10 year old snubbed at wedding

[ProvoPrincess]

DH has raised my eldest since she was 3. She does not see her biological family,

DH’s cousin got married at the weekend. It was a perfect day up until the early evening.

All the kids were playing together outside when all of a sudden my ten year old appeared next to me inside. I asked where her sister was and she replied that she had been taken off by one of DH’s cousins and told her to come in.

I went to investigate, not that I thought she was in danger or anything but I just wanted to know.

Mother-in-Law and her sisters were having official photographs with their proper grandchildren.

Something came over me and I called out to my youngest daughter to come to me. As I was approaching group a cousin’s partner said to wait a bit as they wanted a group photo of all the sisters with grandchildren. I just grabbed my daughter.

I tried to find my husband but he was in another outside space and it turned out he had been in a photo immediately before I had come out. I went back to the room and just cried in front of both kids. I pretended I was ill.

DH couldn’t understand why they didn’t include my eldest but MiL’s eldest sister just said I had ruined something special.

I am angry, upset and also full of shame and embarrassment.

And this is why it's so, so important to establish the lay of the land before blending families / going on to have blended families. As with every thread like this, people have strongly held and completely contrary views. Personally, I don't think any of these views are unreasonably held (everyone loves their children, nobody wants to be deliberately cruel to any child). But clearly people see things differently, so when getting together with a new partner it's so important to establish compatibility not just of the two people in the couple, but of the wider families, including any children.

Presumably that's what they've done, or the kid wouldn't have been invited? OP's overreaction at a photo might risk all that, and the husband's relatives might think it might not be worth reactions like that in the future.

It’s not the same as that tho.

if OP and her husband split up they would potentially not see OPs first child ever again.

I can sympathise OP with why you got upset it seems pretty harsh. Is this one of many examples or are they generally inclusive of your daughter? I’d take guidance from that as to how to move on but to be honest if this is typical of them then there’s probably not much you can do to improve things. And if this is a one off and they were just thoughtless then there’s probably not much you should do as I don’t think you should make a big deal. Especially as it sounds like your daughter wasn’t too bothered by it.

God this post took a weird turn! Never thought it would segue into Elizabethan England.

My eldest daughter was upset when she first came up to me at being separated from the other kids.

My youngest daughter totally knows that they do not have the same father so isn’t upset by her sister’s absence from photo but I concede I upset her by my reaction.

Eldest gets a Christmas present from MiL but no birthday present. There is a bond for university as well for youngest.

As for bride she was not witness to my outburst

The cousin who has invited youngest to party is DH’s cousin whose daughter is having a party and is nearer eldest’s age. I think he just saw opportunity for him to get together with DH not to put me in my place as someone said.

The bride is 20 years younger than oldest cousin, 14 years younger than DH and 12 years younger than her next sibling. I don’t think that there will be another extended family thing.

The widow of MiL’s brother was not invited but all his family came so they clearly weren’t bothered but I thought that was off as well.

I do agree with this 👆
edited for typo

Not sure how any of this means that OP's MIL should view her sons's step-daughter as her own grandchild.

You can't force anyone to consider you family. The OP was the one to marry her DH. If she wanted his family to treat her daughter exactly as if DH was her father and not step-father, she should have checked beforehand.

The eldest DD is unlucky that her bio dad and his family are so useless. It's not DH's family's responsibility to fix though.

Wasn't talking about the incident itself; was more referring to OP taking a stand over the shoddy treatment of her DD.

I'm sure everyone would rather the situation hadn't occurred. But OP was merely doing what felt right in the moment.

Which only goes to show you should count to ten first. Unless exiting pursued by a bear, of course. 😀

I think for your oldest daughters sake I’d give up the pretence that your husbands family care about her, they clearly don’t.
They know they’ve upset you and instead of saying… Were sorry, we didn’t mean to leave a ten year old pushed aside they’ve doubled down with snide comments and birthday parties she’s not invited too.
You’ve sound realistic to me.. You don’t expect these people to love your daughter like a biological granddaughter, your fine for example knowing she isn’t included in there will. You just don’t want her feelings hurt on occasions like a wedding, it would have made know difference to let her in the photo, or at least tried to be more tactful.
Let your daughter know you’ve got her back but unfortunately some people are to stupid and mean to be around so going forward she won’t be made to attend events where she isn’t treated kindly, the same goes for you.
You can’t stop your husband taking your younger daughter separately but I hope his family realise that they risk their granddaughter growing up with the opinion that they are complete dicks for making her mum and big sister feel unwelcome.

I think your mil sounds quite mean. Your daughter has known them since she was 3 and she doesn’t give her a birthday present. In her position I would 100% include her. They are failing to look at it from your daughter’s position as all she remembers is them being in her life. I would be stepping back from them tbh. They are being unkind to a child. I would hope your dh could back you up on this but he seems to be choosing his family.

