Stepdaughter and Daughter's Wedding

[WickedMotherofthebride]

Decided to become a member as it seems to be Stepchildren and wedding season on Mumsnet and sobbing uncontrollably to my sister isn't giving me the unbiased opinions I am after.
For the first time in our 22 year marriage my husband's ex invited him to dinner. We were very curious thinking she must be ill or something. I admit after a couple of hours I used my iphone to track him and he was at Charing Cross, then an hour later in the pub around the corner from us, he rarely drinks but came home the worse for wear and completely ashen.
Essentially if he goes ahead to walk my daughter down the aisle he can say goodbye to a relationship with his own daughter who is apparently devastated by this. Something that has been confirmed by his son.
I am one of those women who let a loser impregnate her, I thought the odd splif wasn't a big deal but he turned into an absolute stonehead who was in and out of my daughter's life until she was 8 when I married my husband. I don't know if her father's absence and my getting married was a coincidence but I think it was.
My husband is to all intents and purposes her dad.
At 15 a strange man arrived at the door wanting me to talk to him without my daughter present., obviously I wouldn't but my husband went out. It was the husband of my daughter's aunt to tell us that her dad had died.
She was given the chance to have a relationship with her family but chose not to saying that my husband was her dad.
Stepdaughter has a long term partner but there are no wedding bells.
My husband is adamant now that he can't give my daughter away something that I will not forgive him for. In fact I will divorce him if he doesn't.
The wedding is in 18 weeks.

Very very few parents would put someone else’s child above theirs in a life or death situation and if they did I would judge them unless extreme circumstances such as one able bodied should be able to escape and say one in a wheelchair and even then I’d probably think I bet they regret that.

Why don’t you walk her down the aisle?

much nicer - I hate the idea of men giving women to another man! It’s gross

I've been on the other side of this and can totally understand where the SD is coming from. My parents split when I was early teens and my dad moved in with his now wife and her 3 children.

Found out shortly before wedding that Dad was giving step sister away. Felt like a kick in the teeth. He was my dad. She had her own dad (and mum). Not my fault that her real dad was a bit of a loose cannon. Felt like I was 14 again.

I didn't cause a fuss but did tell my dad that it upset me. I bet he wouldn't have been happy if I asked my mum's husband to walk me down the aisle instead of him.

But that took time - years. Imagine being the little girl who only sees her dad at weekends and really misses him: he then moves in with a new little girl (possibly around d the same age) and becomes her dad instead of yours.

How many people do you know talk with heartbreak about how their dad moved on with a new family? I have friends this happened to. The dad always prioritized the step mum - so her kids always got a lot more of the dad.

I am not says an adult woman should be throwing a temper tantrum about this - but I am saying this will be routed in some very strong emotions which are inconvenient to OP

Exactly. I would never tell my dad he was the same to me as my stepdad. He would be heartbroken. If my dad hadn't been there on the day I would've walked by myself out of respect for him.

If you divorce your DH for this up you are punishing the wrong people .

None of them lives with the dad full time they both live with their mum . I do have 2 children of my own who my partner adores and none of his kids would pull the BS this grown woman is pulling because they know there is no way they would get away with it and because they would not show that level of disrespect towards their dad or our family as a whole . In fact when we stayed living together 6 years ago I asked his then 12 year old ( bio son ) how he felt because my youngest started calling him dad and he replied “ he was my brothers dad before he was mine so I’m very used to sharing him and I don’t mind “ the “ kids “ all get along amazingly and it’s something we always worked on and where very open about from day one .
It’s not normal for a grown woman to not know right from wrong , and giving in to her is a downfall he will regret in time and shows a huge lack of respect towards her dad

I think you should give your Daughter away. I would, in your position.

Take the power away from them all.

I agree with this. I can easily imagine a young child becoming resentful and sad about their DF moving out and probably only getting to visit him at weekends, whilst in the meantime he throws himself into the full time Daddy role for a brand new little girl. It must be heartbreaking for a child to go through effectively being 'replaced', and that kind of childhood trauma doesn't go away. It's all well and good telling SD to just get over it, she is probably trying to deal with a lifetime of resentment and upset.

I think you should walk your daughter down the aisle OP, and cut your DH some slack. He's stuck between a rock and a hard place.

?

so to be clear op, burning building with your step children and bio child…. You wouldn’t automatically go first to your bio?

and you think your husband would also do the same ie not automatically go first to save his biological child?

I completely get why the daughter is upset. As a PP said, she has had her dad part time
while he lived with a other girl (whose mum is clearly hellbent on him being a completely equal father to). Walking her down the aisle is a very special father daughter thing for many people. Maybe she would feel different if he had already done that for her, but the first time being for a step sibling would sting. A lot.

