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.

Of course they aren’t more important than the first (but also not less important). But as they came later then it would be the decision to have them that would probably be driving the need for more space.

But it’s not really an issue. There isn’t enough space right now so the dh has found a solution and is making more space so that there will be enough. If he can comfortably afford that then I don’t see a problem.

I do see both sides
But come on
Siblings that have the same mum will usually always be closer than siblings from just dad's side.
Anyway, imo mum decides how healthy the dynamics are.
You might as well ignore the rivarily between the teenagers
But if your young child is being poisoned when she goes there, that's when you put your foot down.
If it's just positive, then just leave it.
If the step daughter comes back boasting and making your child feel bad, I personally would ask dad to speak to his daughter. And decide what to do if things don't change

He hasn’t ever offered OP the blended family she wants, and has no problem with her daughter not being treated the same as his. He doesn’t treat her the same as his, or apparently treat her as a daughter to him at all (I bet he isn’t paying for her education). He’s decided to spend £60k + on an extension for his child (something I highly doubt OP had a say in

If he doesn't do what is best for his own child, who will? He's right to put her first in this blended situation, as OP is right to with her daughter. It's just what is right for each girl is different and conflicting.

I can also see your step daughter’s perspective, she doesn’t get on with/or feels threatened by your daughter from your first marriage and wants to spend time with her step sibling.

I don't think she feels threatened or doesn't get one with the other girl. OP said step daughter did her daughter's maths and French homework for her. I think privately educated step daughter who is more mature than the other 13yo (as stated by OP) just doesn't really register her as a friend or a rival. She doesn't dislike her but doesn't want an emotional bond with her.

My view has shifted as the thread has progressed. I took exception to the OP's daughter being described as an obstacle but now, I think this is just how a well educated girl has articulated herself without meaning it derogatorily. When OP says that the step daughter doesn't want the other girl around when she's with her younger siblings, I don't believe the step daughter thinks for a minute the other girl shouldn't be at home when she's there, just that she wants the opportunities away from the home to bond with her siblings.

The step daughter and her mum sound quite sophisticated and are probably quite aloof, not the type of people who'd welcome a "we're one big happy family" approach.

This is a clash of background/culture/class. Never the twain

Thank you. I get your perspective on this

I think the whole husband not providing the blended family that the op desires and therefore being in the wrong is unfair.

I think the op has an unrealistic view of a blended family and it is difficult to achieve. The step daughter is not there all the time whilst the op’s daughter is; this creates different dynamics that mean it’s not possible to treat the two of them exactly the same.

The op wants a father and father’s family for her daughter as she doesn’t really have that. The SD does have that though on her mums side.

its important to balance what is needed for both girls and the wider family and that will mean treating them differently from one another. Everyone knows the family should be treated fairly but that doesn’t necessarily mean the same as that’s impossible.

Indeed. I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. If OP wanted the type of blended family that didn’t differentiate between biological children and stepchildren then this wasn’t the relationship she should have pursued. She can’t now expect him, his parents and his daughter to give her what she wants, not least because it’s very obvious that they’re not going to.

I don't think your DH and his family are doing anything wrong as such. It's just a different approach from the one you'd like.

I understand you don't want to be away from your 3yo or partner for the long weekend - but if you split up you'll be apart from them a lot more!

So I do think you have to compromise. You get your DH and your kids almost all the time. SD is not a nightmare, far from it, and DH has a good relationship with his ex. You're winning in so many ways, trust me.

The fact you are crying and raging about this makes me question if you have the emotional maturity to deal with such a complex family set up. I don't blame you for that; I wouldn't want it either. You're probably feeling vulnerable with a young baby.

Can you ask your parents or family to come and stay while they're away? Your older child may like that special time with them.

Nailed it, imo. Generalizing, but as a fellow scummy private school alumnus, her view as to how blended families operate was and is completely normal in those particular circles. The ‘no difference between steps and biological’ model really isn’t something everyone feels the need to desire and aspire to.

This is the sort of thing that needed establishing before new children were added to the situation.

Your daughter is in an awful situation and it's hard not to feel very very sorry for her.

You keep suggesting the OP shouldn't have had this relationship at all, shouldn't have brought two more children into it etc.

That's by the by, she cannot dematerialise her two younger DC, even if she wanted to, she cannot turn back the clock and make a different decision.

The point is she is in this relationship, she is having these issues, she does have two children with this man, he had a input on that too. It's really pointless and pretty cruel to keep mentioning it to the OP over it post after post about what mistakes she made years ago.

We are none of us perfect.

The point is she is in this relationship, she is having these issues, she does have two children with this man, he had an input on that too. It's really pointless and pretty cruel to keep mentioning it to the OP over it post after post about what mistakes she made years ago

The point that pp is making is that OP needs to accept the situation isn't going to change to what she wants it to be. It is very much a case of, she made her bed.

We all get what the PP means.

