Another family wedding where my eldest is excluded - a year on

[Stuckinthemiddlewithnoone]

12 year old wants to go to wedding where sister hasn't been invited | Mumsnet

This was my thread from almost a year ago and it's happened again.

Younger one invited but not older one, this time the brother of the original groom.

Younger one went with her gran and the rest of the family and we stayed at home. It's set a horrible precedent.

My husband isn't doing anything and younger one going on her own again.

The family clearly want to make some bizarre point.

I genuinely believed that this wouldn't happen again, only last week husband was at his mother's with the father of the groom and nobody said anything. My mother-in-law won't get involved but thinks we made too much of an issue last time and we should have asked for an invitation grovelled for my eldest daughter instead of declining with dignity.

I don't think this is against my daughter, I think this is payback for last time.

Wow this is so nasty how could anyone be like this to a child.

Well that's on the mum and how much she wants to be clear about who her favourite child is!

This is a good point.
Inheritance, graduations, house deposits, care for future grandchildren....

There is going to be a difference.
And it's not going to be controlled by OP.

.......and the funny thing is her YDD is going to feel her ODD is the favourite.

She was willing to sacrifice her family to save her ODD

Not going to a wedding is a whole world away from cutting the girl off from her family. Her immediate family should be the priority. Her eldest must feel so rejected, that's not on at all, her sister should not be okay with that.

There's been similar threads where a ds2.has inherited money and op is sticking oar in, egged on by mnetters that he MUST share his money with his sibling who never met the relative who left the money.
Op is appalled by the will and family for not including her adult dc from a previous relationship and wants advice on how to make ds2 split inheritance equally!

Not letting her go would definitely guarantee a strong relationship between the siblings, and between mother and youngest daughter(!) Or does the short and long term health of those relationships only (conveniently) matter if you can use them as a reason to get your way?

The youngest doesn’t share the same opinion on the matter as OP does, and that isn’t something OP can force, no matter how much she may want to.
OP’s youngest loves her paternal family, has a good relationship with them, and wants to be around them.

She’s 14. If this was the divorce courts she’d have a say in where she lives as at 14 she’s considered old enough to have a view.

What people seem to want the Op to do is to police her feelings, tell her her feelings are wrong. Her feelings are that DH’s family are her family not the DD1 family. And we don’t know the full dynamic of that but it certainly seems that she has a closer relationship to them that DD1. So she may well be baffled as to why there is so much upset about DD1 not being invited.

Not at all! When DGD comes back she tells us all about it. You cannot deny a child her extended family.

OPs, DD1 might not have a relationship with her Fs family but DD2 does and they are not interdependent.

My 2 DGC are close and ARE brother and sister but they understand and respect that they have different DFs and therefore different extended families.

Why? She shouting have to accept missing out on going to special events with her paternal family because her half sister doesn’t have a good relationship with hers.

What next, you expect DD2's grandparents to share their assets equally between DD1 and DD2? We all know that will not happen. Heck there have been threads here on mumsnet about this.

@Ilovelifeverymuch

I really hate when people think reasonable expectations are unreasonable to the point where they start saying 'what next'?

No I wouldn't expect them to share their assets equally, I just would expect families in this situation to have a bit of decency and invite the 4 members of the family rather than 3, like most other families have the decency to do. Most families wouldn't even consider leaving the eldest out.

I wouldn't have a relationship with people who are willing to leave a family member out. Blood doesn't mean much. Would they leave an adopted child out too?

It's not up to.you what the sister has to be ok with. It's up.to her

What a bunch of shits they all are.

I don’t believe a word of the ‘fiancée did the planning’ last time and the idea that she wouldn’t have known you’re a family of four is laughable. The comment about ‘your set-up’ is so insulting when DD1 has been part of DH’s life since a toddler.

Your MIL’s response last time about you needing to ask for another invitation is appalling. With that one statement she condoned the behaviour and blamed you. She then allowed herself to be the centre of the emotional blackmail to ensure DD2 attended. Is it possible she could even be behind talk since then of ‘who is family and who isn’t’ If she spends a lot of time with your DD?

So now another family member has doubled down on this. I agree with you that it’s blatant. I also feel you were persuaded to let DD2 go last time and it would be a big mistake to let her go this time. Because there are bigger issues at play here - the whole of DH’s family stood by and let this happen once and seem perfectly happy to let it happen again. They should be ashamed of themselves.

So it’s time for DD2 to understand this is not just about playing with her cousins and running around a dance floor for one day. It’s a calculated exclusion of one of the most important people in her life and a slap in the face for her own mother. Tell her (and DH) that you don’t negotiate with terrorists and none of you will be going.

There's no reason to assume that this would affect the long term health of those relationships.

She might be upset and pissed off, and I'd let her feel those feelings, but I'd be extremely worried if those feelings extended into the medium term and I would see it as something that needed to be worked on and tackled and go from there.

I kept my children away from arseholes, that is up to me. Leaving a child out that's been in the family so long is awful. I would not want any child of mine around people of that nature.

Yes I think it's decent to invite her and I would if I was in their shoes but as I said we cannot force people to do what we want and OP should not be taking it out on DD2 by forcing her to choose between DD1 and her other family members.

DD2 will have a relationship and love her sister and she will also have a relationship with her cousins and grandparents who she doesn't share with DD1.

DD2's love for she sister is not conditional on choosing between DD2 and wanting to celebrate with her other family members who she has a good relationship with.

No one said you had to. OP’s youngest does want a relationship with them though, and has no issue with them not having the relationship with her half sister that they do with her.

Blood not meaning much to you does not mean everyone is going to share that opinion, or that they have to. Blood is, and always has been, considered important.

Yes, there is plenty of reason to believe it very well may do. There’s plenty of threads just on here that are testament to this attitude causing long term damage. Not wanting this to be true does not mean that it isn’t.

Trying to force someone into agreeing with you is one way to alienate them.

Then something has gone wrong and needs to be addressed, surely, if that’s the case? But I think it’s more likely that the younger DD is being influenced by her father’s family. It’s important to teach your children about the impact negative treatment can have on people. To help them develop empathy.

It depends on how okay you are with people treating your loved ones like crap, I suppose. I would be understanding of the 12 year olds lack of understanding/empathy, she's young but none of us would go, I'd set firm boundaries about accepting us all or none of us. Luckily I was never put in that position. My family are not callous.

I voted YABU because I think your DH needs to talk his family directly about how they need to include your DD. I do think your MIL was right you should have asked for an extra invite last year and told them at the time that it was bad form to exclude her.

Instead you think you are a taking 'a stand' but really no one else knows and they seem oblivious to the pain it causes you. I

Get your DH to use clear, unambiguous language and talk with his brother.
If they still don't invite her, absolutely don't go.

Nope and I still don’t to this day. The other year a close member of their family died close to me aswell. The children and grandchildren where all given gifts within ashes and I was not. I don’t feel left out or unwanted.

Why has something gone wrong?
Two people who have nothing else holding them together than the circumstances of their birth.

Look at mumsnet. How many siblings dislike each other?

Maybe she likes them. Has more in common.

The whole family didn’t leave out. In the first instance the wife to be of the nephew did. We don’t know why. But we do know the OP thinks it wasn’t malicious and that they are not close, in that while DH has run into nephew at his mothers nephew does not come to OP’s house.