My daughter, his daughter in battle for ours

[Balletbabe]

My mum and sister think I have to suck this one up but I go between raging and crying.

My partner announced at the weekend, having just had lunch with his ex, that he and our eldest child together who is three and never been away from me, were ‘popping’ to his mother’s over Easter with his eldest child. This leaves me with my daughter from my marriage and our breastfed baby at home over the holiday for four days.

The ongoing issue is my stepdaughter feels that the children we have together need to recognise her as equal to my daughter and my daughter is at an advantage as she lives with them.

I can’t do anything about my daughter actually living with them. My partner is totally on his daughter’s side and feels this holiday will help them establish a bond.

My daughter and his daughter are 13 but my stepdaughter presents much older. Her mother has admitted from day one that she gives ‘strategies’ to her daughter to negotiate time alone with her half-siblings.

Not if you plan a similar holiday and leave before they do.

100% this . She will be fine . Her dad is there . He’s not some complete stranger.

Your Sd is in a tricky position - she doesn't want to leave her mum alone but she misses out on family life with her dad and she has a child of exactly the same age as her living with her dad to remind her she is missing out.

I think you probably thought and hoped that the fact you had kids of the same age would be nice for them both, which was a bit naive really. Of course they are rivals.

I'm not sure I'd be happy about the whole weekend, but SD does have a point about wanting some time to bond with her siblings and she clearly does feel insecure around your daughter, even if she presents as self assured

I said it a DH problem not its the Dh's problem.

Raging and crying? Are you exaggerating? If not you need to seek help with your health.

I can see this from your step daughter and husbands point of view and I think I would be ok with it too. I'd use it as an excuse to see family or friends or to relax at home with your daughter.

It's Easter, the whole family should be together, why should Mum baby and stepdaughter be alone. The husband dud not discuss the arrangement with the wife he told her, his daughter does not get to dictate either.
I would not suck this up.

I have looked back over OP post, where does it say that the husbands daugher goes to boarding school, he was discussing school fees not all private schools are boarding schools.

So your SD is less than other family? Way to go to recreate the wicked stepmother look.

You sound quite jealous. And YABU of course

What a batshit argument that the op should be ok with not having her 3yo there for 4 days over Easter. She didn’t split the parents up.
op, no need to rage and cry. Say firmly nobody is taking <3yo> away without me over Easter, especially nobody who hasn’t even asked me. You are welcome to divorce me and then we will have to sort custody. Sd is welcome here, and I’m happy to go visit your parents with our children. I will not be separated from my young children to appease your daughter’s refusal to come here, and you need to be a better dad and work harder at this instead of thinking you can just chuck me under a bus here.

the op says he took her for dinner weekly until she went away to school.

I completely hear you OP

Some posters don't realise that sometimes however understanding you are , blending families just doesn't work.

I went through hell with my stepdaughter and she nearly destroyed our marriage.

Ultimately i had to put my own children first and protect them from all the dynamics and "strategies" of DHs children.

We do not have any contact with DHs daughter now. Its very sad but its the only way our own family unit could survive.

People will criticise me for that but unless you have walked in these shoes no one understands the complexities and distress of a step mother.
I advocated so strongly for the needs and wellbeing of my step daughter but it only ever brought me heartache .

They aren’t married. In the event they split, she could find herself being separated from her young children for 50% of the time.

I think you have to accept your family will never be 'normal' in the way you seem to want. You can't have all activities with everyone because you have children you don't biologically share. I can understand why you're upset things aren't exactly as you want them to be. As others have said though, the situation isn't exactly as your SD wants it to be either and as she's the child and had no part in creating this dynamic - you need to suck it up. If it was so important to have SD slotting in, you should've considered the practicalities before further complicating the situation by having children together. Perhaps stop thinking about what 'should' happen and accept the situation as it is. There is no one answer for stepfamilies as they are so varied.

I feel so sorry for the step daughter. From her perspective: She didn't choose her family situation and now she gets less time with her own Dad than some random to whom she's not even related. And said-random's mother kicks up a stink when she tries to arrange some bonding time with her dad and her actual siblings over the holidays, even though the other girl gets that All. The. Time.
Poor kid. When is it her turn eh?

She could come over. None of that changes that the op has a right to have her own 3yo for Easter and her partner doesn’t have any unilateral right to deprive her of her child. He can go for sure. He can arrange visiting grandparents on another time with his 3yo, having talked about it with the op. If I were him I’d also be insisting she come over here to his house weekly though! And since she is away at school no parent gets much time with the sd and that’s a choice they made- which is a bad choice I agree, but not the ops job to compensate for any of it by missing out on her own children because the sd only ever has weekends, nor is it the ops fault she doesn’t send her own older daughter off to boarding school.

She certainly could. It’s the only arrangement in which I’d accept having my children absent for key days like Easter, so that’s where my dh would have to take it- he can separate and look after them on his own then he can negotiate contact with me. Or, this man could have some respect for the op, and think actually it was shit of me to just plan this without consulting, I’ll change it to going over Saturday afternoon with 3yo, and plan ahead with the op for a non Easter weekend, not 4 days.

They’re equal parents, and while she may be the default parent to the youngest by virtue of breastfeeding, she has no more right to dictate to him than he has to dictate to her.

He could of course come to the conclusion that he handled this badly, or he could decide to go away with just his eldest, leaving OP on her own with three children 🤷🏻‍♀️ Whatever happens, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a particularly harmonious Easter tbh.

No matter how this particular situation is resolved, OP is still going to have to come to terms with the fact that her blended family doesn’t, and isn’t going to, operate as she wants it to.

Would it also be wrong if the mother took the 3 year old to see her parents without the father? I don't get why a father taking his child somewhere is bad

umm, of course it would be wrong if the mum were taking the child away for days on a date like Easter without even discussing it with their partner and giving them a chance to have a say??

OP, what is your 13 yr olds relationship like with her dad and his family?

I think it’s understandable that his daughter wants to build a bond with her younger siblings. However, I’d be upset the trip is something my husband has decided unilaterally, or with his ex. He should have discussed the idea with you and come up with a plan to suit everyone not just announced it. You should be a team ! How will your daughter feel about being (unintentionally) excluded? Is there not occasions when your DD is with her Dad when this bonding for your step daughter can take place?

Yes that would also be wrong if it hadn’t been agreed between them. It’s also wrong in this case because SD is attempting to exclude the OP’s eldest daughter from a previous marriage.

oP please don’t take this selfish approach. This would make it all about the OP. It’s one weekend for the 13 year old SD to bond with her father and little sister. OP and DD live with him all the time. In a few years time the SD will be off spending more time with friends. Let her have this time to establish the relationship. OP I’m sorry but you don’t have the neat nuclear family you may have desired. Does your 13 yr old see her father? If not, has this hit a nerve for you? You sound deeply insecure. You need therapy to deal with this.

This exactly.