Daughters, wives, bridesmaid dresses

[ByScott]

Would you expect to be involved in going shopping/choosing a bridesmaid dress for your 13/14 year old daughter?

Would you be accepting of your daughter having lunch/shopping and having beauty/hair appointments with her half sister and her mother (my ex- wife)? There are other women present as well.

I can’t see how this can be avoided? My wife is angry and feels it is inappropriate.

Your post is unclear because in your original post, you say that your daughter was going shopping with "her mother," implying that the 14 year old girl was going shopping with her OWN mother. But in your subsequent post, you say "my wife was annoyed that our daughter," suggesting that the 14 year old girl in question is your current wife's daughter and is therefore NOT going shopping with her own mother, but with the mother of her half-sister. Whether your current wife is reasonable or not, would depend on which of those two suggestions reflect reality: is the 14 year old, the one who is going shopping with your ex-wife, the daughter or your current wife, or the daughter of your ex-wife?

An impressive list there OP of straw-man arguments (ie points that nobody is making):
'They are half sisters - why would they need to lie about this?'
'There is nothing wrong with having half-siblings'
'If a marriage fails, are we supposed to just stay on our own?'

Anyway the good thing is, finally we get to the heart of the matter:

"My Wife at no point wished to go bridesmaid dress shopping. She isn’t jealous of this and at no point is she attempting to ruin our daughter’s experience, She just finds it difficult that our daughter is spending time with my ex wife."

It's always been rather unclear what you're asking OP, and we've had a fair amount of drip-feed - but I think the overwhelming opinion is that:

1. Yes, it is fine for DD2 to do these things with your former family, and without her own mother being there.
2. DW needs to be a bit more curious about why she finds the dress-shopping situation difficult - and her attitude to DD's relationship with her half-sister and your former family in general.
3. You both need to be more flexible about what constitutes a family, if you want DC to be happy and balanced.

And my own rather harsh thought, which I nevertheless intend to be helpful...if you two are so rigid and, sorry, chaotic in your thinking, maybe it's not surprising DD2 enjoys spending time with her stepmother and half-sister...

Are you annoyed?

She is upset about the location of the wedding and that her (adult) children are not invited. She can articulate that. She says it is inappropriate that our daughter is with my ex wife. She can’t articulate why particularly. She has never said that my ex would say anything inappropriate to our daughter, which she never would.

I'm sorry, but your wife is being so unreasonable. Why should her adult children be invited? They are in no way related to the bride or the bride's family. And "upset" about the wedding location??

"Inappropriate" that your DD is with your ex-wife???? Good lord, is it inappropriate that your DD spends time with other adults who are not related to her, but who are part of her wider network of family?

You really need your wife to explore her insecurities & deal with them, because this response to your DD being her half-sister's bridesmaid, and going to events/fittings etc is not rational or productive.

Make sure you have a watertight will for your DC from your first marriage - your second wife may well not treat them as you would ...

No - ops DD from a previous marriage is getting married and wants her half sister from Ops new marriage to be bridesmaid.

So the mother of the bride is Ops ex wife

So Ops current wife is upset as Ops ex wife is at appointments etc as mother of the bride and therefore spending time with Ops and current wife’s daughter.

His are extraordinarily defensive responses, and we could be forgiven
if we suspect that the current wife is greatly influenced by this heavy attitude.

One might conclude that the ex-wife has long been demonised in this household (maybe she left him?), and current wife has absorbed this animus to the extent that she is herself very adversarial towards a woman she’s really nothing to do with.
(Though in a different setup, the two could have created a bond in their two daughters, whose relationship is their own to experience and define, and not their father’s to restrict and control)

Current wife’s views aren’t really the issue at all, I think. I’d say it’s OP who is really behind the ill-feeling, getting arsey about this shopping trip not being under his aegis, so to speak. (Which might be where demands that his in-laws be included in the wedding come from. As a patriarchal display of his ownership)

Just out of interest, if your daughter from your first marriage and your daughter from your second marriage are not considered siblings, how would your wife categorise the relationship between the children from her first marriage and those from her second?

Why is your current wife upset with the location? Does she have reason to be?

Totally normal arrangement. Your current wife does not need to be there. Your ex wife is there because she is MOTB. Normal for MOTB to assist the bride in selecting dresses for bridesmaids. Not normal for Dad's new wife to be present, just because she is mother of the bridesmaid.
Wife is being ridiculous.

