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.

You met these children when they were 7 and 10, your husband collected them 3 times per week and it appears they stayed over very little. They were polite to your daughter but it appears even back then, they were creating boundaries, which they are allowed to do.

You married their father but it doesn't make you their family. In an ideal world, you would all get on brilliantly, but it's real life. I think it would be obvious you wouldn't be getting called granny or auntie. It appears as if they don't think of the two of you like that. Again, that's allowed.

I would accept the boundaries they have created and move on. Speak to your daughter and try and create as little drama as you can so she can enjoy her wedding.
Your husband has made his decision to put his biological daughter first, as hard as that is, I agree with him.

It's a shame the families didn't merge better when these kids were younger, maybe you wouldn't be in this position.

Oh come on! What's the point in making such an extreme threat if you don't intend it to reach its target? She knows what her flying monkeys will have been up to.

Now that the threat extends to other aspects of the wedding, you really need to tell your DD. If I was her I'd be telling the spineless twat not to bother to turn up at all.

Right I have suggested to him actually via text while I was working, as he doesn’t want to speak about it as he becomes very emotional, that he asks her what her feelings are about him giving my daughter away but his response was that she would see the coincidence and know that mum and brother had spilled the beans.
A couple of weeks ago Stepson and daughter were playing with grandchild in garden and while SDiL and stepdaughter went shopping for impromptu BBQ. Stepdaughter came back with 0 alcohol stuff for my daughter as she knows what she likes unprompted. They are not bad people and they don’t not get on with her.
Stepson uses that nickname to refer to my daughter to grandchild.

The phrase Give her Away makes my stomach turn.

He’s between a rock and a hard place isn’t he? His dd being the rock and you being the hard place.

He has caused all of this I think - his unwillingness to deal with any of this and face the issues has made it like this

and don’t you think she may well be aware and that her mother and brother did this in order to try and prompt him to speak to her.

because frankly he should have done so at the start. Any decent father would be aware this could be an issue and raised it with her.

Breaking confidences is less important than fixing relationships. Your husband is hiding behind that as an excuse because he doesn’t want to face the situation.

It sounds like you are clear on a lot of things in your head, but maybe struggling with how your step-kids see you. I was struck by the grandchild knows we are not randoms comment.

So they are indifferent to your daughter but they are polite enough to take her drink of choice into account.

Is the dynamic akin to they treat you as family friends and as this polite but don’t see you as family & are not inclusive beyond a certain point? And they make a point about ensuring that dynamic is recognised?

And you are hurt by this? I’m not saying you are wrong to be btw emotions are just emotions.

Do you really think that, when SD comes to the wedding and DH does no father of the bride duties, but is there only as your plus one, she will believe that was his choice? Its a conventional thing for a stepfather to do, so everyone in the room will be wondering what on earth he did, to be cut out.

What's wrong with it? It's his child, he doesn't view OP or her daughter as his family. It's his decision, no one else's.

Initially I felt sorry for your DH being put in this position but as you've clarified further, I now think he is being willfully obstructive in refusing to talk to his daughter and I think you are not being at all unreasonable to be seriously pissed off at him. A hell of a lot is being said on her behalf. If this were my daughter I'd want to hear it from the horse's mouth. It seems the stepson is happy enough to pipe up on his own behalf and I think it ridiculous that his sister isn't being given the same opportunity with her father.
If she is not spoken to directly this situation is just going to grow even more arms and legs! Would you consider speaking to her yourself if your DH won't man up and do it?
I think all this betraying confidence stuff is a smokescreen for him just not being prepared to face the confrontation it involves. Ways have been suggested for it not to come across as "your mother/brother said.."

I don't think OP should wade in. This is a problem within DH's first family, and he should never have accepted a second-hand ultimatum in the first place. Its easy to say that now though, as they clearly caught him on the back foot. We've all been there!

If he bends to this request, there’ll be others down the line. I imagine he won’t be allowed to be called grandad by your daughter’s future children etc.

By no means was I suggesting this as the best course of action, just that someone talking to her directly might be better than no one.

Your husband seems to want to avoid all discussion with his daughter. Is he generally so confrontation avoidant or is his SD terrifying? She seems to have everyone trying to placate her while she doesn’t have to do a thing.

I am starting to see why your original post said this could be the end of your marriage if this is a pattern which has been in place for decades.

