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.

So your 13 year old daughter lives with your partner and his daughter from a previous relationship?

Dont you and your partner live together?

I can't see the problem.

Because the DD lives there.

Siblings don't have custody rights. This isn't about blending, this is splitting an existing family and on a holiday

How does it benefit a 3 year old to be away from their home on a family holiday to spend time with a sibling?

Life isn't fair. Blended families aren't fair. Little children aren't toys to be divvied up so a sibling gets equal time to someone who lives in the home. She can come live part time with her dad if she wants to get to live with and spend time with young sib.

I can't believe the dad wants to take his youngest away from the family home for this. This is another family split.

Why would your 13 year old want to go to your MILS at Easter? I don’t understand.

The three year old will see her granny and half sister.

I can’t imagine why she would be remotely bothered.

In reality, the 3 year old will probably be crabby & miserable & both father & SD will be fed up after day 1. & it may never happen again.
The GP shouldn't be trying to divide your mixed kid family. Your H should be telling them you all come as a package.
& your H should not be announcing an arrangement he has made with his ex wife? that's enough to put anyone's back up.
I agree though, what happens when they all decide to go off holiday, excluding you & your Daughter ?
What the two 13 year olds should do is make friends, & enjoy their young siblings together (yes I know, unlikely)
What would your H say if this was reversed? you unilaterally decided to go off for Easter (incl easter egg hunt etc,) with your D & the 2 small kids ???

I actually think it's okay to encourage the fostering of bonds in a unit that does not include you sometimes. By stepping back and allowing this, something that is missing will get filled in, and, as paradoxical as it seems, it will become easier in the longer term for everyone to get closer.

Your eldest child, I assume, two lots of grandparents to form relationships with. She doesn't need a relationship with your in laws. I doubt she wants to spend four days with a woman unrelated to her. I bet she is relieved to spend those days with you and the youngest. Plan some fun days out during those four days.

Wow. So. Your husbands daughter with his ex actually wants a relationship with her half siblings. Unfortunately, for whatever reason you daughter (no relation to dh or sd) is seen by this 13 years old child as a block to this and sd is jealous. But mature enough to say so and has spoken to her parents about it and her mum tried to facilitate the relationship with her half sibs (something you clearly didn't like)

So dh has come up with a strategy to give the 3 year old a chance to build a bond with their sister....and you are raging and crying about it!!!!!?

Sorry but apart from the unilateral decision by your dh I can't see why you are upset. You clearly don't like the sd "presenting older" is a disgraceful way to describe a 13 year old. Your daughter has everyt opportunity to bond with her sibs, sd doesn't.

You need to focus on how you can get your DD and DSD to bond, they could have a great sisterly relationship. Maybe send them away to summer camp together?

So a 13 year old half sister has the same rights over a 3 year old as the mother? Really novel attitude, I always thought the parents made the decisions and came to an agreement. I wouldn't be happy at a step daughter or husband dictating what happens with my 3 year old anymore than my husband would be happy if I announced I was going away with our 3 year old without discussion. (just for clarity it is a long time since any of mine were 3 but I know my husband would not have accepted one of his stepchildren deciding where his 3 year old was spending Easter.)

The unilateral decision is actually a big deal not to mention his parents not welcoming his step daughter.

Of course she is equal, in fact she's his first child, the one who made him a father.

I feel for you OP it should be all of you really.
Sounds like dsd's mother is pushing buttons I think DH should discuss it better with you.💐

Well maybe you would be happy to be told you weren't going to see your 3 year old for 4 days at Easter. Not everyone would feel the same.

No they don’t? Each family is free to set their own rules, there are no ‘rights’

Except the dd doesn't live with either set of grandparents. Essentially she's viewed as an obstacle in her own home, which is a really horrible position. Her step father is going on holiday and taking her sister along, to her exclusion. It's not about forging relationships with the step grandparents, it's the clear message that she is not viewed as part of the family unit which she lives in. Both the OP and her dh have made a royal mess of these dc's lives.

You claim to want a blended family but when your H and SD is trying to build bonds between the half-siblings you become furious. You don’t sound equipped for this type of setup at all. Just because you and your h decided to create your own family you can’t dictate how long it will take for the children who have been dragged into the situation to accept it. Especially not the child who gets vastly less time in this newly created family.

If you want this to work you need to be a lot more accommodating, a lot less hostile towards your SD and a lot more patient.

This is as fair as it’s going to be until all the children have accepted the situation, you are both spending g a few days with two of your bio-kids each. Nobody is left out or excluded.

This.
Your argument seems to be that they shouldn't get to do anything fun with out you and your 13 yo DD @Balletbabe, does that carry across and you won't go on holiday or with your family without step DD then?

I suspect the PILs are manipulating the dsd here. They want all their bio grandchildren there, plus son and his ex. The original family plus a pet 3yr old sister for the DSD.
Meanwhile the OP is spending the whole easter weekend on her own, without her DH and without her 3yr old, with a 13yr old to entertain and a baby, because the PILs prefer DHs original family to his current one.
I'd be raging too. But I wouldn't be blaming the 13yr old.

Yep.

The PILs or the stepdaughters mum is behind all this.

Fucking disgrace from the DH enabling it though. Because that's where the decision was made. A decent husband wouldn't have gone along with this.

SD isn’t unreasonable to want to be as close to the younger 2 as your older dd is. It’s sibling rivalry. She’s not unreasonable to be jealous but there’s nothing that can be done to level the playing field.

I agree that your dd hasn’t done anything wrong and will be naturally closer because she lives with them. She hasn’t done anything wrong.

Your h is handling things badly. He is feeding into his DD’s feelings of sibling rivalry by his behaviour. His parents not accepting your dd is one thing but taking the 3 year old on this mini trip so he can encourage the rivalry is unfair - especially on the 3 year old. If this trip happens then every special occasion is going to be you and your dd1 staying at home while the other girls visit the ILs.

It’s cruel to drag the younger ones into this. It may make your h feel like this is a solution but it’s short term at best and the younger girls are humans who shouldn’t be used to alleviate his dad guilt.

Well not really because the stepdad and his daughter are excluding the OP's daughter. Yes, she may well live with the 2 children the couple have together, but she's basically being side lined now when they go away. The OP is also being side lined by his family as she now has to stay at home doing the bulk of the work that having a small child entails. She didn't get asked, she basically got told this is what was happening.
This is only going to cause more problems when the children get older. One of them, probably the OP's daughter, will realise that her stepdad hasn't really had her back at all as far as his parents are concerned. Otherwise, he'd have told them that she was to be treated equally to his daughter.

Op clearly knew before she had children that the daughters didn’t get along and that the grandparents were not interested in her child.

That should lead that it’s no shock that the grandparents and his daughter will behave this way.

SD wants time alone with her half sibling. Surely husband going to mil with sd and 3 yr old is the perfect solution.