12 year old wants to go to wedding where sister hasn't been invited

[Stuckinthemiddlewithnoone]

Essentially we have declined an invitation to husband’s nephew’s wedding in the summer as he has not invited my 15 year old daughter (16 by the time of the wedding) from a long ago relationship. We simply declined without saying why.

Sister-in-Law asked if we were on holiday etc. so I told her the truth. She seemed very embarrassed as did mother-in-law. We were told that she would ask, well that was a month ago and we haven’t heard anything. Husband all along said he wouldn’t go anyway even if they changed their mind.

Now here is the AIBU! 12 year old wants to go. She has completely lost it saying that she has a right to make her own mind up and that elder sister isn’t related to cousin.

I have lost it back at her saying she needs to support her sister.

However, husband thinks we should let her go and we shouldn’t put her in the middle of this.

So, what would you lot do?

I wouldn't say there is a 'really strong consensus' on this. Have a look at the responses again.

Why do you keep posting thread after thread about this?

I wasn't about to comb over the thread again to confirm this point, but this was certainly my immediate impression.

The vote is split practically half and half.

And you would be happy for one of your children to be left off a invite ?

No, of course not. Which is why I wouldn’t go to the wedding.

‘Blood relative’ or not they are a family unit and should be treated as such, not exclude one child how awful

I don’t at all understand the ‘blood relative’ argument as the OP isn’t a blood relative either, but she was included on the invite.

Which is why she wouldn't go herself, but at 12 a judge would say they have input in child arrangement cases etc. They can decide where they want to live, so they can certainly have the capacity to choose to go to a family wedding, even if that is a selfish decision. They can try explain to her etc, but at this point preventing her going will cause resentment towards her sister.

In order to attend the wedding she will need supervision.

Her parents are not going. You're suggesting they should nominate someone else for the supervisory task and assuming that person would thank them for it? Were DD2 16 or thereabouts, this would be a possibility. This child is only 12.

DD2 does not have the capacity to make such a decision for herself because simple practicilities preclude it.

Op said there is plenty of people who would take her.

I'm with you, OP.

We're a blended family - I brought 2dc, DH brought one, and we also have a baby 'together'. But we have four children.

We are a family of six and we don't allow ourselves to be divided in that way.

Just as families are supposed to accept their in laws, i.e. people marrying in, ('not blood'), so they should respect the choices of relatives who blend families.

Anyone who does otherwise is a dick. Imagine treating a kid like that - they ought to be ashamed.

And no, your DD is not old enough to understand the full implications. You have made the decision for her. She's not attending; none of you are attending. It's not her decision to make, at that age.

This is a time for family solidarity.
The wedding invitation should have been for your whole family. To deliberately exclude your elder daughter because she is not related to the bride or groom by blood is insensitive to the point of rudeness. Your elder daughter is being snubbed.
Yourself and your husband need to side with your eldest and reassure her that you disapprove of her exclusion and won't go to the wedding without her.
You also need to explain to your youngest that loyalty to each other within your own family unit is more important than attending a party.
I know something of what it is to be a half-sister, being one myself. The sibling rivalry can be dialled up big time, as I'm sure you're aware. This situation may well have emphasised the difference between your two girls to the chagrin of the elder and the gloating entitledness of the younger. Both need gently correcting.
Don't let her go alone. That will make you look like pouting, passive aggressive jerks. Turning down the invitation entirely is much more dignified.
And a 12 year old girl needs the supervision of her parents, particularly where alcohol is flowing freely.
Stay home, all of you.

She didn't, in fact. She said there were plenty of people to supervise her. We have no idea whether anyone would be able to collect her and take her to the wedding, or to bring her home afterwards. We don't know how far away it is, or how late it would go on. All we know is that the OP is confident her daughter would be fine at the event itself.

I am genuinely surprised at the amount of people who would give a 12-year-old a choice. I would listen to the opinion of DCs, but my family is not a democracy. DH and I make the decisions and if we decide we aren't going somewhere then the 12-year-old can't go either as she's not old enough to arrange to go independently.