Sounds like the OP is utterly furious at having to face the reality that her daughter is not his child and that she isn’t equal in his affections to his own biological daughter (understandably). I can’t believe she would divorce him for putting his own daughter’s understandable feelings first.

What a mess.

Who agreed he would walk your daughter down the aisle OP and when? Sounds like he didn’t speak to his own daughter and check how she felt about it first, which he really should have. This has been handled horribly.

Thank you for sharing that.

I’m really frustrated that people can’t see this.

And I’d suspect your feelings apply to SD here who it appears would have been a similar age. 14 is also a vulnerable age.

Fair question! No she hadn’t, but she did say that if she ever got married, which she still hasn’t, she wouldn’t want a traditional wedding where she was ‘given away’ anyway. That, and she’s a particularly lovely and generous person. I think the most important thing is that she is very close to her Dad and knew that despite him being very fatherly towards me, she was much more important to him.

But this is not a little girl , look I could understand if this was a child or a teen and my opinion would be different but a grown woman knows right from wrong . As much as she can be upset she should know it’s not ok to ask that

@FunnytasteWhile i do agree with you that in a burning building you’d totally expect him to save his DD, this really is totally irrelevant because in this case the way that his DD is “winning” is only by taking something from her Step sister. by walking his SD down the aisle, he isn’t choosing her over his DD in the slightest. he could easily walk them both down the aisle. It is his DD (or her DM if she has embellished what DD said) who has manipulated the situation so that only 1 of them can be walked down the aisle by their dad/ stepdad. so sad! the man’s SD probably does feel like he is her true DF and this is a targeted attack on her childhood trauma when she was abandoned by her bio father. i think it’s so cruel.

I have a feeling this is more to do with your dd growing up with her stepdad in her life full time from a very young age and his own daughter may hold some resentment that she didn’t have her father live in the same house full time.

i also suspect that if his daughter was already married then this wouldn’t be an issue bough not sure why she couldn’t tell her dad and sent her mum to deal with it instead.

im so glad my cousin was fine with my uncle (their dad) giving me away and they didn’t cause any issues.

i don't think it’s serious enough to divorce him. Why don’t you walk your dd down the aisle?

Oh I’m not relating that analogy remotely to the op

it was @Crazyworldmum saying her husband loved his biological child and step son exactly the same and there was no difference in his strength of love for them

Did your uncle leave your cousins and go live with you and raise you? And every time your cousins saw their dad, were you there as well?

That's completely different

What about SD childhood trauma? The one where she had to watch her dad play families with another girl.

As the step daughter of someone who has been in my life my whole life, and the biological daughter of a man I loved very much, but who had issues with addiction and died when I was 11, this post really hit home for me. I’m surprised by the lack of sympathy from others, because from my (and my step dad’s) perspective, he’s an extremely important person in my life. He also walked me down the aisle and it was very special for me to be walked by someone who stepped up and loved me like he has done. He chose me and welcomed me into his heart and gave me a paternal figure that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and that’s really special. It makes me a bit sad for your daughter that others are being so quick to buy into the idea that his biological daughter takes priority here. That’s not for a second to suggest he shouldn’t consider her feelings - I really do appreciate that it can be an incredibly complicated situation - but she’s also being weird and possessive and I don’t think that’s fair, or right. Father figures come in many forms and she should be proud to have a dad with a heart big enough to choose to parent a daughter he didn’t create!

All that to say, I think it’s kind of cool you feel so strongly about making sure your daughter isn’t sidelined. It really hurts when people pull the “biological” card. Although I guess even from my fairly biased perspective, it does sound like a SD problem rather than a DH problem, so I guess maybe it’s not totally fair to make it his fault. ❤️

It's absolutely insane that your husband is giving this any airtime, you have been married for 22 years so his daughter must be very much an adult!
I can't believe her mother came to tell your husband this instead of telling her how ridiculous she's being.
Ridiculous, of course he should be walking your daughter down the aisle, it's an honour that she asked him and a testament to how much she lives him and the role he's played in her life.

I'd back down on this one OP. Walk your daughter down the isle yourself. I'd also tell everyone why and his daughter would be dead to me from that point on. It's a horrible situation and unless your husband has really been a shit father to his own daughter and a great father to your daughter then his daughter is being completely unreasonable.

The DD has been very fortunate when it comes to DH, having him full time her life.
The role he has played in her life when he was missing from his own child’s life.

I don't think anyone would blame her for feeling upset, no one can tell her how to feel about it. But you didn't give your dad an ultimatum and threaten him with never seeing him again.

Where does it say he was missing from his own daughters life?