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.

Yes, but the extent of the money discrepancy has only really come into it recently. Initially it was about an invitation to a wedding (or lack of one). I hadn't realised that the reason people might be so cruel to a 10-year old child is to deliberately keep them at a distance so as to protect their own financial interests. It doesn't make it any less cruel, but it makes more sense to me now. It's just rich people doing rich people things.

There is more to it than that. So you need to read the first thread or at least OPs posts. Also the elder child does not have contact with her dad at all or his family. So to all intents and purposes the OPs husband is her father and his family is her family. But they are not treating her as though she is.

I was in the camp of you being unreasonable after SIL backtracked and invited your eldest. Now I am not so sure as treating both girls differently financially with private school for one and not the other and your MIL asking for time alone with just one seems very unkind to your eldest and quite unnecessary. You cannot make extended family feel the same way about a child who has no biological link to them but they seem to be going out of their way to show how they perceive her and at 10 she will notice this, I think they sound horrible and not sure about your DH either.

Saved me the effort of writing that out, thank you

I don't think you can get mad that they're treating her like his step daughter and not his daughter. You can't expect a whole family to want to have a step child in the family photo with the great grandmother. That's a precious keepsake. Or expect them to want a step child to be flower girl. Or to save for a step child. They've invited her now, deep breath and move on. You being awkward will cause more of a divide.

Firstly, why the capitals? Can you not write like everyone else or are your responses more important?

Secondly, “If you didn’t know, that’s your doing”, if she didn’t know, then she didn’t know. What was she meant to do? Pull a crystal ball out of her pocket?!

OP, ignore this over-use of capitals MNer. Keep standing up for what you believe in…

Really has it only come into it recently ? I think it has more likely been there all along. People don't change opinions on this sort of stuff quickly. It's the wedding invitation that has really made the OP think about these things and the spiraling consequences such as education and inheritance (which are actually much bigger deals than the lack of wedding invitation) when they hadn't really thought about them before.

And no, I don't believe keeping the step child away from the wedding is "to protect their own financial interests". Because whether they invite them to the wedding or not has absolutely zero impact on what they chose to do with their money in the future. I don't believe it was organised to protect their family wealth because it was never under threat from taking that action anyway. It was just probably an accident because all the step children were considered the same and they didn't think initially about the impact of leaving the child out.

Giving cash directly to their grand daughter and bypassing their son, that could be realistically described as "protecting the family wealth". Not not inviting someone to a wedding.

Rich people protect their money because they have some. Poor people don't because they don't have any to protect.

Presumably it’s for emphasis.

The onus was on OP, as the one responsible for her child, to find out. It isn’t anyone else’s fault that she didn’t. Now she has to deal with the reality of the situation she’s in, and she’s not going to get what she wants whether she stands up for what she believes in or not. She isn’t going to make her eldest equal to her youngest in their eyes.

They’re treating her like an in law, which she is. It sounds like this has always been the case as well. It isn’t their fault that she doesn’t have a relationship with her paternal family, and they don’t have to step in as surrogates.

@GasPanic I meant it's only recently become apparent on the thread - at least to me! I'm sure the OP was aware of it all along. I'm just talking about my own lightbulb moment of understanding why there are so many posters on here who are fine with the exclusion of a child from family events, such as a wedding. It's because the child must be reminded of their place.

Like I said, should have got a crystal ball!

Of course as a parent you can stand up for what you believe in. Doesn’t mean everyone else will or has to agree.

Bloody hell OP, I'd definitely be limiting your contact with his family, after all they aren't blood and apparently that means more than anything to them. In a few years time, if you are still with your husband (and after the schooling comment amongst others I'm not sure I would be), your MIL will need help and support. It certainly wouldn't be coming from me.

They are toxic to your eldest and this could make a huge rift between sisters.

Would your husband consider adopting your eldest (provided he actually becomes her dad, not just carries on treating her differently)?

Or she could have asked the relevant questions, or observed what was already apparent to her, given that they never attempted to take on the roles OP seems to think they should be filling.

Of course she can, but she also has to accept that regardless of whether she’s with her husband or not, he and his family aren’t going to start considering her daughters to be equal. Whether she likes it or not the unequal dynamic exists and isn’t going to go away.

@Devilshands Sadly you may be right. The OP and her DH appear to have very different expectations of his role as a step-parent. I hope they can work it out, but they may not be able to. 🙁

I feel worst for the husband in the this story. It can’t be nice being stuck between your at home family and your biological family and all he’s getting is grief for just trying to do his best by everyone.

It was ridiculous to ever think that he shouldn’t go to his own brothers wedding, even though OP is in the right to stick up for her own dd. The husband went back to his family and got his step daughter an invitation and his wife an apology and it’s still not good enough.

