14 year old not invited to stepsister’s wedding

[Ombreofmyself]

Stepdaughter is getting married. My husband is paying for everything but dress and flowers.

Our six year old and nine year old are in the wedding, but that’s another story. They are half sisters to the bride.

My 14 year old, step sister to the bride isn’t invited.

Made husband clarify with her. Stepdaughter confirmed so I am not going.

Husband is upset but seems completely incapable of thinking rationally and insisting on her coming but then says why can’t she go to her Dad’s. He should insist as he is paying.

My heart breaks for your 14 year old. What a nasty person to leave a single teenager out of a family event. Your husband needs to speak to his daughter and put across how she would feel if she was this 14 year old, at 29 there is no excuse for this nastiness, regardless of him paying for the wedding. Whether she’s invited or not it will be difficult for this not to colour your relationship with your SD.

Agree with this. There's also the opportunity in this conversation to be curious about her point of view. Why is it important to her not to invite DD, given its a controversial stance? Hopefully it would lead some honest conversations.

I agree with those urging you to protect your eldest dd long term. 😢

Your SD has done you a favour here really showing you how your eldest and yourself are viewed by her, and how your husband will buckle to his eldest when push comes to shove rather than risk her cutting him out of her life. Even if that means he loses his wife and younger children.

Going forward I'd be

• booking a city break for eldest, girls weekend away.
• making it clear you are having ZERO input in helping him with anything wedding related for the you get ones (and SD).
• viewing SD in the same way she clearly views you and eldest. Not going to any effort for her for birthdays, Xmas etc. leave it all to husband.
• getting a will sorted pronto.
• considering long term plans for family life, finances, etc.

To exclude one child out of the three in your family? Why would they do that.
Yes of course your DH should stand up for your DD

Surely it makes sense to find out if it is childfree apart from wedding party because that would give the op a legitimate reason to tell her eldest why she isn’t invited.

unless of course she wants to cause drama 🤷‍♀️

I don't see why the bride would want to protect her mother given that the mother remarried and had more children before her dad. Are there any step siblings on the mother's side? And if so, are they included or excluded?

If her reason is that she's not related to SD, he should remind her that many of her other guests won't be either. And their plus ones will have even less connection.

It's not remotely a logical reason not to invite her because she's not related by blood. The bride is quite deliberately doing something that she knows will be divisive, purely it seems, out of spite.

Yep
he doesn’t see your daughter as part of his family
he accepted her because he wanted you
but this clearly shows that given a chance he will not include her and deep down she is a cuckoo in his nest

he would absolutely exclude her from inheriting your share if you have mirror wills and give it all to “his daughters”

be a mother and protect your daughter and her sisters from this nasty man

I’d go nuclear with this for the sheer hurtfulness that your DSD is deliberately causing. I feel so angry on your behalf as your DH has really shown you where uou & your DD are on his list of priorities. When someone shows you who they are Op, believe them!

The more I think about this, the more it would be a deal breaker for me & I’d leave, taking your DDs with you. If your DH won’t stand up for your family then you need to stand up for it yourself.

To not invite an additional person when it isn’t costing her a penny makes no sense at all, other than to split your family & as your DH is allowing her to do that, then I’d tell her she wins & fuck off far away from them all! So sorry Op. What a horrible person she is and what a weak & spineless DH you have!

Are there any step siblings on the mother's side? And if so, are they included or excluded?

Good question. And one that her dad should ask.

@Ombreofmyself, adding my agreement to those urging you to make sure you have a watertight will protecting your eldest daughter should anything happen to you. This episode, your SD's nastiness and your H's spinelessness, is a wake up call on your marriage. Put your children first, and your eldest daughter especially needs protection, as she clearly cannot rely on her step family doing the right thing by her should anything happen to you and your assets end up in their hands.

I'm actually lost for words that she could behave this way, your 14yo is family by marriage - as someone else has said - just like uncles/aunties are!! THAT'S the line your DH needs to go in with. Have to say though that for me, the relationship would already be damaged now. No babysitting, no financial help from family funds, nothing. Anything your SD needs going forward would have to come entirely from DH, she'd be getting nothing but pleasantries from me. Don't think I'd even make her a brew when she came to visit, but I can hold grudges wonderfully.

OP, what this comes down to is that your idea of what your family is, is not your step daughter's idea of what her family is. You were expecting your parents etc. to be invited to her wedding, and it sounds like she see's you, basically, as her dad's girlfriend. You moved into her life just as she was launching off into the world. She hasn't made much space for you or her step-sister.

And that's probably not very surprising. She can't have spent a huge amount of time or focus on you. Her connection to you and her step-sister is entirely based on your relationship with her father. It sounds like there's not much else there. If you and her DF split up she will likely never see you or her step-sister again. She has already experienced her father splitting up with her mother. This won't be a bond she thinks of as indelible.