This is true. People can only decide to blend the parts of the family they're in charge of.

I'd personally have taken 2 photos, to spare a 10 year old's feelings. But it doesn't surprise me that the bride didn't give much thought to the stepchild of a cousin on her wedding day (what is that, step cousin once removed?). It's just not a particularly close relationship.

And you really need to get a hold of yourself OP. There are many accounts on here of DHs getting pissed off when their DW manages to complicate their bio child's extended family relationships.

Why is it damaging to a child to consider her feelings as important?

I agree it’s important to have these conversations, but I disagree with this statement: “nobody wants to be deliberately cruel to any child”, I think there are all kinds of people who really dont give a toss about being cruel to step children in the family. I’m sure they are not actively being deliberately cruel, but they care nothing for the consequences of their behaviour, so to me that’s not much different really.

Nobody said they’re not important. They don’t always come first - and in this instance they didn’t, imo. Teaching her that her presence in the photo was so much more important than the feelings of the MIL, the aunt and most importantly her own half-sister that the photo couldn’t happen without her, will do her (let alone anyone else) a disservice.

Teaching her that her presence in the photo was so much more important than the feelings of the MIL, the aunt and most importantly her own half-sister that the photo couldn’t happen without her

Well no you wouldn’t want to teach her that! She’d still know she was unwanted so would entirely defeat the purpose of not hurting her feelings- they’d still be hurt.

The point would be to not make her feel / know that she was unwanted in the photo in the first place. Can’t see how that would be doing her a disservice

I don’t agree that that’s a valid thing for the eldest daughter to not know. She was included in a broader-family photo, because to the MIL and aunt that’s what she is. It’s in her interests to know that MIL doesn’t see her in the same light as she sees her actual granddaughter - because that’s the truth. Anything else would be a lie and that would be storing up trouble for the future, trouble which could have a huge ripple effect, as well as potentially hurtful for the child in question. What good ever comes of lying?

I think this is very unpleasant behaviour from your in-laws. I really feel for your older daughter.

I had a pretty crap childhood with my own family but luckily my best friend lived next door and her parents practically took me in. I stayed over most weekends, I went on all family days out and they even took me on holiday. They referred to me as their second daughter. I remember one year being with her extended family (I often was) and a photo being organised of all the kids. Just before they snapped the auntie said oh! in a cross voice put the camera down and told me to step out it was cousins only. I remember smiling feeling foolish and going for a little walk so my tears wouldn't be noticeable.

The dad is still as lovely to me as ever and now my daughter but I feel this strong sense of protectiveness whenever his real grandkids arrive that she will realise he's not really 'hers'.

I’m so sorry. This is awful. My Mum has 4 step grandchildren and she would have included them in the photo. Is there a history of this type of thing?

I have a cousin who was brought up by my uncle exactly the same as your daughter, also from the age of three, and I just can't imagine ever treating her like that. She's our cousin, same as all our other cousins, and my grandparents treat her the same as all the rest of us. I'll never understand people who deliberately leave out a child like that.

Where's the lie? The child can know she's not biologically related to the rest of the family, whilst still being treated the same as the other children. That's not lying.

My sons from my previous marriage are included as well as my son with my partner, in all his family photos, as if they are equal members of the family.

They are older…30 and 25, so not kids, but I am eternally grateful that they are treated as they are.

I can totally get how you feel….id be absolutely raging….that’s no way to treat a child !

Agree. And people are such hypocrites (especially on here) regarding stepchildren and always saying its the bio parents responsibility for x,y,z, not to get involved, to focus on your own children etc god forbid a holiday or inheritance is involved. Yet suddenly an outrage over being left out of one photo. I don't buy it.

Sorry, I’m not following. The whole point of this thread is the OP being upset that her eldest wasn’t treated like a grandchild, like her youngest. The MIL and her sister wanted one photo with their grandchildren, after all the others. It would be a lie to include the eldest in that photo, because MIL doesn’t see her as her granddaughter.

The point of the OP was that she was upset that her DD was excluded from a photo when her sibling was included.

I get the broader point that you are going to set a child up (potentially) for later disappointment if you lead them to believe that people care about them who don’t in fact care about them. But I also don’t think that justifies excluding children in every day ways that makes them feel unwanted in the family that they are being asked to live/ blend in.

It's a delicate one isn't it? My initial instinct is to do things like have an extra photo. But I know some people have said when they then grew up and weren't treated in the same way for things like house deposit help and inheritance, it was very hard when they'd previously thought of the relationship as the same. Can be a real tightrope I'm sure.