Cousin wants us to stage intervention on behalf of stepdaughter

[SweetSouberry]

One of my cousins is married with two children, older than toddlers, and his brother is getting married. They are invited and older one is the flower girl.

His wife’s 14 year old daughter is not invited. She lives with cousin for the last eight years.

She does have a relationship with her biological father but this is relatively new.

This cousin’s brother is getting married and essentially Cousin with stepchild has asked us to threaten to boycott wedding unless step niece is invited.

I am going to do no such thing but I am tempted to say something but my DH and siblings say not to.

My aunt is distraught but blaming cousin with stepchild not groom.

Fair enough if cousin with DSD wants to boycott due to the non-invitation. They are BU to try and involve anyone else in it though.

Indeed. Described them as “utter wankers” whom they have contempt for, yet still attended without the child. And then proceeded to bitch about the wedding itself.

@LemondrizzleShark OMG! Was autocorrect! Their friend was singing not signing!!!

I attended the wedding without my son as he couldn't give one shiny shit. And was actually relieved not to go! A long boring day for a 14 year old lad.

But you both make a good point, would I have gone if he was upset? Hmmmm I don't know. Probably not. Made my excuses and just let my DH go.

Yeah actually def not. Wouldn't have left him all alone and upset while we all went without him! But as I said he couldn't give a flying hoot.

Has he asked his brother why? Are there issues with the 14 year old’s behaviour? OP shouldn’t get involved as it’s nothing to do with her. She should go to the wedding and not say anything about the groom’s choice.

Your cousin getting married is a dick.

Yes, you can invite whoever you want to your wedding etc etc. but if you exclude a child who’s been living full time with your brother for 8 years since they were 6, you should expect that brother to not be happy about it. I’m not surprised the brother isn’t going.

Whether I brought it up would depend on the relationship. If I was close to the cousin getting married I might. Otherwise I wouldn’t, but I would give my honest opinion (maybe wouldn’t use the words “you’re a dick”) if asked.

Exactly. Has he actually said anything to the groom? Or is he just trying to send you to be the messenger and going to stay silent himself?

Id have some sympathy with the family whose oldest chid
was excluded because unless she has behaved badly or there is a good reason, it is mean not to invite her. But then going around your family trying to get everyone to boycott your bothers wedding is much worse, so they are both arseholes.

Very small minded. We actually attended my husband's stepmother's remarriage. (She'd been widowed when my husband's father died.) She unblushingly introduced me as her daughter-in-law. Lovely ceremony and we were just pleased she had met somebody who made her happy.

OP isn't going to boycott the wedding, but she certainly shouldn't take the side of the horrible groom who has excluded a child that has been part of his brother's family for eight years.

Why on earth would OP's cousin accept his step-daughter, his children's sister, being deliberately excluded from his brother's wedding? He is obviously supporting his wife and demonstrating that his step-daughter is an integral part of the family.

If OP isn't going to advocate for the inclusion of her cousin's step-daughter, she shouldn't get involved at all.

This. It is awful to exclude one child from the household. Just awful. The groom needs to be spoken to firmly and ask what on earth he is thinking.

But his parents should have done that already. I would hit the roof with mine if he did that to his brother’s stepchild.

The issue is there is no indication the cousin himself has said anything to the groom or has threatened not to attend.

He has agreed for his younger child to be a flower girl.

So the question is whether he’s using OP to cause trouble whilst keeping quiet himself.

It's your own cousin getting married. If it were my cousin then I'd call and ask him why he was doing it, and explain I had concerns about him blowing up the relationship with his brother's family. It wouldn't be a conversation about threatening to boycott the wedding, but telling him clearly that no "principle" they've concocted is worth losing his brother over.

I think I would just ask the groom if it was intentional. Say the step daughter feels left out. I think sometimes it doesn’t occur to people stepkids want to go to weddings - especially teens.