She didn't, in fact. She said there were plenty of people to supervise her. We have no idea whether anyone would be able to collect her and take her to the wedding, or to bring her home afterwards. We don't know how far away it is, or how late it would go on.

We don’t need to know any of that. Those would be questions for the OP if she decided to let her daughter go. It’s perfectly obvious that any decision would be subject to whether it’s logistically possible.

@Stuckinthemiddlewithnoone

You can’t win here.

Either you are going to stand 100% by elder daughter and have younger daughter resent her for preventing her from attending a family event and having a normal family experience.

Or you are going to let younger daughter go and at least one of you accompany her (to allow her to attend), making your elder daughter feel like an outsider, inducing resentment in her towards your youngest.

What’s more important:

1. a 12 year old attending a party
2. a 15 year old feeling that they haven’t been totally and utterly abandoned by their family

There's so much hatred and nasty name calling towards a 12 yo child that op hasn't corrected 'bitch, brat, 'gloating entitledness' with the elder a poor passive lamb, lots of of haha exclude HER from family fun and see how she likes it. The fact that op hasn't said 'wait a minute this is my child, you're all a bit far here' does slightly give an indication op wants to punish her, and does place her below the older daughter.
It's 'just a party' so the 12yo shouldn't mind missing it, but on the other hand its so important that this huge issue has occurred?

It’s just a party, yes.

the issue isn’t that DD15 can’t go to the party. The issue is that members of what she has considered her family since she was TWO are basically saying “you’re not family”.

can people really not grasp that basic concept?

@Giraffesandbottoms

It isn’t ‘a party’, it is the wedding of the youngest girl’s first cousin. It would be strange for a first cousin not to attend.

Just as it would be strange for the younger girl to attend the wedding of any of the elder’s family on her father’s side.

I don’t think there’s a workable solution to this. What I would do, if the 16 year old was going to be upset, is ask the couple directly if she can come, and offer to pay for her meal if it is a numbers thing or if she is being excluded with a large group of others.

It could be that if they invite and pay for her they are going to have to do the same for 10 other step children or something.

This will be the tip of the iceberg and OP needs to develop strategies now to deal with disparity that will arise between the girls - big birthday gift differences, future family events, inheritance etc.

I think the least worst option is to let her go. If you don’t, she will build it up in her head to have been this magical occasion that you deprived her of, and she will massively resent both you and sister for the deprivation, and those feelings won’t go away and will fester every time the wedding is mentioned by anyone in the family, which will likely be years.

If she goes, she might have a brilliant time, or might have a slightly lonely time of it without you, and might afterwards feel a little ashamed about not sticking with her sister, and you can all talk it over afterwards and she will hopefully learn something about loyalty. I think that scenario would be easier to fix and resolve long term between the four of you.

Or just talk over both scenarios with her beforehand in a real big heart to heart and see if she feels differently afterwards.

@Stuckinthemiddlewithnoone , if your marriage broke down tomorrow, would you set up custody arrangements for your husband to spend time with your eldest?

Another way to look at this is that the DH should have really adopted the elder girl years ago if he wanted her to properly be his daughter and part of his family.

That might be something to address and to emphasise with family if going ahead.

But perhaps he doesn’t want this.

Her half sister is her relative but she’s not an actual relative of the people getting married.

Maybe the Groom looks upon the elder sister as being the daughter of his Dad's brothers wife and not a Niece/Cousin.

No matter the family dynamics, rights, wrongs I can't get my head around how you'd write an invite out knowing there's two children in the family but only put one of those children's name on the invite.

Regardless of biological relation it's considered rude to leave out a member of a family unit like that.

No it isn’t because the 15yo has no relationship with her bio dad so there are no ‘dad’s side of the family.p things’.

The 15yo’s dad is OP’s DH! He is the only father she has ever known and his family should absolutely have embraced her as one of their family.

OP and her DH are absolutely right not to go and OP is right that 12yo shouldn’t go.