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.

I think the issue here here is OP daughter from a previous encounter is not included. The step daughter is interested in half sister who is three & baby but ignoring step sister?
Its difficult but she only ten & sometimes children just see things in black & white, maybe she is focusing on half sisters as she feels a biological connection but feels your older daughter is nothing to do with her. She needs to be gently explained that they are all sisters. Just my opinion.

Where's your oldest DD's father in all this?
It's so complicated I need a diagram

Step daughter has had feelings of not knowing her siblings for three years now. You need to change some dynamics.

Be supportive of your husband taking the three year old and his oldest daughter to Easter this time.
Carefully plan out the next outing.
How about ..
Next time SD is staying organise for DH to take the three year old out with your daughter for a few hours leaving SD alone with her baby sister and you, her breast feeding mother. You could purposefully ask SD to hold, rock, change a nappy and get special one on one time with her tiniest sister.
Then the following time ask DH to take his eldest daughter out with your daughter for a couple of hours while the tiny ones stay home.
Then after that you, SD and three year old run some errands leaving DH, baby and your DD home for an hour.
Mix it up, encourage small group interactions - including your daughter who sometimes stays home and sometimes goes out just like the rest of them.
This way all of the children a treated equally.
Try having SD, DD and three year old sleeping in the same bedroom for a month or two and sharing the same bathroom.
To exclude your SD from the family bathroom seems like she is being treated like a guest.
Stop the guest mode. She is a sister.

In future spend Easter all together and ask DD and SD to plan and run the Easter egg hunt for their sisters.

Make it a different weekend. Or invite the sd here, and she can see them all. The op is very happy to do that and no one on the thread who thinks the op should be parted from her 3yo for the entire Easter weekend should care at all that an 11yo doesn’t see her mum for the Easter weekend. Talk about it with your 3yos mum- he bloody well managed to talk about it with the 11yos mum and that’s his ex not his partner!

I did wonder the dynamics with dds father but it's not really that complicated is it.

She doesn’t have to want the OP’s daughter around. They aren’t actually siblings. You don’t view someone as a sibling because they are there the 2 nights a month you stay with your dad.
Plus DD has seen her dad and OP’s daughter even less since she was sent away to school so sees her dad even less now. Why should she have to share that time with her dad with OP’s daughter every time?

Did you say your daughter and step daughter are the same age? Is this not a big part of the issue?

Yes, I think it's tricky and I can see why you're upset.
Your husband is taking his teen DD and your 3 year old.
You and your other two are being left out.
I would indeed suck it up and take my baby and my teen to my mum's or sister's instead and try not to brood on it.
Does your teen see her bio father at all?
It's a shame two teenagers cannot become close. They probably have more in common than they think.
But sibling rivalry, both bio and step, isn't unusual

Nor sadly, is it unusual for in-laws/grandparents to favour their "blood" relatives more (even if they fake it, the preference is often apparent. Ask me how I know!)
So...if your teen cannot see her bio grandparents on her bio father's side the same weekend then just take her with you and the baby away for a weekend of your own or to your family x

No parents see kids who go to boarding school very often though? And that’s a choice the parents made, the op won’t have been part of it. You can’t take it out on the op that her partner and his ex have decided it’s totally fine for their daughter to live at school most of the time. I would never send my kids to boarding school and not see them every night, it feels like the total opposite of being a loving parent unless that is literally the only way they can go to school.

The OP had a lot more choice about this situation than the teenager. She chose to move in and have kids with someone who already had commitments outside their shared home.
Having attended boarding school for seven years, I can say that the most unhappy kids there were the ones who felt they’d been packed off out the way so Daddy could spend time with his new family. this happened in my own family and now two of my cousins don’t even speak to their father.
OP should understand that this young girl only has a few short weeks a year to come home and see Dad and siblings.. So she needs to pull on her big girl pants and facilitate that.
Our DC has been having family sleepovers without us, or with just one of us since they were less than a year old. They love it, I wouldn’t deprive them of that fun. We didn’t see my DH for over a month when lockdown hit, but DC is happy, secure, and always surrounded by people who love them; that’s the important thing for any child, to feel wanted and loved. The convenience and feelings of the “grownups” is frankly secondary to making that happen.

This sums the thread up, with the added mn batshittery of gleeful I presume adult women sticking the knife in to a 13 yo, calling her names like 'bitch'.. and the laughable, 'how dare dh think he can make a decision of his own!! You TELL him he's not seeing his parents without you, then take baby, 3yo and YOUR 13 yo on holiday before they leave! Spoil their holiday, Ha! That'll show them!!'

Absolutely. I cannot believe the lack of empathy towards this poor child. This, together with their visceral revulsion against the idea that a father could decide to spend time away with his own 3 year old child. I applaud this father. How pathetic that these grown women cannot see that.

You just don’t get it, do you? 🤷🏿‍♀️

I agree with you OP, you go away as a family or not at all. Stepdaughter should not dictate the dynamics or be enabled in ‘strategising’ time with your children away from their sister. You need to tell DH ‘no’.

'sharing DNA' with someone is such an odd, almost medievally petty way to look at things. That we MUST have solidarity with those we are biologically related to but kindness and accommodation go out the window with anyone else, even if we live with them or share family life?

I agree that neither 13yo has chosen this set up but they are where they are and to use the 'not even related' argument to justify quite frankly spiteful behaviour (and from DH too) is strange. If a child was exhibiting deliberately exclusionary behaviour towards a non-'related' child in their class we'd quite rightly call them a bully.

The stepdaughter is not dictating it. She has an issue (not feeling close to her you her sister) and a proposed solution has been made to help give her that bonding time she need.

why does the op need to tell her husband no - so she can be controlling and self centered and not out the needs of children before her own.

Frankly, it is not in the whole family’s best interest to facilitate the Easter break that DSD has requested.

Oh for god sake a child isn’t a bully for wanting some small amount of one to one time with her father.
The step daughter is with the DD’s father daily and the DD is left out, is she being bullied then?

If I move someone into your house and tell you it’s your new big sister do you actually think you just immediately start to love them like a sibling?

For the millionth time, the OP has made it clear the father suggested the weekend. You can stop your crusade now.

So you agree then? Unless the SD is there, no family activities, no holidays, no trips to cinema/bowling, absolutely no visits to ANY extended family like ops parents?
THE FULL FAMILY OR NOT AT ALL!!!

Most people arent calling rhe Dsd names.

I had no idea MN was so full of people who believe that one partner gets to make unilateral decisions for their blended family. Not only should they get to make major family decision on their own, they also get to decide when and how it is implemented. It's usually LTB. Do all of the YABU accept their partners dictating major decisions for their families?

Most people agee the Dsd should have time with her siblings to bond. But it should have been discussed, agreed and planned so that everyone can get on board. Failure to plan is to plan to fail, especially with blended families. I wouldn't care if it was a trip planned for next year if Dh came to me and TOLD me what I had to accept. This is 2025 not 1940.

Yes blended families can be a shit show but often it's because of crap like this where just a bit of communication, considrration and respect for all parties would have avoided this drama.

.

your daughter has her own dad? And GPs separate to SD?

dies your daughter see SD as her father? Do her and SD get on?
it sound like SD feels pushed out and is trying to carve out a space for herself.

@Trolleysaregoodforemployment its going both ways here as I put in my post.
Posters are saying, 'absolutely not does he get to take the 3 yo, YOU are the mother! YOU should take her away without him!' Absolutely not seeing the double standards!

i think they try and include DSD in family holidays and trips, obviously. But you don’t leave your wife and baby over Easter because a child has demanded it.