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.

He is being put in an impossible position, What does your daughter think?

Why is she an 'awful awful human'?

What has she actually done? According to the OP the daughter hasn't made contact

The mother is supporting her daughter by warning the father so it doesn't get out of control and he can speak to his daughter

The OP is the one throwing ultimatums and threats of divorce around not the daughter

Unless OP would like to comeback to clarify some details ...

Wow your stepdaughter sounds like a spoiled, manipulative and vindictive little cow! She is being very unreasonable.

As for your ultimatium @WickedMotherofthebride thats also unreasonable to put your husband in this position where whatever choice he makes it has bad consequences for him but I understand why you're so upset by this. OP think it through carefully because if you decide to divorce you're playing right into SD's hands no doubt she will love that you divorced her dad its a win win situation for her.

Personally OP I think you should walk your DD down the aisle yourself. However the SD's utter nastiness would damage the relationship beyond repair for me.

I wouldn't invite the SD to the wedding either now as I can imagine she would sit there being smug and smirking she got her own way with the bonus she gets a front row seat to see the upset she caused and I would bet my last tenner SD would expect to attend your DD's wedding too so I'd make this 100% clear to your DH and if he protests tell him his nasty DD can't have it both ways.

After this I would completely cut the relationship dead with SD, don't ever do anything for her again after this including going to her wedding if she has one in future. Don't do anything nice for her again no matter how small a favour, SD has shown her true colours so take her at face value because she can't have her cake and eat it too. She's freed you of any obligation to her by behaving so bloody nasty.

I would also point out to your husband that if whilst its his choice if he gives in to this emotional blackmail and manipulation it will set a precedent and where does it end? What if your DD has children will your SD demand he not be called grandad? Will she demand he 'prove' his bio grandchildren are favoured? Once SD realises emotional blackmail will result in her getting her own way her behaviour will get 10 times worse.

Of course she’s not an awful human, she’s just human.

As a young girl she had to deal with her parents splitting up and then her dad went and got himself another family.

If he prioritised his children and at least not moved in with the Op until his kids were adults his kids could have felt prioritised and had somewhere to stay with their dad.

Because she’s an adult who’s decided to ruin her step sisters wedding for the sake of it. If my adult child expected me to pass this ultimatum on to my ex I’d tell them to grow up and stop being such a spoiled brat.
Op I think your only option is to walk your daughter down the aisle yourself, if I were you daughter though the stepsister would no longer be invited.

Could it be an idle threat from step daughter? Is she really going to cut her dad off over this? She might be angry & hold a grudge but she’ll get over it .

Then again, can’t OP suggest walking her daughter down the aisle ? That might be nice, why shouldn’t it be mum? It’s 2025 not the old days !

I wouldn't give it dramatics like this and wouldn't do this to anyone else

His Daughter is bonkers. Maybe if her wedding was on the same day and he was making a choice between them then she’d have a point, but walking his Stepdaughter down the aisle in no way diminishes his ability to do the same with his Daughter, if and when she marries.

Personally I walked down the aisle with my Husband as it’s tradition in his home country and suited us. Perhaps your Daughter would consider that?

We have all have to deal with painful things in our lives unfortunately thats life. The OP's DD had a useless twat for a father who has now died why does the SD feelings trump the OP's DD feelings?

Why should the OP's DH not meet and move on after divorce because it might upset his kids? By your logic then the SD mother shouldn't also move on with another partner then so her children feel prioritised too. Also where did the OP state his kids aren't prioritised? We don't know if her DH is a useless dad although judging from the OP's post he treats her DD like his own so its a safe assumption that he is a good dad if he loved a child who wasn't biologically his like his own children.

My mum walked me down the aisle. It was lovely.
My dad (they were divorced) confirmed his position as a complete idiot by refusing to attend at all, I can only assume because of that.
I don't know though because he never spoke to me again. That was in 1993.

1,300 + votes and 19 pages of responses, but nothing worth OP coming back to reply to.

You ask fantastic questions but we don’t know the answers what we do know is that what sounds like a good husband and father is doing his best to navigate this weird old world and is being threatened and punished from all sides . And that doesn’t mean I don’t empathise with the OP I do very much - when you love people, perceived slights really hurt.

Certain things can’t be chalked up to “that’s life” illness, car accidents etc. Things outside of people’s control.

The SD doesn’t have to sacrifice her feelings about her own father because DD’s father let her down. It’s not a matter of “trumping” the two things aren’t related.

Why would you, after putting your kids through dealing with a divorce then go and move in with a woman and her daughter. What message does that send to your kids about how much your prioritise them? You put your kids first as far as I’m concerned and if you don’t want to do that, don’t have kids.

Want romance? Wait until your kids are established in their own lives.

You walk her down the aisle

’That’s life’ also applies to OP and her DD not getting what they want.

“why does the SD feelings trump the OP's DD feelings?“

Because her father has decided they do.

What does the Bride-to-be think, or does her opinion not matter? Perhaps she'll be the adult to make a sensible decision. It is her day after all.

I agree , divorce doesn’t mean you can’t move on with your life and have a normal life of your own living with someone new.

Catch yourself on, giving him an ultimatum like this - not helpful in the slightest.

I have a family relative in the exact same position of his DD, she’s so hurt by it. You walk your own daughter down.

WE have no knowledge of the SDD life in her Dads new family, issues, behaviours etc. There must be some background to this.

How anyone on this thread can call this woman the names they ahve without knowing the background is pathetic.

SDD has a right to her feelings with regard to her Dad. OP may not agree with them but this is all about her daughter and no consideration for the other daughter who obviously did not like the "happy" set up as much as others.

There are two villains in this story, IMO.

One of them is his DD, the other is you.

Clearly his DD is being an utter cow here, but your threats to divorce him if he doesn't effectively cut off his DD for yours is just vile behaviour.

Poor bloke is being emotionally blackmailed from all angles.

I hope your DD is more mature and level headed, for his sake.

While I hate anything relating to weddings like this I can understand why the SD feels this way. She is wrong to issue an ultimatum as she should be mature enough to talk about her feelings with her dad.

How about both girls have something special each that is different to each other so that they both have something unique that the other doesn't have with their dad and that might help the jealousy feeling here.

In the USA they have father/daughter dances. Could you DD have this instead? Then she gets her special time with him and both girls are happy?

It’s such an enormous thing to ask of a kid to effectively share their parent(s) with another family, and then have to deal with that family when they want to see their parent.

Well yes the kid should be able to see their parent alone if they want, but not to the extent of trying to isolate parent from their life / new partner etc

I think we has it backwards though. Why can’t a parent wait a few years to move in with a partner? Why can’t the parent prioritise living with the child and visiting/dating their partner, That way the child gets a more normal relationship with their parent, they don’t have to live with people they don’t know.

“Isolate parent from life” - your child should be your top priority in life.

We expect too much from children.

Imagine if my son said to me if you want to see me I’m actually moving in with a new family, you can stay of course but you’ll obviously have to fit into that life even though you miss me and life when I lived with you, you don’t understand what happened & you’re angry & sad.