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.

Your poor DH, he shouldn’t be put in this situation by his DD at all, but have some empathy for him and imagine how difficult this is for him now feeling torn between his own DD and SD that he has been good enough to raise as his own, and then having you add some extra pressure with crying and more ultimatums.

You have called your ex out for being a deadbeat dad, so do you seriously expect your DH to turn his back on his own DD for you and yours?
As a father he should not be willing to lose his relationship with his DD, to walk your DD down the aisle IMO.

Furthermore, would you be willing to prioritise the feelings of your SD over those of your own DD? As that is what you are now asking him to do. What would you do in your DH’s shoes?

You’ve not shown any interest in the feelings of your own SD in your post, about why she feels this way and how it can be resolved, do you care about that at all? If you expect your DH to consider your DD’s feelings so highly you should be willing to do the same for his DD, your SD.

Sounds like your SD is insecure in her relationship with her father for whatever reason, and it sounds like you couldn’t care less about that. Yes, she is being horribly unreasonable and selfish, but I feel like we are missing a lot of backstory here about why she has an issue and her ultimatum to me is hinting at some deep emotional pain somewhere.

It’s still unreasonable of her, but as PP have said parents separating and blended families raise a lot of complicated feelings for the children involved, particularly the ones who may feel they are losing a parent that a different child is gaining.

DH needs to have open conversations with SD about her feelings, seeing what reassurance she needs and trying to find a way that she knows she is loved and irreplaceable so she feels more comfortable with sharing her dad so that hopefully she will feel happy to let go of this horrible ultimatum, and your DH can walk your DD down the aisle as planned without risking his relationship with his own biological child.

Meanwhile you could support and reassure your DD that she is loved by DH, but he’s just been dropped in the middle of a shitty, unfair and impossible situation.

My eldest is my stepchild and I've never treated her any different to my dds.

When you have children your “right to find love again” should very much take a back seat. We’ve normalised finding love again at the expense of children IMO.

Wow, I'd take a view of this. Is there a male relative who could give your daughter away, like your dad, brother or uncle? And I would absolutely make a big deal about it. Like, SD wont be allowed anywhere near me, the selfish cow.

She basically trying to ruin your daughter's big day and your family and your DH lets her. Your daughter is absolutely your husband's daughter, and he should be proud of giving her away.

Hi OP,

What a horrible situation for you, your partner and your daughter to be put in.

Without any more context about your SD it's hard to really give advice here. One assumes there's years of jealousy and hurt sitting with his Daughter. What is their relationship like? Also why isn't your SD having this conversation herself with her Dad herself?

One would have hoped that Ex W could have talked some sense into her daughter and not been part of this manipulation. I agree with many posters that it sounds like there's years of resentment and hurt sitting with the SD but assuming she is an adult it is her responsibility to work through that herself, not to project that onto other people.

Surely your DH can walk both young women down the aisle? The woman getting married has had this man in her life for 22 years... it's not like they've known him for 5 minutes.

It's up to DH to make his bio DD feel loved, special, wanted and unique in her own right and to build that strong one-on-one bond with her. But in my opinion that doesn't mean the bio DD gets to dictate that her Dad doesn't walk your DD down the aisle. If he agrees to that then where does it stop "Her kids aren't allowed to call you Grandad or I'm never speaking to you again", "You're not allowed to spend Christmas Day at hers and not mine or I'm never speaking to you again"....

He has to make his own choice but I'd be encouraging him to make sure his DD feels secure in their father daughter relationship. If she truly did then she wouldn't have to make such threats.

I can imagine it feels really hurtful for you and your DD who have likely both given a lot to your DH and possibly his DD too.

Remember to breathe, think, pause, respond, don't react.... and don't divorce him over this...he will have been pushed into "guilt corner" by this and he needs your compassion more than ever xx

My feelings too

This! If he allows her to dictate this situation, what's to stop her saying that if he treats your DD's children as grandchildren, when she has any, he won't be allowed to see her children? What a ridiculous situation! He needs to see his daughter, and tell her that she's being ridiculous, and that he will not entertain BLACKMAIL which is what this is!

I understand it too.

I can feel the young girl emotion in me when I read it. If my dad has moved in with another girl and raised her he wouldn’t need to worry about aisle walking as I can’t imagine we’d have much of relationship due to my feelings of abandonment.

Well, OP’s DD isn’t her husband’s daughter, and he won’t choose her over his own.

Pretty shit of you to threaten divorce. How about supporting him in finding a solution?

Reading through some of these answers makes me weep.

Stepmums are so often told "Love them as if they're your own" and "Make your stepkids feel as important as your bio kids" but as soon as we are talking about a man and his SD it's all about his "real DD" and he's told "put your own kid first".

