairs but only when they were out 😇.

They did let me sleep over after we had been dating a while, but in separate beds. Eventually they let us sleep in the same bed but that was after something like 18 months.

Your ex may have doubts as he hasn’t had chance to get to know your daughters BF well enough to be comfortable with them being alone on his watch. Fathers can be weird like that ☺️

If it was my daughter, and I knew and liked the boy and wanted to show my support for them as a couple I would pay. It would at the very least give me a bit of piece of mind for her safety when travelling.

However, I also think there is an opportunity here as her mum to show support for your daughter and to signal to your ex that you trust the BF by offering to pay something towards it.

Best of luck, hope it all works out 😊

and to signal to your ex that you trust the BF by offering to pay something towards it.

So the bf comes down to cost?

Not ok if I have to pay as I’d be responsible - but if DM pays she’s responsible?

Interesting shirk if responsibilities there.

FWIW I like DD’s bf - but that’s doesn’t mean I’d pay for him to attend each wedding

I might pay for him to attend mine.

Nrtft OP, only your posts.

Been in similar situation with my dd and her father's wedding to gf.

It was such a stressful time, but it was more about how they handled it and the fact she was a second thought in their wedding. The gf children were all first place in the pick of the plans. She was also 17 at the time. In the end she did go with a back up team, which I agree with as she needed support on the day too. She was so excluded on the day too, so they were a necessity.

I think people under estimate how emotional this day is for the children of divorce.

You’re all being unreasonable. Weddings are expensive waste of time and most end in divorce (quickly). First world ‘problem’. Send your complaint to refugees and see what they advise.

It falls on whoever is most interested in maintaining it.

You can make your own decisions but you can't control how other people feel about your decisions.

The daughter has explained what she needs in order to be able to attend her father's wedding and not have a miserable time.

What her father does with that information is up to him and the consequences of that are also on him.

The OP states that DD and BF are "nearly 18" are still at school and have no financial income. I don't think it's unreasonable for the DH to have concerns about putting them up in a hotel alone together.

Maybe she’s worried that as the child from a previous marriage, she’ll be sidelined and find herself the only one there who isn’t from the current era. She’s needs someone at her side. If he’s a true longtime boyfriend, then he should be there. Well dressed, well spoken and polite, but not a wimp. He’ll be representative of a well mannered, well lived lifestyle she has back home. It’ll suggest to the new lot just what a lovely team your daughter has back home. Years ago I took a boyfriend, very young, to my uncle’s funeral. He was so considerate and helpful, people talked about him for years. Should have hung onto him.

If I thought my SD needed a ‘back up team’ at my wedding to her DF, I’d immediately assume she didn’t really want to be there and therefore didn’t really want to participate.

Therefore, I would prioritise more willing people who wanted to be there in handing out duties etc in a bid to save everyone BS and prevent making my SD more uncomfortable than she clearly is.

I agree with you to a point.

Both parties have expressed their wishes, and as a result of DDs request her DF and his GF came back and offered some money towards DDs flight but stood firm on their position about the BF.

If DD still doesn’t feel this is acceptable and doesn’t want to compromise, then she’s absolutely right in not attending. But she then cannot sit there solely blaming DF for a breakdown in relationship.

It always amazes me the divergence of views that come out on these threads, but I’m equally amazed at how personal/judgey some replies are.

OP, your ex could be my ex. Likewise the gf, or wife in my case.

it seems you’ve had full responsibility, financial & otherwise, for your DD since your divorce and have been motivated only by doing the best for your DD. That obviously included paying for things, like accommodation at the school whilst he used his money for himself. (My ex consistently refused to pay towards education or anything really and when it got to the stage where my DD was at the age to ask him herself, he would tell her he couldn’t afford it & then he’d send photos to her from their latest cruise!)

What happens is he knows you’ll step in & pay and I imagine you’ve done that over the years. The expectation presumably is that you’ll do the same here.

Like a lot of men, he’ll do anything for an easy life and his gf clearly resents any expenditure on your DD, so I’d be surprised if he agreed to pay now. Even if he wanted to, the gf would no doubt object.

Do you think your DD could regret not going?

I can only wish you the best navigating this & trying to support your DD. It’s not easy.

