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.

And another child watching the other have a relationship with both her biological mum and dad. Which she doesn’t and can never have.

I understand the step sister may be pissed off, but she doesn’t appear have one scrap of empathy for a child who has lost her father as a teenager.

maybe she should think for one second how she’d feel if her dad had died.

This doesn't relate to the post you've quoted, which is about how the posters who are talking about their own DHs are missing the point.

Regardless of what you think of the behaviour of any of the people in this situation, people citing men who are good fathers and good stepfathers are not comparing like with like. This DH isn't one of those.

Come on now, they weren't close She hadn't even seen him for 7 years? Again people are comparing different things.

Hear hear Im so sorry about your dad I lost my lovely dad to prostate cancer last October. He was 88 so i had him until my fifties and he did give me away at my wedding. Miss him very much.

Yes do do know how I would handle it and I know how hubby would handle it , we also have adult children already , we are a united front when it comes to big decisions and hubby absolutely will not be blackmailed , in a case like this I would probably deal with better than him as there is no way he would put up with this sort of ridiculous behaviour .
If this was to happen in the future he 100% would reply , “ I love you very much but I’m still doing it “ , I don’t think the kids would cut contact with him that easily as they are very close to us anyway .

There is a history of the step children declining to stay, the cruel quips about B-Tech Betty and now this demand... I would guess they have disliked the OP's dd since first meeting.

I do not lack imagination, I lack tolerance for petty bull shit.

You invest a lot of time in these threads @InterIgnis. I have recognised your name all over another similar thread too recently.

Even if pp's are making comparisons that aren't entirely the same, I suspect they are a lot more genuine on this that you are being. Just a hunch.

You can so tell the posters that would be blaming the victim for standing up to the bully if this was a school bullying scenario. The same mentality can be seen clearly.

@InterIgnis Bet if it was the bride to be who had used the term BTec Betty you would be all over it

Nope. Teenagers giving shitty nicknames to other teenagers they don’t like is not something I’m inclined to react with horror at, regardless of the direction it’s going in.

I’m not claiming they like her, but I’m not going to definitively claim they’re acting in malice either. Op has described them as being indifferent, and like I said - she actually knows them.

and yep! It’s a topic that interests me, and has since I worked in a field where I routinely came into contact with stepfamilies. Whether you think I’m genuine or not is not my concern 🤷🏻‍♀️

Who wrote this?

How is a couple (not just a bride!) having the wedding they want demonstrative of a lack of autonomy?
A lack of autonomy would be them having the wedding according to someone else’s preference, regardless of their own

What have I said here that contradicts that?

I was under the impression that they called her that behind her back. Not to her face. Not to bully her. It's unfortunate that she found out. It just sounds like they didn't like her. Plenty of stepchildren don't like each other. There are grown adults on this thread who are also calling people names.

Ur dh is not a man, his daughter is a spoilt pathetic brat. How does walking ur daughter take anything away from step daughter? Its just like when a dad has multiple
daughters and walks them all at their weddings, I doubt the first born would kick off about it.

You're the one making personal attacks and quoting people from other threads, but you're accusing them of being bullies?

Some people here are just being empathetic towards the step daughter and saying the way OP and her husband behaved during their childhood has created this scenario.

If I had stepchildren and they never came to the house and had a mean nickname for my child, I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd understand they were coming from a place of hurt and resentment and push my husband to fix it. I don't think OP cared at all how his children felt as long as she and her daughter were happy.

Then your child would likely feel resentment towards you for doing fuck all about it.

@WickedMotherofthebride would you mind confirming this please

Resolving the resentment would actually resolve that issue, vs getting their dad to have a go at his children, compounding the issue and pushing them away.

@JenniferBooth sounds that way to me. OP probably has a lot on her mind right now but can confirm or refute if she can be bothered

My stepdaughter is not my favourite woman at the moment but what she isn’t is controlling or a bitch! She most definitely is not jealous of my daughter.
She simply doesn’t want my husband having a father daughter moment with my daughter.
Someone said that she should be told that my daughter is equal to her in her father’s eyes , even I don’t think that.
My husband is an excellent stepfather and father. My stepchildren did have their own rooms and we saw them often and they saw their father and wider family on their own.
I don’t know what people think my husband should have done, forcibly remove a tween and teen from their mother, friends, two little half-siblings (later a third) and hobbies to make them live with us half the time? He saw them several times a week. I think the fact that they still see him frequently proves they love him.
I obviously love them too , not like their mother does or how I love my daughter. I actually get on very well with my stepson who lived with us for about a year and a half when he had a placement near us. I definitely love his little boy. They have little in common with my daughter but they aren’t horrible to her.
BTec Betty was something they apparently called her behind her back but never to her face.
I don’t see how playing father of the bride to my daughter would impact my stepdaughter but there it is. I have never thought that her motivation was to sabotage my daughter’s day. My daughter kind of howled when she was told, she was so upset.
I actually don’t think stepdaughter would stop seeing her dad if he did go against her wishes but she would be very hurt.
What I am hurt about is that her vision for her wedding is in Italy where her mother and stepfather had a house and both parents walk in with the bride, so it’s not even a traditional father of the bride that she is essentially stopping my daughter from having.

When it became obvious that my daughter wasn’t going to be an auntie to my husband’s grandchild she was upset and we both did have a chat that it was unlikely that her children would be allowed to call him Grandpa as she herself wasn’t invited to call my in-laws anything other than their names. Then when he began to speak he invented these names for us. My daughter then thought it was kind of sweet and unique and she would encourage her children to make up a name for my husband.
i really like my husband’s sister-in-law and she loves weddings and was asking my daughter all about the plans etc.
When it became obvious that husband’s brother and sister-in-law were invited SiL seemed shocked that they were being invited and while I really like her it kind of annoyed me that they don’t see her as a niece and it didn’t occur to them that they’d be invited.
No pleasing me is there?

No idea where the paragraphs went.

It appears from what you've wrote, your husband's family like you and your daughter but don't consider you close or like blood relatives.
I would draw a line under this and accept, although hard, the decisions made and move on. His children feel differently about you and your DD and that's OK. There seems to be mostly respect between you all and sometimes that's good enough, especially in blended families.
I hope your daughter enjoys her wedding and doesn't let it spoil it for her. I did support the SDs decision but can acknowledge how difficult it must be for your DD.
I'm also glad you came out to support your SD, for some of these comments were ridiculous.

From your update it’s clear that your husband’s family don’t see you and your daughter as relatives. I’m married and have a son who’s biological dad hasn’t met him, my blended family doesn’t feel like family to me and my son either, I have a step daughter and although they are civil her and my son don’t call each other step brother or sister. That’s fine and it works for us.
I can’t stand the phrase step mum and have never called myself one, my step daughter would introduce me as her dad’s wife and I introduce her as my husband’s daughter. My son is the same with my husband.
What would annoy me in your position though is that it sounds like your husband has let your daughter become comfortable in believing he’d treat her as a daughter on her wedding day. Only to dismiss this relationship at the request of his daughter who regardless of anyone else’s opinion in my opinion has been really mean and petty, how long has your daughter been engaged? It sounds like she’s waited until the wedding was all planned until bringing it up as an issue, you said your husband and his daughter are close so why not raise this years ago?