This is why we need to acknowledge the complexity across stepfamilies and let people talk more openly about it!

I really feel for everyone in this situation

The DD’s own dad is dead. Yeah, how fortunate.

she’s the one completely missing a dad. And we don’t know how present the dh was in his own daughter’s life. If she wants him walking her down the aisle he can’t have been a complete deadbeat.

i remember a classmate whinging about her dad and seeing him weekends. My own dad had died a couple of years ago before and I just remember thinking at least you still get to see your dad, he’s still alive.

i think it’s incredibly selfish denying her two minutes with her stepdad when the DD’s never had the opportunity to know her own dad.

Reading these threads I find more seems to be expected of SD. They are after all the ones living with the SCs. And it’s more often that they SC don’t have contact with their bio father so more is expected of SD.

Perhaps as a society we could consider putting more work into the relationship in which we had the child to lessen kids having to deal with all this. And not normalise mum & dad seeking another relationship while their kids are young.

That’s easy to do when you’re confident that said outcome won’t actually happen, or you truly don’t care whether you have a relationship with your child/ren or not.

He’s not prepared to lose his daughter.

I really feel for all of you. But you are being unreasonable to issue your own ultimatum.

Your DH walks your daughter down the aisle and loses his daughter.

Or your DH doesn't walk your daughter down the aisle and loses you.

How is he supposed to choose? If you put yourself in his shoes, surely you can see it's an impossible and unfair choice?

What needs to happen is dead beat (prior to death in this case) dads (parents) need holding accountable. There should be shame and social stigma in not being arsed with your own children.

If these men (parents) were all active in their children lives we wouldn’t keep seeing mums expecting step dads and their families to pick up the pieces.

Ready for sexist yada yada women also need to think of these issues when they decide to have more children when they already have one/some with a deadbeat as well rather than expecting rainbows and unicorns.

We’ve had huge problems with my sd resenting her dad’s role in my kids’ lives. She’s an adult now and hides it better but it’s still there.

Op even if your sd ‘wins’ this, it won’t end because she’ll want him to differentiate between their children when they have them, what he puts in his will..

He has to have a conversation with her, pointing out her that her step sister has never had another dad, but that doesn’t make him love her, his biological dd any less. He can love both of them.

‘Surely your DH can walk both young women down the aisle?’

In an ideal world, maybe, but not in this one.

She doesn’t get to tell him what he can and cannot do, but she can choose to walk away from her relationship with him if he goes ahead and walks his stepdaughter down the aisle at her wedding. He cannot dictate to her that she gets over it, or remains in his life.

Wanting something to be a certain way, and not wanting to have to choose between things, does not mean they are that way, or that you can have all that you want.

I can't believe his daughter and ex are this spiteful and vindictive. Why is he letting them call the shots in his life?

The ultimatum is horrible but I don't think you can ignore the impact on your DH's daughter growing up in the wings while her dad lived full-time with another little girl and did all the things with this child that he couldn't do with her while she was living at her mum's. It's therefore easy to see why her dad walking her down the aisle means so much to her. It's such a uniquely special moment between father and daughter.

It sounds like your DH realises that, so threatening to divorce him for not doing what you want is incredibly unfair. I would walk my daughter down the aisle myself and let him, as her stepdad, make the father of the bride speech instead.

The OP won't be coming back -is happening more and more these days on MN. One post and never returns 👀

You’re upset by wedding drama and ultimatum, so you’ve created your own drama and ultimatum. Don’t get swept along by high expressed emotions don’t make ultimatum
women arent possessions to be given away. Father giving daughter away dates back to when a father was essentially transferring ownership from himself to new husband eg give away
Ultimatum are a terrible strategy, and it can quickly escalate

It’s like, two minutes out of your entire lives and so, so tiny in the scheme of things. Are you sobbing uncontrollably about something bigger? Because I don’t want to minimise your pain but it surely can’t be about just this 💐

No he didn’t but he became my “dad” when my dad committed suicide in our home.

i stayed over with them most weeks, went on holiday with them, he helped me with homework, he gave me lifts to places, picked me up, gave me money to do days out with friends as my mum couldn’t afford much.

so no I didn’t have him life with me because that would have been weird (and I don’t think my aunt would have been too pleased) but my cousin did sacrifice a lot as an only child , their life was turned upside down when my dad died too.

Since he lived full time with OPs daughter from a very young age as opposed to his own child, she has hardly been 'missing a Dad' has she?

SD has had to witness him living with and raising another woman's child full time, whilst probably only seeing him a couple of times a week herself. She's not being selfish, she's probably suffering years of built up resentment and jealousy.