Yanbu. A parent should pay everything for their child still in school to attend their wedding. If the child wants a friend/boyfriend to go I would pay for them too. It’s an awkward situation if she doesn’t like the new wife and so having a friend/someone ok their team would be helpful. Your ex is a knob for texting her about this and the new wife to be should stay out of it and let the child’s parent discuss with them.

Has it occurred to you that if the OP's daughter had been properly supported by her father throughout her adolescence (both financially and emotionally), if she had been properly welcomed by her soon to be stepmother, and she was feeling positive and enthusiastic about this wedding, she might not need her boyfriend to provide emotional support?

She also might not have wanted to move abroad in the first place.

And if he had paid adequate financial support, the OP might actually be willing to put her hand in her own pocket and pay for the boyfriend's flight?

As another poster said, it is outrageous to expect either an 18 year old or her mother who has paid for almost all her daughter's living expenses for the last 8 years with only a tiny contribution from the father to pay anything at all towards the cost of the daughter attending the father's wedding to another woman.

Interesting ! Some choice language around as well…. You’re doing well if you are sitting on the fence - obviously hard when your daughter lives with you and a seemingly distant father /ex is marrying new g/f with a young child . Of course none of you like her but I guess it must be hard for her too and the plan seems to have been that d/d would want to be a b/maid and would feel left out otherwise so in asking her and paying something they were doing a ‘good thing’ . Possibly never entered their heads she would want to bring a b/f as she would be so tied up in events at the wedding - and yes looking after school age children - well what’s wrong with that as a b/ maid role really ? Wedding planning is really stressful and possibly to the g/f the ‘demands’ of step d/d all seem a bit much and your ex is not handling it too well …. however he is the adult here and d/d’s father soo…. Bottom line is they should pay for her and all related expenses while she is there and b/f should really pay for himself . If this had been clear right from the start it would have been better. D/D should not have expectation they would pay for b/f - it would be kind and generous to do so but then it would be kind and generous for you to help out with that bit perhaps ? But no obligation to do so. 18 year olds can be fickle so it’s a huge commitment to pay 7 months early ! Reading between the lines you say there are ‘other issues ‘ at play and I can guess that it is possibly a prejudice you think they may hold towards the b/f - but really is it not most likely to be the money and the unpredictability of whether he will go or not on the end ? Just stay out of practicalities as best you can while providing emotional support to d/d - and helping her to be realistic about expectations perhaps. I do think her father sounds pretty rubbish though if he’s trading being a bridesmaids for Xmas / birthday presents ! Like does he think that’s every girls dream and he’s doing her a favour by asking her to be a bridesmaid ?? I think I’d tell him to stuff it too…..

So the crazy thing is here, if DF is such a deadbeat, and the step mum so horrifically unreasonable… what makes you, the OP and her DD think he will suddenly have a u turn and start paying out for a boy they met once?

You can’t get mad and upset about someone being consistent in their behaviour!

I'm not saying I think he will do it.

I'm saying he should do it if he cares about his relationship with his daughter.

I don't think he will do it.

I'll come back in July and tell you what happened!
Dd doesn't want to be a bridesmaid now after the ultimatum from gf and has told her so.
Dd bf doesn't want to go now as he feels unwelcome.
Dd will be 18 by July and bf will be 19 so if they do get summer jobs I doubt they will want to spend their money on going to the UK, especially as bf has now already been. They will probably go with bf's family to Italy.
So it's really up to exh and gf to salvage the relationship imo, which wasn't great anyway.

It sounds like your ex hasn't put much effort into making DD feel like she's still a priority to him.
As you say he chose to go on a summer holiday to beach destination in the past instead of seeing her causing upset to her etc. Sounds like most of his attention is geared towards raising his current school aged child with his soon-to-be wife. Maybe as that's where his attention is needed most from his perspective.

I think the wedding is a special occasion for THEM and if they want to pretend to play happy melded families and have DD be included it's not unreasonable to pay all expenses for her to be there and accommodate a +1 so that she'll have company, although I don't think I agree about paying for that +1 as well. I think the fact that they never accommodated a +1 to facilitate DDs comfort in the first place is a bit rude. Even if her bf couldn't come she could've at least had one of her close friends from UK go with her!

