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.

MN is the only place where I have ever heard of anyone never getting into another relationship until their children are adults. Parents are actually allowed to have some happiness of their own, unrelated to their children.

I think you need to calm down and take a breath OP.

Firstly I think both your DD and SD need to be spoken to. DH needs to speak directly to your SD to see if what her mother has said is correct and if so to ask for some sort of explanation as to why she would issue such an ultimatum. Possibly jealousy that your DD grew up in a home with "her" dad while she did not. Surely your DH could then offer some sort of reassurance about how much he loves his daughter etc etc but how your DD's father is dead, so he is the only father figure she has. She may or may not see some sort of sense.

In the meantime talk to your own DD and tell her the score. It may be she wouldn't want her SF to be placed in such an unenviable position and might graciously tell him not to go ahead after all. In this case why can't you walk her down the aisle yourself? My sister did this at my niece's wedding (her DF is also dead) and no one batted an eyelid.
My own DD decided the whole thing was medieval and walked herself down the aisle 😂.
I think you need to play down the drama here. The wedding is still some time away and there is still lots of time for compromise. Try to think rationally and of how you can problem solve rather than kicking off yourself, which is at the end if the day in no one's interest.

I agree parents should wait a bit before moving in with someone new, but I think after a year (maybe a bit longer ) a couple might want to bring their life together ? A happy parent is a happy child. Children shouldn’t be allowed to think their parents world revolves around them. It’s not healthy . Was OPs DH suppose to live alone until his DD gets her own place ? Was OP supposed to live alone? It doesn’t sound practical or very nice.

I haven’t come across this view on MNs, it’s my own view, I didn’t think it was common.

I don’t know how I could move in with someone knowing my kids weren’t happy about it.

You can very easily have some “happiness of your own as an adult” without forcing your kids live with other people.

The stepdaughter is being unreasonable, and honestly nasty. Your daughter lost her dad and sees her stepdad as her father.
Anyone who makes someone choose isn't worth chosing.
Does your daughter know this is going on?

Her feelings are her responsibility. She's an adult. He loves his daughter and his stepdaughter and she needs to get over that.

Do the kids on all these countless MNs threads about step-parenting seem happy?

You don’t need to live with someone as an adult to be happy.

Kids are only kids for a short time. You still have your job, your friends etc. So your world doesn’t “revolve around them”, you’re just not forcing them to live with other people.

I completely agree @the7Vabo

And not one reply from the op…

What if you want to remarry though ? Are you supposed to remarry and live separately? Should a hypothetical 35 yo wait till they’re 50+ to life with their partner just because he has kids? What if you don’t want to live alone but with a partner? It can get lonely for some people coming home to an empty place when kids are at the exes. It’s also a pain going back & forth to your partner’s place , living out a suitcase etc , especially when you travel for work & then weekends you want to visit family or see friends but haven’t seen partner all week? 🤔

No, she evidently doesn’t.

No a happy parent does not equal a happy child. What a self centred view.

Well an unhappy parent doesn’t make a happy child

I’m not 100% on it myself but I think back to how deeply hurt I would have been as a young girl if my dad had moved in with another young girl.

I can’t help but think there’s a wounded child in SD screaming for her daddy.

MN is absolutely full of these kind of posts lately. One "exciting" post on a topic that will wind everyone up and cause a lot of differing or outrageous opinions, written very much in the style of a journo looking for an easy story....

I’ve been unhappy at time since being parent, I wasn’t telling my kids about it & they were happy as Larry.

I don’t mean it as a dig at you at all, but it does seem self centred.

Enough to make anyone livid, but here is the best revenge on a bad situation. Spend out on the ultimate of stunning and stylish, take your own daughter down the aisle and give her away, with the brightest smile you can achieve. Let your girl talk this through as much as she needs to with you and her partner, and then move forward with your plans. Let everyone know what has happened and then refuse to discuss it further. Make your daughter's special day absolutely lovely, enjoy the celebration for her and her partner and refuse to let this spoil it. And do not divorce him - this would delight the ex who I suspect is partly behind this and point scoring like mad. However, do get some couple counselling. You need to be able to address this as a partnership.

Why does she need to let anyone know what happened? She could just do exactly as you said walk her daughter down the aisle & people aren’t going to think anything of it, it’s a perfectly normal thing to do.

The Op immediately rushed to look out for her daughter going so far as to threaten divorce, but the ex can’t have a conversation about her daughter with the child’s father. Without being accused of point scoring. She might just be very concerned for her devastated daughter.

YANBU at all

You all sound unhinged

sobbing uncontrollably to my sister

Jesus wept. Get a grip.

Why is the daughter devastated. This needs to be addressed. Not by him nor doing it.

It implies quite a lot of bitterness. I wonder if his daughter feels he has been more of a father to his step daughter than to her. Would she have any justification for feeling that way?

He’s already decided that he isn’t going to go ahead and do something that will cost him his relationship with his child, and has told OP as much.

The poor man.
His daughter is being unreasonable, but so are you for threatening to divorce him. Sounds like he can't win.
I don't know why it came from his ex, but it sounds like he needs to sit down with his daughter and explain to her that he loves them both. Do the 2 daughters not get on at all then? If she's willing to cut him off over it, there's clearly some quite deep issues in their relationship. My Dad walked with my cousin because my uncle passed away and my sisters and I thought it was lovely. But we all have a good relationship with our Dad, assuming she's felt quite let down by him in some ways that this is her reaction.