My point is, it is not only pointless to repeat, it is pretty unpleasant to do that. The situation is this and whatever someone should or should have done, means nothing because that's not the situation, nor can that situation ever can be again. At best it is an unhelpful thing to say you shouldn't have done that, to keep saying it ...

I'm not often a nice or kind person so I'm not coming from a be kind stance. I understand the logical nature of this PPs posts, however, there are two children born to a couple, like it or not, have a thought to what is actually being suggested when someone says this isn't the man to have had a family with, whether we agree with OP or not, or love or loathe her choices in life. It's not logical, it's deeply unpleasant.

As for your idiom, we can always remake a bed, we don't have to lie in it. Same as there is no point in having cake if you can't eat it. Whoever made up these phrases must have had to stand up to talk.

Edited to add a "had" and an "ed"

I didn’t say they weren’t equally important, but the DD was around before the 1 & 3 year old so the extension would be viewed by any rational person as making space for those new additional children rather than the one who existed 9 years earlier.
It’s the attitude that space must be made for his older child whereas the other younger children are already allocated space by default that is gross.

we can always remake a bed, we don't have to lie in it

Absolutely. That's OP's other option.

And remember, this is an anonymous forum and the post was in AIBU. Not sure who put you in charge of what people post.

Nor I you

All posters are entitled to their opinion but in expressing an opinion you open yourself up to challenges to that opinion. When you repeat that opinion across several posts you are just beating the OP over the head with it, in my book that's bullying and should be challenged.

When you repeat that opinion across several posts you are just beating the OP over the head with it, in my book that's bullying and should be challenged

Challenge all you like then. It doesn't mean you'll change options or how people express them.

I do and will continue to do so.

Not really interested in changing people's opinions because they are entitled to hold them but bullying is bullying and needs to be challenged everywhere it appears.

So he's taking his 13 year old daughter and your joint 3 year old daughter to his mother's, leaving you and your 13 year old daughter and your joint baby at home.

That sounds OK in a way you each have your child and one of your joint children, will you have any family around or will you be left at home alone with the two you have? Which would seem a bit uncaring when you have a baby to look after.

I don't really understand splitting up the children over Easter, wouldn't the two 13 year olds prefer to be together, rather than one having a 3yr old to play with and one a baby? Couldn't you all go to his mum's or is your daughter not welcome there? If his daughter wants to be more part of her Dad's new family why doesn't she come to you over Easter and you can all be together to bond?

I’m saying that she’s in this situation as a result of her own choices, and there’s little point blaming her husband, in laws and stepchild for not providing the blended family she wants when they never had any intention of doing so. It’s like buying a dog, well aware that it is very much a dog, then getting mad and blaming it for not being a cat.

OP hasn’t been lied to or misled here, and she hasn’t been wronged. I don’t think this is something she needs to beat herself up over btw, but nor does she need to (proverbially) beat anyone else up.

The reality she wanted/wants is not the reality she has, and that’s something she would be best advised to come to terms with. Trying to force what she thinks should be on what is, isn’t going to achieve anything but far more turmoil and pain for her than facing reality and being honest with herself will.

Edited because its pointless I don't want to continue this derail

Except she can’t change her husbands view that it’s fine to spend time with his own children away from his step child because it is fine, and doesn’t need to be changed. So the only conclusion is that she does just lie in the bed she made. The fact that she doesn’t like the way it’s turned out doesn’t mean the other equal parent has to concede to her view against his will.

This. She can remake the bed, but it still won’t be the bed she wants.

Encouraging her to go in all gas no brakes isn’t going to achieve what some posters seem to think it will. What it will do is entrench battle lines with her partner, his family, his ex and his daughter on one side, and OP on the other. OP’s own family are telling her to suck it up, I suspect because they can see the iceberg up ahead and are trying to stop her from steering directly into it.

If they split then she’s in all likelihood going to leave the relationship with what she brought into it, plus two extra children. She could lose 50% of her time with her youngest two, and unless she’s independently wealthy herself the differences between her children will be made even more stark. The eldest will not longer be provided for, or benefiting from, her mother’s partner at all. Does that mean she shouldn’t leave? Or that this wouldn’t be better than remaining in the relationship? Of course not, but only OP can make that assessment. Being prepared however is preferable to being hit in the face with reality later.

Advising someone to acknowledge this, however painful they may find taking off the rose tinted glasses to be, isn’t cruel. What is cruel, imo, is saying ‘just ignore what doesn’t make you feel good and righteous’, and cheering her on into a worse position than she started from.

The partner and his family, including the partners 13yo can run rings around OP. Not intentionally, they seem better educated and resourced.

That might sound harsh but it's the reality. I suspect OP was partly attracted to financial security, particularly given her ex disappearing. I don't judge that in the least. But when you get involved with educated, monied people, you won't change their mindset. It's you who needs to adapt.

Agreed. There is a certain confidence that comes with that and the OP's raging and crying shows that she lacks that and is determined to force relationships that aren't there instead to try and gain security and validation. It will just have the opposite effect unfortunately.