It's great that your daughters get on so well, and that your older daughter is including her teenage half-sister.

I can see how your younger daughter is interested in your relationship with yourvex - kids often find it amazing that their parents had any sort of a life before them.

I think your wife is being unreasonable - your ex isn't a threat to her or her daughter in any way.

My ex remarried and had another child, and his current wife has never wanted me near her DD. It made being a 'blended family' impossible, and my DD has no real relationship with her half-sister.

Re. the "half-sisters."

Just because other families don't use this term, doesn't mean that @ByScott 's family is wrong. It's just the way that his family works.

Look at how many posters didn't understand the original post (which I found was pretty clear myself), where "half-sisters" was specified. If the OP had just referred to them as "sisters" there would have been even more confusion!

Your wife is very unreasonable.

OP, ok so you understand that complicated family situations can stir up complicated feelings and irrational arguments. Your wife is feeling out of sorts about her other children being excluded and her youngest child not only being included by being showered with attention and girls day out shopping, beauty, lunch etc. Your wife is being unreasonable, yes, but something is pressing on a very deep sensitive and personal point for her around attachement, acceptance, approval etc. and it's the sort of thing that she'll probably only figure out in therapy. As you have seen, everyone thinks it's fine and normal for your daughter to be involved in this way So your wife is being unreasonable, your daughter should crack on, your wife shouldn't beat herself up about being so irrational but sould - for her own benefit - work this out with a therapist.

Any minute we'll have a 'so your ex wife is getting married and you're giving her away with your dd as best man and your mil is upset?'

This situation could happen in my family. My husband and I have two children together but he has three much older children from a previous marriage. That marriage ended three years before we met, I’m not the other woman, the ex-wife is happily re-married.

If one of my stepdaughters got married my children (especially my daughter) would probably be involved in dress shopping and such, where my husband’s ex wife would probably also be there.

I would feel a little weird about it I guess, but I wouldn’t want to be there myself (I doubt his ex wife would much like it either!). And I wouldn’t want to stop my daughter being part of it. I think I’d mostly find it amusing though and try to recognise that the weird feelings were just one of those things that happen in these kind of family set-ups.

Your wife is being unreasonable. She is also going to need to get used to the fact that your younger DD has a sister who is close to her own mother. In all likelihood If the sisters get on and spend lots of time together (which surely your wife would want for her DD) then younger DD will naturally spend time with older DD’s mum. This may well increase over time and not decrease.

these are scenarios you need to consider when you get with someone who already has kids. You really are blending FAMILIES for life.

I don't think anybody who isn't in the wedding party should expect to be involved in dress shopping. Infact, I think anyone who expects it is absolutely batshit.

Your daughter is a teenager. She's quite able, I'm sure, to be in the company of other people she knows without her mother holding her hand.

OP's wife's ex-daughter is getting married to the half-wife of his ex-sister, who is annoyed that his current ex-wife is being bridesmaid to herself. 👍

Bye bye then.

Your daughters ARE sisters, you literally say it there. Just because they're 'half', they're still half sisters.

And your wife is a knob. HTH.

Half sisters. What’s the second word in that? SISTERS. So yes, they are sisters. Regardless of how you want to call it that is what they are. They are a specific sub-type of sisters, if you want to be like that, but sisters they are. By blood. They share a parent.

It would be extremely weird and sad if they didn’t spend time together, for your first daughter not to get on well with your wife (her step-mother, no? Another type of mother figure besides your ex?) and for your own younger daughter not to be welcome around your ex.

I thought I got it but you have just confused me again.

I think it is the daughter's half sister and the daughter's mum who is OP's ex wife. The ex wife is getting married. I assume she is marrying half sister's dad. I think.

😁😁😁
I wish mn didn’t delete the laugh emoji … it’s needed!

Okay...so the eldest daughter is getting married. Is she op's daughter? This is the most confusing thread. This is what happens when we let the men in.

Yes ops oldest daughter is getting married.

Ops youngest daughter is a bridesmaid.

Ops new/current wife is all butt hurt that her daughter is spending time with ops ex wife as the ex wife is the older child’s mother.

Shes also butt hurt about the location of the wedding and her older unrelated children not being invited.

My wife can’t articulate why she is upset about this in particular.

Jealousy is by nature irrational.