In-laws have taken step-daughter out

[Tinogirl]

I have posted on here before…always the same story. . My husband and I each have a daughter- a year and a half separates them.

He was not in a relationship with her mother and is completely central to his and his family’s lives. I get that and it is how it should be but while they are all polite to my daughter they have never really embraced her,

Well this week my husband and child’s mother were both working and mother-in-law was away so stepdaughter was staying with us.

This rarely happens and we had a good weekend and yesterday Stepdaughter found out that daughter was struggling with something and spent three hours teaching her. Showing her techniques, downloading stuff etc. Now she is always polite but yesterday I felt there was a bit of a breakthrough after 9 years.

This morning they got up and said that I would take them to the place we went to at the weekend. Stepdaughter was again very polite, told me that I was very sweet but she was going out with her Grandmother and aunt- DH’s mum and sister.

They rock up, aunt comes to door, stepdaughter gets in back of car and off they shoot, I said I would have to ask DH as I was meant to be looking after her. SiL laughed and said she was 14 and they would actually be back before DH anyway.

My daughter now on her own in tears. I can’t get through to DH. I am fuming. Daughter then refused to go out for lunch. Sitting there using the app that stepdaughter showed her.

Tbh...I'm completely confused 😕

You have so many threads on the same theme. This isn’t meant unkindly, but why are you in a marriage which seems to leave you feeling so left out. This isn’t a relationship where your needs are being met? How does your husband feel about your stress on all of this? He sounds quite quick to dismiss your feelings and you sound fairly focussed on these situations. That must be a constant source of division between you?

We have the brain cells to work out what OP is saying, there’s also years worth of posts making it clear.

What she wants isn’t the end of the story though. DP’s family don’t have to fall into line if they don’t want to. Based on OP’s behaviour, I would guess they barely tolerate her, tbh, let alone treat her DD as if it’s their own DGC.

You can’t force people to lie - only come over if you’re going to pretend my DC from a previous relationship are your son’s DC…

This is nuts. How and why is it ruined, because she had the audacity to spend time with her family?

Stop trying to force a bond.

YES!!…. If my daughter remarried and took on step children I would absolutely want time with my grandchild still, without any step children.
I think it’s time you spoke to your daughter, she needs to not see herself as a constant victim… but rather see her step sis going out as an opportunity for 1-1 with you!!
When step DD goes out with her family take your DD somewhere amazing.. i
wouldn't be able to afford a theme park for example for 2 kids… but if step child was busy anyway I’d take my DD there…
Your parents need to step up and take your daughter out… and you need to arrange some time out with your parents and DD or siblings and DD…. If your DH doesn’t see an issue with his DD going off in her own then you should be ensuring your DD also gets time alone with HER family

IME mumsnet is usually quite split on it. I don’t see any problem with OP’s family wanting to spend time with only their grandchild/niece either.

OP’s injury is a self inflicted one. She chose to marry her husband knowing that neither he nor his family were offering the type of blended family she wanted. She’s chosen to persist in her expectations of them when they’ve consistently made it known that they’re not going to give her what she wants.

This. And it’s not as if the ops husband even treats her dd as a child of the family. He very much has yours and mine with the daughters.

and it isn’t right to expect people in the wider family to treat a step child the exact same as their main relation. I include adopted children in this. If the ops DH wanted to adopt her DD and had done the legal process to do that then that would be different

But as things stand. if the op and her partner divorce, they will likely never see the stepchild again.

also. In this situation the dd doesn’t stay with her father often and doesn’t really have a relationship of stepdaughter to the op anyway.

No, I think the difference is when there is some degree of the blended family living together, at least for part of the week.

The SD very rarely stays with her dad and OP. This isn’t a blended family.

The SD is at boarding school and usually lives with her mum when not in school. When she visits her dad she stays at her grandparents.

That’s why it’s completely different from the usual “treat all kids the same” posts.

I think too many adults are quite thoughtless - the girls have pretty much grown up together and it really wouldn’t hurt occasionally to ask if she’d like to tag along - does your family include your step daughter because this would show both girls a generosity of spirit that is sadly lacking in society today - I hope they continue to bond and this doesn’t set their relationship back

Yip. My kids (the younger two) have step siblings. But my two never lived with their dad and his wife beyond an odd weekend irregularly and two weeks in the summer and they don’t view her two children as their step siblings.

as much as now their dad and his wife push the step siblings thing my two aren’t interested because they just don’t have any connection.

as far as I know they are polite and not rude (they’re adults now) but they definitely don’t see themselves as family to those “stepsiblings”.

They haven't grown up together though, that's the thing. In OP's previous posts she said her DSD didn't like staying at her dad's house with OP and her DD when she was younger so she would stay at his mum's and he would spend time there with her. Even now she's 14 she only stays occasionally - the rest of the time she's at boarding school or lives with her mum. This is why some of us are urging OP to drop the rope with regards to trying to get her in-laws to treat the girls the same – they're never going to do that because they don't see the girls as bonded stepsisters. Because they're not. They're not even friends.

And OP has very pointedly not answered whether her parents offer to take out DSD too.

They will bond when they are good and ready, preventing your step daughter from doing something that she most likely wants to do won’t help. This is not a situation you can force.

The dh’s family have been as clear as they can be from day 1 and so has the dh tbh. He doesn’t want ops daughter to see him as her dad in any way shape or form. His daughter doesn’t see them as anymore than dad’s wife and dad’s wife’s daughter. His family see them as johns wife and her daughter.

