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.

I honestly don't know anyone in RL who would care about this at all. The only thing I've ever thought was a bit different was when I saw someone walk down the aisle with their dog, but even that was sweet in its own way. Although I was worried the dog would dirty her dress 😳

I find it funny that hypocrisy was mentioned earlier because that was thought too but in a different way.

I cannot count the number of times I have seen women here tell other women that you do not have to love your stepchildren, only treat them with care and respect. Most certainly I have seen many, MANY posters say that no matter how much they care or even love their step kids, it is not comparable to what they feel for their own...which I suppose is natural and understandable.

So WHY is it such a shock that a man might feel the same way about his own child?

And how can people not see that the SD's request, selfish as it may seem on the surface, is so much bigger than about who walks who down the aisle? Just think about it? How painful it must be to see your parent be a full-time parent to another child, to have that other child living full-time in what may have been your home while you are now an occasional guest. That sounds incredibly painful and yes, this is not an ideal way of dealing with those old hurts and resentments but it seemed like neither adult put in the work back then to truly sort these issues.

It's so obvious even from OP's biased account that OP's husband put more energy and time into his new family, whilst hardly prioritising his own children. And where was OP in treating her stepkids as her own when they didn't even want to spend the night at their father's house and none of the adults really tried to understand why or fix this?

I do feel sorry for the DD and if were her, I'd probably have spoken to my SS first but this is just another example of how blended families are not always as happy as they appear to be.

Peopel will notice , off course they will , hopefully they won’t say anything in the day but there will be gossip about it so personally I think op should just be honest with anyone asking . Why lie ? It’s DH and DSD who are in the wrong

Exactly this, that's why this thread has me baffled. DH is expected to put his SD above his own daughter. This has never been suggested on any other thread I've seen.

The rest of the world doesn’t share any singular viewpoint, and what is normal in your social circle is in no way normal for everyone. I genuinely do not know anyone irl that would bat an eyelid at this, but then the whole ‘must treat them as your own’ ethos is not something I’ve readily encountered in step families either.

I hope your daughter has a beautiful wedding day 💜

Personally, I am baffled why anyone thinks DH is relegating his own DD to a lower status by simply walking the fatherless woman, he has helped raise, down the aisle.

Again, I really hope the OP's daughter uninvites the noxious SD and sibling.

The excuses trotted out over the feelings of the SD are stretches at best. This is about spite and exerting complete control over part of an event they wish to sabotage.

If either of my daughters behaved like this I would laugh and suggest they take themselves off for a proper think. However, I am certain that they aren't capable of this level of malice over what is, just a nice gesture.

OP, please tell us this bitch of a step-daughter is not invited to your daughter’s wedding?

@moveoveralice 👏 Couldn't agree more.

I have my own children and I have SC. I can hand on heart say that none of the children would ever act like this, and neither would we allow it.

I guess it's because I feel sorry for SD. It must be really hard to lose your Dad and see him playing happy families with someone else. Adults are messed up later in life over much more trivial things than this. This really demonstrates there are some major underlying issues that haven't been resolved. It was also the OPs way she spoke of the whole situation and about SD. Initially I did think SD was a bitch, and I still think it's sad she couldn't be the bigger person but I wonder how your upbringing was to end up like that 🤷🏼‍♀️

No one is being a bitch and no one is being nasty this is just what happens when blended family issues are not properly addressed. It’s clear the OP DH has buried his head in the sand about his responsibilities in blending them together and has never probably fixed the obvious issues his children has.
the OP clearly understandably favours her daughter and what’s her needs to be

leaving a broken family with a lot of issues and weddings have a habit of bringing them to the surface

I guess I feel sorry for DD. Her dad died and she has to watch her stepdad doing all the fatherly things with his dd, driving home the point she doesn’t have a dad.

my dad died as a child. These events which he should be there for, my wedding, my child, hit hard.

i didn’t want to walk down the aisle on my own. I didn’t want to walk with my mum either. If you’re going traditional, wrongly or rightly, this just seemed wrong. I have no brothers, no uncles I’m close to. They have their own kids anyway so from this thread it would have been a massive no no to ask them.

so right from the start I couldn’t have the wedding I wanted. We ended up at Gretna green with strangers as witnesses. I still mourn the lovely church wedding and wedding dress I never got to have.

i have missed out on so much with no dad. If the SD can’t see that she is lucky to still have a living dad and has no empathy for her step sibling, well it’s not someone I’d want a relationship with.

i know it’s not top trumps in these situations but come on, I’d have gone for my dad leaving over dying every day.

