Invitation for one child

[ThatRubyMoose]

When I first met my in-laws I bought Christmas presents. My elder sister-in-law who has always been friendly as have they all, thanked me profusely said that she gave up buying presents and writing cards. Fair enough. Her choice. The following year I asked her if she minded me buying for her children. She didn’t but reiterated that she didn’t. Totally transparent not an issue.

What she did do though was take MiL and SiL and the kids to The Palladium every year and a meal in a chain like Spaghetti House, Pizza etc. Fair enough again.

A few weeks ago she asked DH if our daughter who has just gone 4 is now old enough to join them. He said she was.

But I have a daughter who is 9 who lives with us all the time and only sees her father around her birthday and if she’s lucky at Christmas for a ‘tea’ with the rest of his family.

I said no to pantomime, I texted SiL saying it would be unfair to eldest, a child the same age as two of the kids going. Her reply was ‘that was a shame.’

MiL said to DH that it was none of her business how he raised his child but she thought that not being allowed to go on this t
outing with them was a slippery slope.

DH would have let her go but won’t challenge me. What would you do?

Yes, regardless of whether she stays or leaves she has to accept reality, given that it’s not within her power to change it to the one she desires.

Well, I suppose she doesn’t ’have’ to, as she could choose to delude herself.

Yes you’ve made your perspective clear.
I think it’s bonkers- I neither agree with you about the content of OP desires, nor who has all the power , but there we are.

Yet you keep replying in order to literally argue semantics.

It seems we both keep replying. Maybe we should stop as clearly we aren’t going to agree 🤔

Well that’s ops options isn’t it.

Let dh decide what his family does with their joint child
fight dh and possibly separate
separate

All of the above options have their faults.

Separate now, her older dd has the upheaval again of another failed father figure and watching her sister go off Eow to 50/50 to her loving dad and her family while she still has a deadbeat dad and deadbeat extended family.

fight and win, dh and ops younger child could resent her control over her relationship with her family due to protecting sisters feelings. See other threads by women with adult children cutting them off for not letting them grow their relationship with their family to protect half sibling.

Let dh decide and have to have a frank honest conversation with her oldest daughter about how they just are not her family frankly. The sensible option.

One thing op cannot do is change how those people feel about her and her child. Possibly there was much thought about how their son could have done better than a single mum with baggage. Don’t all shoot me. How many women state they wouldn’t date a single dad with full custody because of their children. Loads. Because they don’t want to raise another women’s child.

Actually “the sensible option” would be for the DH to support his wife in her original position that , however they feel, they include both children in such invites , or neither child comes.

Perfectly easy and achievable arrangement and doesn’t require anyone to change their feelings about anyone else (including the child’s feelings - who you seem to think should be the only person required to change her feelings for some reason?).

Maybe DH won’t do that, but good chance he will- most men pick their partners over extended family. Fingers crossed eh?

It’s not though is it.

Other posts have done that and now their adult children are very angry at them for denying them a proper loving relationship that their families wanted with them to make up for their half siblings having shitty families.

When the then adult children get angry about it and the dh goes I wanted you to but mum said it wasn’t fair which is 100% true. Mums one one person who stopped them having a relationship because they didn’t want to take out and pay for another persons child on a family trip.

Other posts have done that and now their adult children are very angry at them for denying them a proper loving relationship that their families wanted with them to make up for their half siblings having shitty families

how many posts do you see like this, compared to how many from posters who had to grow up in step families that treated them like crap?

DD 2 can still have a loving relationship with her family, she doesn’t need extra treats (like special dinners) that exclude her sister to do that. Not by any means. If the wider family cut off the youngest just to spite the step child, that’s entirely on them, not OP.

There is no optimal option here. Either older daughter loses out on relationship with her step dad’s family or younger daughter loses out on relationship with her family?

if this is the choice I think older daughter loses out. She has paternal aunts and uncles and grandparents and a dad. They are just useless. But OP doesn’t stop her seeing them.

why is it okay for OP to facilitate older daughter’s family relationship with flawed people, but not grant the same for younger daughter?