This great great grandma, does the originally excluded daughter even have a relationship with her? If not, why would she want a child she barely knows in a photo of her with all her own grandchildren? Again, it’s ridiculous to think OP’s oldest daughter should be included in this.

At least the OP has recognised her own naivety is what has caused the current problem with inheritance. This is the stuff people need to think through properly before they have children with different Dad’s.

So you would have gone to DH’s parents and asked about inheritance for example?

I didn’t comment on what she has to accept, you did.

It’s important for eldest DD to know that her Mum stands up for what she believes in.

*Edit - typed DH instead of DD.

I think what makes this situation so awfully difficult is how close the girls are in age. I don’t believe in there being “one right way” for these things to be dealt with; all families differ. “Blood” matters far more to some people than others. These things can generally be navigated with a bit of decency on all sides. But the problem here is that these girls are being brought up in a nuclear family unit - but seemingly without the support of the extended family for that. And that’s awfully hard - because, much as OP might wish her in-laws to see her older DD as “one of them”, they pretty obviously don’t. An older child (or a child with her “own” paternal family) could cope with that a lot more easily - but it’s a heck of a thing for a child of 10 to come to terms with. But what to do for the best? If OP leaves her DH it doesn’t improve the situation for her older DD in any way and probably means that she loses that father figure. But it can’t be easy to stay and feel that your own child is somehow lesser or rejected. Very tricky situation all round.

I would have asked him, yes. She could have asked them what relationship they expected to have with her daughter (or again, you know, used her eyes on that one). It isn’t exactly hard to anticipate that these are issues that are likely to arise in blended families, particularly when it comes to significant differences in wealth.

tbf it appears she did ask him, and she did accept that her eldest wasn’t considered their grandchild, the same as she accepted that her husband wasn’t going to include her in his will. OP did in fact know that they were not considered to be equal.

You feel the worst for the husband - not the 10-year old child who was left out and is being made out to be a burden on her stepfather's entire family? Not the OP who married a man who claimed he'd treat her daughter like his own, but now says she should be absolutely fine with one of her daughters going to an expensive private school, while the other is denied that opportunity?

Well your approach would be very different to one I’d take and that’s fine.

I would never ask in-laws about inheritance or ask DH to. I think that would come across as ‘grabby’.

@OpalShimmer Can you imagine the conversation with your new in-laws?! 😂

Tbh, I would be surprised if a step-grandchild (not adopted) inherited significantly from those grandparents. As I said upthread, I didn’t inherit from my step-Mum and neither did my children.

Yet she did know that her eldest was not in line to inherit from either her in laws or her husband, and accepted that this would be the situation.

In my experience is normal to discuss expectations in regards to family assets, particularly if they’re substantial. It’s better to know where you stand than it is to assume incorrectly. I imagine this is especially true if it involves a child.

“Hey, I’m considering marrying your son, what inheritance would we due to receive?”

😂🤦🏻‍♀️

I agree with you.

You know what OP looking at this entirely objectively with no emotions, I get all sides (other than not invited dd1 but the rest of her family wtf?). But I understood the differences between the in-laws in treatment of the dds.

HOWEVER

I then looked at my own dd and imagined her being treated like this and I immediately felt rage and out for blood!
Infact so much so rereading your thread imagining it was my DD little face watching her sister going out with grandma and going to private schools and watching the family fawn over her whilst she looked on, with no one but me to love/treat her, omg I was practically imagining myself signing those divorce papers.

Objectively no one’s wrong, but subjectively I’d be causing havoc.

sorry there’s no advice but I feel you.

This is the same man who, when his biological child came on the scene, had him and his wife draw up wills that left different things and amounts to each child, fully aware that his own DD was going to get more. (OP hasn't said that's what the timeline was, but seeing how old the youngest is and when the wills were drawn up, seems like a fair assumption).

I don't know that the DH has said OP should be fine with her youngest going to private school and the eldest not. She hasn't said. I suspect it won't matter to him decisively one way or the other (and this whole education thing is quite a quandry for OP). I have two friends in so-called blended families who have bio children in private schools, step-kids not. One has a very similar age gap, one has a much larger one so less of an issue. As parents, they both consider that they're working hard to provide for their children, and that their step-DC have two parents who can also choose to work hard to provide for their children (or not) as they please. How can you argue with that?

Nobody is denying that it would be wonderful if all children are treated equally, everywhere. That's just not life: not in nuclear families, not amongst full-cousins, not in blended families, in families in the same street/community/neighbourhood/city/country - anywhere. OP has decided to raise her two DDs at the fault lines of these divisions <shrug>. This is what happens.