Just told DH I will Divorce him over a fucking wedding Part two

[KeenHiker]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5018658-just-told-dh-i-will-divorce-him-over-a-fucking-wedding

I can’t believe the responses that I had.

Essentially I am going to that wedding so it won’t backfire on me and then as people have suggested reassess when everything has calmed down after Easter.

I am never going to look at MiL in the same light as she clearly thinks my daughter is an impediment to her own granddaughter.

I'd be taking my kids and leaving. Your daughter by your husband gets inheritance, private schooling, special presence at weddings and your eldest (who is, I assume, your husband's stepdaughter) get nothing? Nope. Absolutely awful to treat siblings that way, your oldest will notice and not forget.

he didnt so much as do a bad job of communicating this, he just lied. ‘I’d give her (older daughter) my heart’ etc, lots of language about how he doesn’t differentiate but can’t help what his family think. Yes he does, and he accepts what his family think because he agrees with it. You can’t have a child who lives there 100% of the time treated so differently.

OP I would let things cool and see how you feel about the wedding but no way would I let DH send one kid to private school and not the other, no way whatsoever. It's one thing to say he has no control over what his family does bit he does over what he does, and what he's doing re the school shows he doesn't treat her the same. Honestly I'd struggle to get over that and want to protect my daughter from it by leaving. Even if sister then sees his family alone on his contact time or inherits more at least your DD would know you fought for her.

You say it like it’s something OP can prevent. She can fight it, and deny her youngest the opportunities open to her, but if it goes as far as court she could very easily find herself losing. If he gets 50/50 custody then it will still be very apparent to the oldest that her sister has a different lifestyle to her, as well as different relationships.

Why would you let either of your children attend a wedding where one will be purposefully left out of photos, as if she’s not family?

@InterIgnis again the fight is partly the point, to show DD you value her. Who knows what a court would say, if OP's argument was that it could alienate her from her sister they may well find that a compelling argument. A private school isn't necessarily a better school either, it depends on the school. And again even if the sister does have a different lifestyle 50% of the time again OP's DD will know her mum values her so much she fought for her.

I'm not saying it'd be immediate divorce for me I'm saying i think that valuing one child.over the other in that way is unforgivable if not remedied. I'd try first to help him understand my POV, negotiate private school for both etc. But ultimately someone that can be such an unfeeling twat to a small child is not someone I would want to be married to.

At least her other daughter would know her mother didn't just sit back and allow her to be treated as "less than". That would be so damaging for the older girl. Much more damaging than not attending a private school would be for the younger girl.

Also I said maybe let things cool off over the wedding and go, that is my advice. But my actual response would be to take both children away the night before and off somewhere else fun. No way would I let my daughter be humiliated or othered like that.

His family sound a bit crap really. When my brother met his wife to be she had 2 young boys, he treat them and provided for them as his own.
When they had a daughter nothing changed, all three were seen as equal by my brother and the wider family.
All 3 are now grown with their own families and I treat all of my great-nieces and nephews the same at Christmas and birthdays whether they are 'blood' or not.
It's really mean to leave your eldest out.

OP i hope you’re ok and holding both daughters abit closer tonight. I am shock at so many pp on here basically blaming you for daring to have a child with 2 different men. I totally agree it’s a class/money issue. I come from a blended family as in my brother and sister both have stepchildren. We are a working class background and we welcomed these amazing children with open arms along with their parents. Im sorry your daughter is being treated differently its shameful. I imagine your inlaws think they are wonderful to your daughter just as your husband does. But it’s blatantly obvious that they and especially your husband do not treat them the same. Its not a money issue as I know you are obviously clear on this subject since the recent conversation with your husband. But the different schools is a huge no from me. Your daughters are going to be treated so differently that it could potentially damage their sisterly relationship. Before i shout ltb would you consider counselling to talk this through? A councillor would also point out to your husband how treating the girls differently could cause untold trauma for your daughter. It has already hurt her it needs to be stopped. Good luck.

Her younger daughter is just as important as her eldest one, and shouldn’t be denied opportunities in the name of making it fair for her sister. If you don’t think that can do significant damage to familial relationships you’re very much mistaken, even if you would like to think it’s ’much less damaging’ and can thus be hand waved away.

I’m basing that judgement on what I’ve seen first hand. Equally, denying the youngest opportunities can very easily lead to her becoming alienated from both her mother and sister. I’ve seen that happen too, with the child in question voting with her feet when it came to her schooling and residence.

OP should not be sacrificing the opportunities of one child in the interests of the other. This is what, ultimately, OP chose, and it’s not on her daughter to pay to remedy it.