I dont get it. What does it matter if the ex told him in confidence. He doesn't owe her anything. He needs to discuss it with the daughter and cut the shit stirring ex off.

Came to say this, my friend’s mum
walked her down the the aisle recently, was lovely. You walk her down the aisle yourself, doesn’t have to be a man/father figure

Presumably OP doesn’t want this to blow up any more than it has in the weeks leading to her daughter’s wedding.

OP trying to force him to talk to his daughter/ talk to her herself could backfire massively and indeed destroy her own marriage and/or all family relationships completely. Then her daughter’s wedding becomes a miserable occasion and really does get ultimately ruined.

Because even as exes they have an amicable relationship, and she did go to him out of concern rather than malice?

This thought occurred to me, too. From the later updates it's hard to pin down precisely what is happening here: the only thing that does seem clear is that this whole situation appears very manipulative. It's also been very effective: information and ultimatums being delivered second-hand, DH tying himself in knots to work out exactly what's going on, his wife doing likewise, DH bending over backwards to appease his first family and divisions appearing within his second. Meanwhile SD sits serenely in the background and SD stirs the pot in what seems to be long-established habit. DD simply seems to be collateral.

I've changed my view on this and now think, OP, that having cooled down from your initial talk of divorce and discussed the situation more temporally, you are quite justified in being angry. I have some sympathy for SD's position as the pushed-out daughter, and do see where the posters writing from similar perspectives are coming from. But ex and SD have called the shots in such a way that things have the potential to get really ugly. Sabotaging someone's wedding as part of an elaborate 'pick me' dance is shameful behaviour, as is tanking the relationship between a father and his children. You're standing between these two unenviable positions; having been placed there by DH's ex and his DS with who knows what involvement from his DD.

You can't control what your DH does and I don't think it would be wise to interfere. But your DD is being made to suffer as another innocent party in a situation that's no more her fault than her stepsister's. It's your DH who bears ultimate responsibility for this. It's a mess, and there don't appear to be any clear answers. He clearly intends to capitulate fully to his first family's demands, and on their terms alone. You can only work around this as best you can, and decide for yourself once the dust has settled whether you can move on from this.

I'm sorry you are in such a difficult position.

Well thats an interpretation. It seems he cares more about placating his ex than keep an arrangement/promise hes made to his stepdaughter. Which I find odd. If you don't, each to their own.

It’s not about his Ex. She’s being the shot messenger here.

His picking his child over his wife’s child it’s just that simple.

Both of his children do not accept op or op’s child as family. Both clearly feel rejected / pushed out in favour of op’s child.

The grandchild isn’t op’s grandchild or op’s daughter’s nephew or niece they are “nick name” and “nicknames”. They were upset when op’s daughter used their surname. Apart from the sons 18months due to placement didn’t want to stay over. They called her daughter btec betty an insult to her.

This family never blended. Op is seen as dads wife and dads wife’s daughter.

The daughter is seen as a cuckoo by the children by their reactions to their dad playing dad.

I think you’re reading a hostility in the exes actions that isn’t there. That she’s a ex doesn’t inherently mean she has malicious intentions here, rather that she’s concerned for her daughter and her daughter’s relationship with her father, so she’s given him a head’s up in confidence. I also don’t think it automatically follows that he’s placating his ex rather than been given information that has caused him to change his mind about his role in his stepdaughter’s wedding. He isn’t without agency here.

What would confronting the daughter directly achieve exactly, beyond throwing a stick of dynamite into the situation? Do you imagine it will be all nearly resolved and he can walk his stepdaughter down the aisle with the blessing of his children? Unlikely. She’ll be mad at her mother and brother, her mother and brother will be mad at DH, DH will be mad at OP, and all the built up resentments between the DH, his children, OP and her daughter will come pouring out.

Yeah, happy wedding day, DSD!

That isn’t to say that there aren’t issues that need addressing, but you know, handling a situation delicately and being mindful as to timing is a thing.

OP I expect there are other reasons you may want to leave this man who permits other family to see you and your daughter as 'randoms' despite you being together for years? It's not just the control over the wedding is it, you know her DCs will probably be belittled?
My Step Nan was always just my Nan, she and her family were integrated into my family shortly before I was born when my Grandad married her. DC are taught how to value or not value people around them (and whether to use terms like Btec Betty).

What relationship with her stepfather?Doesn't appear she actually has one despite what she apparently thought.
Her step father has rejected her in favour of a foot stamping princess.