It sounds to me like it's not important enough to your DD that she attends and not important enough to your ex and his gf that she attend either.

Her choosing not to go seems like a win win for both sides?

She's obviously made her decision based on a multitude of factors and the dynamic between her and her father has been developing up to this point for the last 8 years. She's 18, and doesn't have to blindly love and support people just because they're family. She can make an assessment of how much she's willing to invest based on how much they've invested in her as well. It's a two way street.
Also, it's just a wedding. If someone can't make a wedding it's not the end of the world ffs. I'd be surprised if she's going to "regret it forever".

My thoughts exactly 💯 but I'm not allowed to have that opinion.

1 - You clearly care as you would not have posted the question in the first place.
2 - It's clear as the parent your didn't follow the following from all your previous posts. Different people pick it up an under tone of enjoyment/glee to the situation. Also a tone of spite and annoyance to what are clearly financial controls on your side.

A - You clearly do denigrate that ExH Infront of your daughter. Your not playing the neutral role at minimum or a positive role at best for diplomatically clarifying what most people agree. The BF should have gone to his parents to ask for the funds in order to support his GF. This seems to have been unanimous on this thread.
B - It seems your actively steering your DD into direct conflict. The reason why a lot of people have pointed out negatives is because they can see it in your responses.

3 - Your seem to be regretting posting because like the Reddit thread AITA (Am I the A**hole). You got explicitly reminded of your duty as a parent and you didn't get the response you wanted. It seems you wanted more support or justification in that you don't need to pay a thing which you got. However your handling of the mediation was not in your daughter's best interest. People can see that and have indicated that. By reinforcing that the ExH has money or time to accommodate DD BF your putting more pressure and possible conflict on your daughter. You have tried to indicate other things to justify this position like her not having a job at 17, or that she will be lonely and doesn't like family of ExH GF. However if you were to post this on AITA where there are many examples of this kind of behaviour they would say you were an AH.

It's hard after divorce to stay civil, no one is saying your inherently bad or your evil. We are all human and want our little corner.

Summary

We are just reminding you that the best outcome for your DD is to have a good bond with ExH. That if you were the best version of yourself that there are/were things you could have done that did not need you to put money forward to smooth the situation forward.

That it's understandable as a flawed human why you did what you did. However to dress it up as thou you could not have been a contributing to the conflict is dishonest at best (not only to yourself but to your DD as well).

Hope things get smoothed out, my only recommendation to you is to let go of the past and ask yourself would your daughter regret not going and how they could play out.

Sorry but who are you talking for?! You've obviously not read the full thread if you think you talk for every poster here.

I don't think your assessment of the OP is right. I think as the OPs daughter is 18 there is no need to be neutral and anyway being neutral is completely unnatural when someone the person loves is involved.

I think the father comes across as a bit lazy because why is the soon to be step mother messaging the daughter and why wouldn't the father want to get to the route of the problem. It seems like the father has prioritised his finance over his daughter

The DD is an adult, and presumably so is boyfriend. I would step out of this, and let daughter engage in adult problem solving and consequences.

I don't think that's fair because arguably it isn't an equal relationship, there is a natural power imbalance. I think the natural thing would be to provide the level of support the OP's DD actually wants whether that be more or less then the OP is doing now.

1 - The argument that an 18 year old needs emotional support to go to a family wedding is problematic. What lead her in her upbringing that she requires that level of support?

2 - What's the correct financial support? The majority agree that OP does not need to pay for the DD or DD BF to go.

3 - Majority are asking why BF is so unsupportive to ask his own parents for money to support his partner. Why is the ExH expected to pay for everything for DD BF?

OP needs to mediate and ask the question why a 18 year old boy whom has legally been allowed to work since 16 is not willing or able to do what they can to support his daughter. That's the problem here. That she put everything onto the ExH.

It seems strange to a lot of people why she keeps defending a situation where by the ExH is responsible when the most people in the thread agree OP don't need to pay nor does ExH for DD BF. There is only a hand full of options if they don't pay for DD BF. The DD BF find the money some how, which does not been seem to ever have been explored.

😂😂😂