I’m a step child and never resented my sibling spending time with their family without me.

My family were shit. That’s on them and wasn’t and isn’t in my siblings family to make up for it. Difference was I wasn’t raised believing I was entitled to my siblings family.

I understand that’s your experience, and I’m really glad it worked out for you. There are many other posters who don’t share this experience and it has nothing to do with them being “entitled”.

It completely is.

Nobody is entitled to expect another family to take them under their wing and treat them as a sibling or niece or nephew or whatever else.

As long as they are friendly and polite that’s what’s to be expected.

The anger is misplaced because it’s easier to hate others than to hate your own shitty family.

Same as when it’s always the daughter in laws fault for the sons shit behaviour easier to blame the outsider than your own failed family.

It’s nothing to do with entitlement, and their anger is directed exactly how it should be. And deliberately excluding a child from a treat offered to their sibling is not the least bit friendly or polite.

Blame the parent who inflicted a blended
family upon them then. Not outsiders who had no choice in the matter who simply want to spend time with their own grandchild / niece.

OP understandably wants both children to have grandparents and aunts and uncles who cherish them and cousins to grow up with.

she made a poor choice with her first child’s father - and neither he nor his family have been a close a loving family to her elder child. That is sad - but it’s unfortunately the reality of her older daughter’s life story.

The father of her second child is present in both children’s lives. But his family don’t want to treat her older child as their neice or granddaughter. Again that is the reality of who these people are.

OP would give older daughter a loving extended family if she could - but is willing to deliberately deny younger daughter a close extended family because it isn’t on her terms? While I am not defending these adult’s choices, it does seem unfair to punish the younger child because OP isn’t getting her way.

well yea 100% think most people do blame their parent who inflicted the blended family on them. (No point being angry with people who rejected them/ with whom they have no relationship). which is exactly why the advise to the OP should be to hold boundaries that ensure their child is treated properly in the blended family, or leave the blended family.

Neither OP nor her eldest daughter have to change their feelings, but they will have to learn to live with them.

OP is close to his family (‘they adore each other’), and has told OP that he won’t allow his daughter to miss out on spending time with and having a relationship with his family. She has said she won’t go against this.

her eldest daughter…will have to learn to live with them

Well I would never put any child of mine in this position because the harm it can cause is well documented; hence my advice to the OP.

But it doesn’t help op does it.

If they separate because her husband will not get in line. She has one child with a shit family and one child with a loving involved family.

The oldest is still left out entirely now and from another broken family. Her youngest looses out on living with her father all because of an argument over panto because her sibling has a shit family.

Both children lose because the oldest family is shit.

because it’s also not on to ask the youngest family to never be able to invite her without her sibling. One is their grandchild one isn’t.

I think this was addressed earlier? I don’t think any child benefits more from being in a toxic blended family than from just having a much smaller nuclear one?

How small do you want to go? Her sibling living with her 50:50 because of panto?

Nothing wrong with having a small family at all. Who benefits from contact with people who reject them 🥴?

Rejection from panto is worse than her whole dads family rejecting her 99% of the time while her step dads involve her 99% of the time.

Her step dad’s family are allowed and it’s perfectly ok to do some things with just their grandchild. Again if the older child’s dad wasn’t so shit op wouldn’t care. If her older child’s dad was taking her every other weekend and out of trips she wouldn’t be moaning that her younger dd doesn’t get as many trips from her grandparents. She would be telling the younger dd it’s because the older is out with her father and her family.

Rejection from panto is worse than her whole dads family rejecting her 99% of the time

The only person making these comparisons is you? What’s the value of them? The dad’s family are awful clearly. Doesn’t make it ok for her to be excluded, rejected and treated differently from the other children in her step family.

Because it’s all about the shit dads Family really.

If the dd didn’t have a shit dad op wouldn’t be expecting to make her husbands pick up the pieces. She would be more than happy to tell youngest it’s because it’s with her sisters dad’s family.

Same logic implies it’s fine for the younger daughter to have time with her family because it’s her family not the oldest.

Only that’s not ok purely let’s face it because the oldest isn’t getting any with her own family.