You don't think the youngest will be damaged knowing her mother let the lack of input by some other shitty man prevent her from having a better education? It's not the youngest's fault that her sister's mother and father can't provide her sister with the same things that her father can give her.

It is really not fair to deprive one child to make things appear equal.

This whole thing is so sad. I treat children who come into my family as family. So my husband's cousins children are like niece and nephew to me. If there had been another child from a previous relationship entering the family then they took would be embraced just like the new spouse would be. It's the same as adoption. Your husband's family have all behaved appallingly.

Would all the "younger daughter mustn't be denied private school" posters honestly, if they came into shedloads of money when one of their children was 16 and the other 9, put just the younger into private school?

It seems bizarre to me. While you can't ever achieve perfect fairness in life, you can certainly achieve perfect unfairness

So, what if (bare with me...)

Eldest DD didn't exist. There was just youngest DD between DH and OP. Youngest DD goes to private school.

DH and OP divorce. OP meets new man. Has child. They can't afford private school for their child. Do people think DD should be removed from private education because neither of the parents of her half sibling can afford the fees for that separate child?

Why penalise one child just so both have an equal lesser education? Yes yes private schools aren't always better but let's not pretend 99% of the time they are.

Well, I'm not suggesting she tells her youngest daughter "Daddy wanted to send you to Marlborough College and buy you a pony, but I said no."

I’ve spent 90 minutes reading thread 1 and the this. Wow!! This is some class A exclusion BS!

Putting the private school/inheritance to one side for now. Which again is BS.

Your Eldest and Youngest daughters are SISTERS! Of course they would want to be flower girls together for their Uncle and Aunty’s big day! With matching hair styles, and matching dresses, and playing, and dancing together.

I think you are giving your BiL and SiL too much credit saying they didn’t know. They knew they were excluding your eldest daughter, and they did it intentionally. And if you all do end up going to the wedding your Eldest will be excluded from the family photo, at the very least.

I find this entire situation entirely unforgivable. A girl knowing her worth in this world is difficult enough, without her own family (that she LIVES WITH) implying she “isn’t worthy”.

Your husband, her step dad, should be absolutely outraged. Not this seemingly passive “don’t want to rock the boat” BS attitude.

Your MiL asking for time with your youngest without your eldest there. She should want to spend time with them both together and both individually. Because, biologically or not, she is a grandparent to your eldest daughter. And that is because her Son is married to you.

The rage I feel for you is unreal. I would decline to attend with your eldest and do something else. I would want to protect her from other exclusion tactics on the day. Go to your brothers and sleep on the sofa bed in the kitchen. Your Husband and youngest can go on their own.

Honestly!!! People are really unkind to each other.

Yes. People do in fact do that. Each child would benefit from the opportunities available to them - that is fairness. Fairness is not denying one to compensate the other.

As of the youngest wouldn’t become aware of that just because her mother didn’t come straight out and say it.

Totally different scenario! In this case, you'd be taking a child out of a school they're already settled in - not what's happening here. Also, presumably the daughter with her current husband would continue having a relationship with her father and wouldn't be living full-time with OP and new husband.

Yes, I would. I don't know why that is so strange to some people. I would have done it for all of them had it been possible. Anyone who has raised more than one child knows that there will be times in their lives when one child will have opportunities that the others won't. Finances change. Environments change. Opportunities change. That's life.

As if the younger child wouldn’t come to learn that the only reason she didn’t get extra advantages was because her mum said no because it wasn’t fair to her sister. Like families don’t talk.

When the youngest maybe one day asks why did all cousins go but not us.

I would consider this battle over, op, and prepare for one about your next daughters schooling

This thread...there are some truly awful examples (or excellent, I should say) of how privilege crushes people's humanity. It's pretty obvious which of the pp went to private school & how that fosters the obvious elitist attitude.

In an ordinary situation, the younger sister would NOT resent the elder sister at all for not going private, that's not normal behaviour. That, my friends, is learned behaviour cos you folk truly believe you're better than everyone else so it makes SENSE to you she'd feel bitter cos now she's got to be like a whole pleb any everything cos of this awful woman & her pauper child. Just listen to yourselves!

The best thing for the younger daughter is to do state schooling (as OP wants) cos at least then she won't be one of you posting this kind of bullshit in 20ys in response to the obvious maltreatment a young girl is on the receiving end of.

Not in a million years is it better for her to learn to be an elitist snob by separating their schooling. Tbh, I see zero value for sending anyone given what it seems to do to many ppl. Shameful.