To book tickets to see same show as husband and step-daughter

[Tinogirl]

Every year husband’s niece is in a pantomime and SiL buys tickets for DH and stepdaughter and the rest of the family but not me and my daughter. They then go to a Greek restaurant.

I am fed up of the exclusion so this year I am going to book tickets and a table at the restaurant for me and DD.

When I confront SiL she says that her kids don’t get to see step-daughter that often, and I said that my daughter won’t get in the way of them seeing her just by being there.

DH can’t see what the fuss is about and why I want to go.

DH thinks if I go ahead with my plan it will be embarrassing for me. I don’t think so.

I don't really get why the original situation is so awful in the first place. Not everything has to be done together, even in a 'blended' family. It's fine for one side of the family to have a tradition or something that's for that side of the family, just like it would be fine if OP and her DD went off to do something with their side of the family. You don't have to come as a package deal to everything 🤷‍♀️

Given the slightly bonkers suggestion of presumably showing up that same day and going to same restaurant, I wonder if there's maybe a reason why the invitation hasn't been extended in the first place.

This is sd and DH long standing tradition you don't get to crash it and change the complete vibe.

This isn't Xmas day meal, it's a social event over the Xmas period. So I. Balance I thinks it is fair enough to keep their tradition and for your family to make new ones.

Blending does not mean that sd or sil don't get to keep the status quo on some events. ,🤷‍♀️

Oh that's really cringe. Is your daughter old enough to be embarrassed by this? I'm embarrassed for you both just reading this post.

I agree.

I haven't seen the other threads but others are saying that the two daughters don't get on. This is why I think blended families are rarely a good idea. Children too often get forced to live with people they don't like and have no real connection to.

Don’t do it OP.
If you want to do it to score a point/create a scene then it will ruin everyone’s evening. Including that of your own offspring.
If you want to see the show to support your stepchild then book for a different night.
Either way, don’t stamp on your step child’s achievement and make it about you.
Be classy.

You will just be embarrassing yourself. It sounds like you don't even want to go but are doing so to make a point.

My Dad married a woman with a DC who she eventually became estranged from but I absolutely hated for years that step-Mum wanted a blended family as in my biological family had to be seen to be treating her dc exactly the same and as I lived hours away from my Dad and step-Mum, it meant step-bro got to do lots and lots of things alone with his biological family but I was never allowed to as whenever I visited, it was always that we had to do things as a 'family' i.e including Step-Mum and step-bro even when it was seeing my Grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins.

I also rarely got to spend time on my own with my own Dad because step-Mum made it difficult to do anything without her when I visited.

She died a few months ago and i'm loving the opportunity to spend time with my Dad on my own and her DC gives not one shit that she's dead and hasn't had contact with any of my bio-family for years (or his) through being estranged from his Mum so all those years where we had to include him in everything to my detriment were a total waste.

Like someone else said upthread, if you want a blended family you get to choose what happens in your house, you shouldn't insist that people who are NOT your family treat you and your DC the same as they treat people who are.

SIL is a nasty woman but don't follow through with your plan. I would actually be more concerned that your dh sees nothing wrong with it.

You’re basically saying that you’d sacrifice your childrens’s already existing family ties so that you can choose to project the image of a perfect blended family. It doesn’t protect children to force them into their parents ideals. It hurts them. Even parents like to convince themselves otherwise.

As someone who had to politely sit through an AmDram production of Jack and the Beanstalk, I’d say you’re lucky not to be included.

Passive aggressive, controlling. YABU.

And miss all the shrill, tapdancing sprogs, the Dame making HRT jokes, and all those choruses of ‘Oh, no he isn’t!’? 😀

DH needs to realise that SIL is trying to cause separation and divide in your little family. DH should be telling her that unless you are ALL invited then none of you will attend. You have a DH problem, he's not advocating for your little family.

Personally I wouldn't want to go and drag my child into the conflict, but what I WOULD do is plan lots of things in the run up to Christmas for yourself, your child and YOUR family. Don't buy him tickets to anything and I wouldn't even tell him until on the day - go see light shows, pantos etc and give him a taste of his own medicine. See how he likes being excluded all the time.

Absolutely bonkers idea.

There’s nothing wrong with doing separate things either.

Don’t do this to your daughter. It will be humiliating and only make the exclusion more painful for her.

It is your DH who should be standing up for you, and if he doesn’t you have a DH problem not a SIL problem.

So the family lose all their traditions due to the second marriage? That's very unfair on the SD. It's a long standing annual tradition. The OP needs to leave them be, the phrase is blended not annihilated.

I wouldn’t. I think possibly do something else which I’d nice but this will be mortifying for you and your child.

I voted yabu because why would you go somewhere you aren’t wanted? And more importantly bring your daughter somewhere she isn’t wanted. Your sil and husband are asses. Go to a different show and restaurant with your daughter. Or something better. Maybe invite your family along

DH thinks if I go ahead with my plan it will be embarrassing for me.

It will be incredibly embarrassing. I've no idea why you would want to humiliate yourself and your DD like that.

No, she's taking her brother, niece and the rest of the family,. Just not her brother's wife and other child. There's fairly obviously something wrong with that, especially given she does it every year.

However, OP, this is totally down to your husband. He needs to make it clear he's not coming if you're not included.

Nothing to do with projecting an image and everything to do with unity and togetherness within the children’s immediate family. My DH and SIL were brought up in a blended family where the children were treated very unequally and they are still in therapy in their forties. It’s hugely damaging long term. People who treat people badly due to not being blood related are not upholding a moral standard I would want any child to be around.

Edited -once I reread the OP I realised that when I wrote originally was rubbish.

YANBU OP, to take all the family and exclude your DD is unkind.

That's the emotional blackmail and controlling behaviour my Step-Mum used to use on my Dad, to the detriment of me and my relationships with my Dad and my biological family. It was step-Mum causing the divide between me and my Dad and biological family, not us.

Now my step-Mum is dead we're all relieved we can all stop the pretence and openly process what a bitch she was.

And her DS who she insisted on being included in everything hasn't spoken to her for years and didn't bother to attend her funeral, as did none of my family except my Dad and one of his brothers who went out of old-fashioned views that you should attend a funeral. I would have gone to support my Dad if he'd wanted me to but he hates funerals himself, thinks they're old-fashioned, expensive, traumatic and ultimately pointless (as do I) but step-Mum left specific instructions for one which he respected which is the last bit of control she exerted.

I don’t think YABU to feel how you do. I’m surprised your DH doesn’t stick up for you more and for me this would be an issue. But equally, while your idea does sound deliciously petty, I don’t think I’d do it. I’d make a point of doing something different and better, and I’d not be bothering with SIL at all anymore.

If your husband won't include you and your daughter in his family Christmas tradition, how much of a family does he really see you as? If I were you I'd take my DD to a different show and a different dinner treat. Don't make drama that is going to embarass your child and show her how unwanted she is by the wider step-family. This would make me look closely at my marriage though.

I think it also depends on the wider dynamic. Is this one thing your SD gets to do alone with her dad and cousin? Or are you both regularly excluded? Does DD live with you guys and SD with her mother for most of the time? As a once a year tradition where she is centred, in a blended family where she otherwise always comes second by virtue of not living with you, I might take it on the chin. But it does depend.