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.

Op I’m so hurt on your behalf. You have treated his children like your family as well as accepting that they aren’t blood related. For your daughter it must be so painful for it to be so forcibly highlighted to her that she will never truly belong to his family. I get his daughter not wanting her special moment with her dad to be taken away ie walking down the aisle but it seems the wider family don’t. Insider your daughter as part of them at all. So sad and needless

A wedding in Italy Bit of irony there. A very family orientated country where eyebrows would be raised at your stepdaughters request.

Im half Italian so i know exactly what the reactions would be

Considering how much the children and his family made it very clear you are just wife and she wife’s daughter and his relationship kept quite separate, grandchildren / nephew not allowed to call aunty or granny how your daughter or you still or ever believed that she was accepted by them or that he would pick your ultimatum over his daughters originally.

His failed as a dad and husband. Because he allowed you and your now adult child to build
up this idea of him as her dad with not full intentions.

His failed his children with his ex because it’s been shown all along how they feel and his just basically shrugged his shoulders and kept family apart unless it benefited one of his children.

Id bet those tears telling your daughter were more for himself feeling shit than for letting her down after agreeing.

I think her idea of her mother and father both walking her down the aisle is another big fat fuck you tbh as well as the child girl inside her longing still for what she lost as a child from her parents separation.

as the child girl inside her longing still for what she lost as a child from her parents separation.

Yes, that is quite telling isn’t it? She clearly still has issues about her parents splitting up. It would be more than unusual to want both your long divorced parents to walk you down the aisle together.

Is the step daughter invited to the wedding? Is she coming?

You shoukd walk your daughter down the aisle, you are her mother and the only constant in her entire life to-date. It would be wonderfull

OP, despite how hard this is, you are clearly handling it with grace. I hope your daughter has a truly wonderful wedding. My mum walking me down the aisle was special and remains one of my favourite memories. In the end I didn't cry that my father had passed (over a decade before), or thought about what I didn't have. I got caught up in the beauty and magic of what I did have. I think she will be the same and it will be a proud and beautiful moment that you will both cherish forever.