That's fair, and I totally see where you're coming from. Tbh the adults here are the ones at fault for creating such a dysfunctional family, and I think it's safe to say that there won't be any relationship between the stepsiblings anyway, not that there ever was. I'm sorry for your loss.

@Whatsgoingonherethenagain I don't think the DD dad has died, he is just not in her life.
From what I interpret, it's the SD who had to watch her dad doing things with the DD.

Not to sound harsh, it's not the same thing.
It does not involve the same feelings and resentment to people that are around and involved in your life.
I actually wouldn't have had any issues with my dad walking a cousin down the aisle because again it's just different.
Perhaps proper expectations should have been explained to OP's daughter when she 'chose' to have nothing to do with her fathers family because she decided SF was 'her' dad. Maybe there was a few uncles on that side who could have done the deed....

Also i think you'll find that it was the daughter watching her father have a normal life with the step daughter going by OP posts.

Having discussed this post with my hubby ( he is a step dad to my daughter since she was 3 and we have another daughter together) he looked at me like if I was crazy for even asking . In his words if this was ever an issue then he would put her right in his place and would be told to get over herself . There is no way he would tolerate this level of blackmail but as you say none of our kids or stepkids would do this . They all have been brought up better and if they did then they would have the consequences for it .

It’s in the o/p

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

Your situation is quite different. Not only does your DH not have another bio daughter elsewhere outside the household who he spends much less time with than a DSC, but you say he's been a very involved father.

There have been a number of posts from people in blended families saying this would never happen with them and their DH is a great dad/stepdad. They're all missing the point, because this DH isn't.

Apologies.
I feel sorry for the daughter having no relationship since she was young with her father, although I do disagree with you on your point you made feeling sorry she sat watching her stepdad doing things with his own daughter. I don't get that vibe that this is what happened in this blended family. If anything, it sounded as if the SD has little to do with her father.

These posts from people trying to be all no nonsense saying “Well DH and I would NEVER stand for that from our kids - they would be told straight!” make me laugh. Because they’re all immediately caveated with “But of course, my kids would never behave like that”. So if you’re 99% certain this situation would never happen to you, how do you actually know how you’d handle it?

I reckon a lot of you might feel very differently if your child actually told you they’d be really hurt by this, to the point of it being a deal breaker.

Also a lot of them are misunderstanding the situation and comparing it to themselves and their cousins, or older stepsister, when they were raised with their dad living with them full time. So completely irrelevant!

The whole of the 'rest of the world' doesn't hold one hegemonic viewpoint. In many cultures it's not customary for women to relinquish their names on marriage, for example. It's now far more common for couples to retain their names, double-barrell or portmanteau into a new one. Same with brides walking into venues with their mums, together with their grooms or on their own, or to make speeches at their own receptions rather than sitting in silence looking decorative.

That it's expected in some quarters for 'traditions' to be upheld is to my mind good enough reason for not upholding them. As modern weddings show , they are increasingly not being upheld, because there is no one 'correct' way to do these things. In 2025, I suspect that the absence of a male to walk a bride to her groom is unlikely to invite comment, gossip and speculation.

Cultures evolve.

Yep! What we have here is a child who didn't get to live with her father whilst another child did. A man living with his DC and DSC and doing a good job with both is not the same thing.

@CrazyCatMom that is different. Both girls are your daughters and they are legitimately sisters. They have been raised together, in the same house with the same father. There is no need for resentment.

Op's stepdaughter was at least partially abandoned by her father, while he was a full-time, live-in parent to another girl. He is tolerating her behaviour because he knows he fucked-up and let her down. It doesn't sound like your husband has any compensating to do, and under your girls' circumstances it doesn't sound like anyone has been hard done by because of your husband's actions.

If OPs husband were to pick his stepdaughter over his real daughter (in her mind), it would understandably be the final nail in the coffin. He might be a good stepfather, but he would be an absolute bastard of a father if he didn't concede this to her now. She clearly has been damaged by the situation and this is how it is manifesting. It's weird how so many people are glossing over the fact that he may have been a bit of an inadequate father in order to judge this poor woman for the trauma she has suffered because of him, OP and OPs daughter usurping her, in her mind.

Because he’d be sharing a special father-daughter moment with someone that isn’t his daughter. It has a deeper meaning for her than it does for you, clearly. That OP’s daughter fatherless is irrelevant, it doesn’t mean her stepdaughter is required to be okay with him doing that.

You failing to comprehend that her motivations could be anything other than spite and/or a desire to sabotage and control reflects only a lack of imagination on your part. Not even OP thinks this is about spite, and she actually knows the girl.