While I think her attitude to you and her step-sister not really being family isn't unreasonable, I think not inviting her step-sister to the wedding is pretty thoughtless both in terms of DD being young, it making her feel left out, etc. and in terms of how difficult it makes things for her father.

I can understand why you are upset. But I think you need to rein in any upset about the message you're getting on how she sees the two of you. It is what it is. You have very different views of your family and neither is wrong. You can't make anyone's life better by making an issue of it (and it sounds like you realise that - so kudos to you for a mature response to a difficult, upsetting situation).

As a stepdaughter and someone who has stepchildren in my extended family, I'm forever amazed at how scummy people are to other people's children ☹️.
I can't say I'd ever have anything to do with her again. Just shameful really.
Hopefully when she has children, she won't expect you to have any interest in them either, as you're not family.

I agree with this.

I would never feel the same way about my stepdaughter again. It's just a mean thing to do and I would respond in kind. I would not be cooking for them, buying gifts for her or any future children etc. That would all be DH's responsibility going forward. SD would get nothing from me again.

A decent man would not stand for this.
He would withdraw the money.
Actions have consequences.
His daughter has chosen to behave inna deeply petty nasty way.
At 29 she needs to learn about consequences.
She would no longer be wrlcome in my home.

Your poor daughter.
Another older child collateral damage in a second family.
If you have an ounce of loyalty to your daughter you will spell it out to your husband.
Let him go alone to the wedding.
My other daughters would not be going.
Consequences.
Something so many have difficulty with.

Loyalty to your children and family are important.
His daughter is nasty and wrong.
But if that is how she wishes to behave, then so be it.
But none of my children would be attendin that wedding and my marriage would not survive such disloyalty and lack of decency and character by your husband.

Spell it out for him, just exactly the damage his weakness and lack of basic loyalty will do to his family.

Don't put your younger children in the position of choosing between the wedding and e.g Disney. But if they raise the issue then of course include them in your plans if that's what they choose. And be clear about the alternative plans being because DD1 wasn't invited to the wedding, and all members of the family get to have a fun weekend.

I’m normally on the side of ‘their wedding - their rules’ but in this case I strongly disagree. To exclude one member of your family because she’s ’not blood’ while at the same time inviting lots of people who are also presumably ‘not blood’ stinks. It is malicious and vindictive, and wholly unnecessary. She is making a point and she wants it to be visible. Sad fact is that even if she was shamed into it you’d still know that she didn’t want your DD to be there and had to be pressured into it.

Your DH knows the score and how you feel. I’d be upset that he has continued to allow the slight and hasn’t pulled back from financially supporting the whole shebang. In your shoes I wouldn’t go and I’d drop the ring on all arrangements, fittings, etc. for your younger children. That is now her and your DH’s domain.

I would minimise the whole thing - don’t talk about it, don’t mention it, make it unexciting - like a standard lunch out or similar. I’d book you and your DD on a weekend trip to Rome or Paris or somewhere equally exciting.

It’s a horrible, bitchy, thing to do, and she doesn’t deserve the pleasure of your company, or your support for her married life.

Telling the children they are not going as their older sister was not included is called a parenting decision.
Sometimes parents have to make tough parenting decisions.
This is one of them.
The OP and ALL her children would not be attending and the SD would no longer be welcome in her home.

Her husband can see his daughter elsewhere.
Consequences.

All the immediate children within a new relationship should be treated as part of a blended family & never ever be left out.

This is why I refused to invite anyone to my wedding. Blended families are a nightmare for these things.

FWIW, I don't consider any of the children of my father's or my mother's partners after I was an adult my family. They are vague relatives towards whom I hold goodwill but also no particular affection. If I had had a wedding, unless it was a massive many hundred person event (the type where you invite absolutely everyone you know) I would not have invited them. I wouldn't have felt strongly about their partners coming either, would have been OK with them coming and OK if they didn't.

I'm sorry, but once you are an adult your parent's partners are just the same to you as friends of your parents, nice for them to have and makes you happy they do, but irrelevant to you. Their families are beyond irrelevant.

I find this extremely sad.

OP has added updates saying that her H did ask the bride why the 14yo wasn't invited, and the bride said that they weren’t really related and that she [the 14yo] obviously has another family.

If the couple had decided no under-18s except the wedding party, fair enough - why not just say so when asked?

I suppose there is always the possibility that someone wants to cause drama, of course! 😉

Bitterness will not make for a happy wedding.

I have sons and if one of them had a fiancee who did this i would view her very dimly indeed and hope my son would also. If she is so indifferent to the feelings of a teenage girl, she's a deeply unpleasant person.