If it was my BIL I would tell him straight it’s very unkind. Maybe the bride and groom don’t have children and don’t understand? Give them a chance to reflect and maybe change their mind. If they didn’t I would let the brother (stepfather) attend with the biological family and then stepdaughter and wife / dm do something lovely together for the day. But it would leave a sour taste.
it might be more effective rather than threaten to boycott just to say you think it’s a bad thing to do and could they reconsider

Is it a no children wedding - with the exception of flower girls?
If so that changes things.

This makes no sense — surely the cousin and his wife simply said, once no invitation arrived for the 14 year old, ‘Well, we won’t be attending either, and our daughter won’t be your flower girl’? Thereby making their position plain, supporting their teenager, and removing the need to try to drum up an extended family boycott.

No sign of the op answering any of the questions asked.

If you're close to the groom, I'd have a conversation. Why would anyone want to make their own family so unhappy?

I'm not sure tbh.

If you decided not to go to the wedding on account of their shitty decision not to invite the stepdaughter, then I guess that would be the end of your relationship with the cousin that's getting married, and perhaps with your aunt as well.

Having said that, do you really want a relationship with people who can be so fucking nasty to a 14yo child in any case?

The bit I don't understand is how the cousin with stepdaughter is still talking about his other dc being flowergirls. Surely that option must be off the table now?

The groom is an arsehole and I would say something. I would consider boycotting too.

excluding a child is horrible

that was so complicatedly written I have no clue who cousin -brother -dads /stepdaughter toddlers -teen -aunt -stepdad -groom is

but …. If a stepchild is being excluded it’s very unkind and someone should have a quiet word and try to get her an invite

id not go as far as stage an intervention ur boycott the wedding unless i was the parent or step parent of the child

i hate it when adults do this to step kids - they will remember the slight

I haven’t got any updates as I am not seeing my mother until tomorrow.

Everybody’s children, including mine are invited.

it appears that Cousin 2 AKA the groom had had nothing to do with planning and his fiancée’s entrance in the family coincided with step-niece rekindling relationship with her dad so it wasn’t really thought necessary to invite her but it seems Cousin 1 AKA step father and his wife went in all guns blazing instead of gently asking, and made demands re wedding and this rubbed the bride and groom up the wrong way.

I like both of these cousins but we see each other with spouses now rather than just family, so it would be odd to just arrange something with Cousin 2. I like the stepdaughter as well.

The female cousin from uncle has been texting me about the mess but won’t say anything.

My aunt and uncle I know have reservations not with characters or behaviour or anything but with the future of their house which they worked all hours to buy.

The flower girl business isn’t something I have even thought about. I don’t know the repercussions of this. I think she would be going into Reception in September so must know that the elder girl had another dad and isn’t related to Cousin2??? I do know that she was asked well before the invitations landed.
Cousin1 was asked to be Best man as well.

A mess and another example of a groom not paying attention or this would not have happened.

It sounds like nobody has behaved well here and it's going to end up with a long term falling out regardless. That said, the groom is the one that started it so I would put him as the more culpable (I don't buy the "nothing to do with me guv" act. It's highly unlikely he didn't have some say or at least visibility re the guest list).

That said the brother should have approached it in a more considered manner initially, rather than all guns blazing.

I don't understand the comment about your aunt/uncle's house? What is the concern there and what has it to do with all this?

Anyway, based on your update, and given their own sister is staying out of it, I would leave well enough alone. If the brother asks, I would say how you feel re the sd (e.g. I think she should have been invited if that's what you think). Same if the groom asks - I wouldn't be pretending his behaviour was ok.

It's a total mess and there will be bad feeling regardless. The brother may end up falling out with you too. Similar happened in my family when one person was not supported by siblings when repeatedly excluded by one particular uncle/aunt/cousin family. That person, who had reacted politely to the exclusions, has very little to do with their siblings now as they feel betrayed.

Basically, you're in a no win situation and the mess has basically been caused by the groom.

Struggling to understand the family set up here.

Isn’t your cousin’s brother, also your cousin?!