His daughter won’t stay over basically since op and her daughter became on the scene to the extent dh sleeps over at his mums some times to have overnights with his daughter outside of trips he takes her on.

The ops the one who keeps trying to flog this dead horse. She thought she would be able to get some insta family for her daughter and she failed, rather than accepting that and getting over it or moving on again she’s flogging the dead horse.

Op and her daughter will never be seen by any of them as family, including her own dh to an extent clearly.

They haven’t grown up together. SD has rarely slept the night at OP’s house the past 9 years. SD would see her dad at her grandparents house. It sounds as though the 2 girls have had very limited contact throughout their childhoods.

Hi op it’s hard as you are a blended family seems the in-laws aren’t treating your dd as you had hoped. Can you not suggest that they take both girls together now and again. If they won’t you have to accept blood is thicker than water it’s sad I don’t how people cope in this situation. Does your dh treat her as his own?

For those genuinely not understanding, I can’t see how.

stepdaughter is 14. Op came into her life before she was 5 years old. Her own daughter was younger than 4 years old.

step daughters grandmother and aunt, are also ops daughters step grandmother and step aunt. But she was not invited on the day out. Even though, this is also her family and has been for longer than 9 years. Presuming op and husband did not marry at first sight…

therefore it’s likely in fact that step daughters grandmother and was in fact 3 and ops daughter was in fact 2 when op and husband met and blended their families. When husbands mother and sister should have embraced ops daughter as part of their family. But 11 years later, and they are excluding her.

i wpupd be annoyed too op. People are deliberately being horrible, saying it’s about her age or laughing at your daughter crying.
i think your mil and sil are horrible and if they did this to my child we wouldn’t see them again. I have cut off a few of my partners family for treating my child differently to our children together.
we are a family unit. And if they don’t see my child as part of that they can f* off 👌🏼

And her dh is ok with it. So op either accepts it or leaves. Shes stated before more than once I believe she won’t divorce. So she needs to suck it up and stop moaning about her choices.

@Tinogirl if they haven't bonded in 9 years , it's unlikely to happen. Celebrate the small wins like yesterday's breakthrough and steely resilience for the rest.
Same for your in-laws. Your daughter will follow your lead on this.

But the ops dh would need to fuck off then because he doesn’t see her child as his family. And that’s where the problem lies.

They’ve already fucked off, tbh. The only punishment ever suggested is ‘go NC’, but the family already have zero interest, going NC is just fine with them. Probably a relief in some cases. The DH has never been any different either.

Ultimately, you can’t meet someone, being along a child from a previous relationship and demand that person’s family treat your child by someone else as theirs. Even if they don’t see their own father, which always seems to be the case in these posts. If that’s a deal breaker for you, don’t get involved in the first place.

OP you really have to accept your daughter is not your Mil and Sils relative.

You are clearly wildly jealous of the relationship your SD has with her family and since your own daughters family have not been so engaged, you expect your mil and husbands wider family to fill the gap.

If they wanted to, that would be all well and good, but the fact is, they don't - they are kind to your daughter but don't treat her as a true grandaughter/niece and nor should they have to - she isn't actually related to them.

You've posted so many times about this. If your family are so fab and welcoming to everyone why aren't they enough for your daughter why does she have to have your husband's family too?

Just because your family are keen to embrace step relatives doesn't mean everyone has to feel like this. I've bad step relatives added to my already large family and honestly I just can't see them in the same light - they are just two nice kids we see sometimes with my nieces/nephews. They are sort of like family friends kids.

You really have to stop insisting people pretend a relationship is there when it isn't.

Have you thought about trying more to encourage strong family relationships for your daughter with her own family, your mum, and aunts/uncles, maybe her paternal grandparents?

Why ‘should’ they have? That style of ‘all in’ blended isn’t everyone’s ideal, or something that must be aspired to.

OP’s in laws have made it clear to her from day one that they have no interest in assuming the roles of grandparents and:
/or aunt to her daughter. Her husband doesn’t see himself as her daughter’s father, and her stepdaughter has no interest in either OP or her daughter beyond surface level politeness on the rare occasions she sees them. Op chose to marry her husband knowing this, and that’s on her 🤷🏻‍♀️

I doubt they’d have any problem with OP absenting herself and her child from their presence tbh.

This is what happens when folks blend families on a wish or a promise and not on obvious and consistent actions. Surely this behaviour was obvious before you tethered yourself to this man.
And I'm curious as to what efforts were made to encourage a close relationship between the 3 and 5 years old children. Did you just start wishing they'd bond once your daughter was old enough to start noticing the difference in family relationships?

It's noteworthy that a lot of the recent posts telling OP she's NBU feature people talking quite heavily about their own circumstances. But there's a backstory here, and it's worth being aware.

OP is now nearly a decade into a marriage into a family who clearly do not wish to be blended, and a husband who agrees with them not her. She can't change those things, only decide whether she wishes to stay in the relationship or not, and she clearly does.

With that in mind, the focus needs to be on about how to sensibly manage this situation. Especially as 14 year old DSD is only going to get more independent, and less receptive to attempts to kickstart a bond that isn't there. OP has not handled this sensibly, and for DDs sake needs to get better at managing her feelings of exclusion if she's going to stay in the relationship.

Also I think people need to consider the use of the word ‘blended’ - marriage does not make you blended, actions do. They are not blended in any sense of the word, sadly for OP. And I am sad for her because I am sure that is what she wants.