Niece and my wedding

[BeleagueredBride]

On Sunday evening my brother asked to meet me but I couldn’t but I met him on Monday.

He asked me if I was going to invite his partner’s 9 nearly 10 year old to my wedding.

I said that I hadn’t really thought about it but she could come if they didn’t have childcare. He seemed really relieved.

I had told him ‘asked his permission’ a few weeks ago that I would like to ask his ex as well as I always got on with her and wanted her to see her daughters in their bridesmaids dresses. He was fine with it. I haven’t told ex-sil that she is invited yet nor mentioned bridesmaids to my nieces.

Apparently on Sunday he and his partner were having lunch with one of his daughters and they were talking about my wedding. My youngest niece looked at partner’s daughter and asked what she would be doing that weekend while everyone else was at the wedding.

She then told her dad in the car on her own, that her sister who was not present would not be attending if his stepdaughter would be there trying to be their family.

My own daughter had a shedload of shit from her Dad’s stepdaughter.

I don’t want to upset my nieces and want them to have a good time at my wedding.

On posts where the OP is the mother of the excluded child, the advice is overwhelmingly that YANBU to expect the whole family unit is invited to an event and to LTB who doesn't advocate for the excluded child. OP's brother considers his partner and her daughter, whom he's shared a home with for a year, to be as much his family as his daughters. OP doesn't have to see it that way, but she should also be prepared if he decides that either his whole family is invited or none of them attend.

The difference, quite significantly, being that all the brother is asking is that his stepchild can come too rather than that his children are uninvited.

I always disagree with those posters on those posts normally because they say the child of that shouldn’t get to go either and they should allowed to attend their own families gatherings. It’s not their fault they are part of a blended or in most cases messy blend of family and in this case would just breed more resentment towards the step child from his daughter.

But even if the brother didn’t go. The nieces still could with their mother since she’s going to be invited. Only person missing out there would be the brother not seeing his sister get married or his daughters as bridesmaids.

Bro knew that his daughters would not go if his partner's daughter went and he got slick and didn't tell OP how problematic it would be for his own kids while asking for an invite for partner's daughter. He didn't disclose the issues he knew about until after the invite.

He's not just a shit parent. He's a shit brother hurting his own kids using your wedding to do it. He picks his partner's kid while rejecting his own kids. That's cutting those kids so deep. He doesn't care that your wedding won't be as good as it could be due to his actions.

I'd invite the nieces and uninvite bro and partner and her daughter. They're bringing unhappiness to what should be a happy day because partner wants her daughter and herself included in all his extended family activities and they're both fuck them kids from his previous marriage.

How long have your bro and partner lived together?

Your nieces are going to need therapy.

That’s their step sister who is only 9, why don’t they want her there? They don’t need to be besties but purposefully excluding her? Is there background? Hate the step mum and their dad walked out on them to be with her?

of course a 9 year old will be at family dinners. She is 9 and lives there.

Imagine being the 9 year old entering a new family where her step sisters don’t want her around and she’s excluded from family occasions while not having contact with parts of her own family!
If your brothers relationship is going to continue long term then your nieces need to accept the other girl and be a bit kinder.
The sooner they realise that their family dynamic has changed forever the better.

Or imagine your dad moved in with some woman you barely know and her daughter. He declared this random girl your step sister and spends more time with her than he does with you.

we don’t have enough information to make informed decisions about this scenario. Given the ages and the children’s reactions, I am skeptical that the adults spent years dating before meeting the children, slowly did family introductions, and only moved to cohabitate once everyone, including all the children, felt like maintaining separate households was a bit ridiculous.

As the nieces DM is also invited, it wouldn't actually be DBs call. If there's a parallel with the usual threads about this, it's DB being in the position where he can't unilaterally decide all his family go or none do. Usually that's the OP in such threads.

He doesn't get to decide that none of them can attend.

His daughters will attend with their mother. What he does is up to him.

On the threads you are referring to, the "excluded child" is usually part of a much longer standing family unit (rather than from a relatively recent relationship) and considered part of the family by those they live with, but not by the bride and groom. If the OP's brother were actually her stepfather and had been raising her as his own for most of his life, of course it would be a completely different matter.

The OP said the nieces mum left their dad. He didn’t leave. Sounds like this poor 9 year old had done nothing more than exist in the home her mum has moved into.

Yes, imagine your own Mum being so preoccupied with her own loved up new relationship that she forced you into living with a man who doesn’t even care about his own children’s feelings. It’s shit for all of the children involved. The step daughters feelings are no more important than the nieces feelings overall. On this one special occasion, the nieces feelings are more important than the step daughters, because the nieces have a relationship with the couple getting married whereas the step daughter doesn’t. On this occasion, she would very much be a courtesy invite.

Living with someone doesn’t automatically make them your family. Your parents having relationships does not make those people your family unless everyone involved chooses to make a family. That is not something one couple get to control.

If your brothers relationship is going to continue long term then your nieces need to accept the other girl and be a bit kinder.
The sooner they realise that their family dynamic has changed forever the better.

You say this as if it’s a certainty that those girls will continue to value a relationship with their in the same way as they did before. It is not. Their father hasn’t been particularly kind to them by putting them in a position that deeply upsets them when he could have just waited a few years before living with another child so why would they make the effort to pretend that they weren’t hurt just to make his life easier? Why would they care about maintaining a close relationship with their father when it means faking a family relationship with people they aren’t bothered about?

They are already realising that their family dynamic has changed. Obviously, that is what is hurting them. It was probably enough for them to cope with when their parents separated without their father setting up home with a new child on top. That realisation may well cause them to feel that they don’t owe their father and his partner their respect or consideration, because that wasn’t shown to them when they were already in a difficult place.

She's not his stepdaughter, she barely knows the OP, and her presence will cause drama.

If his partner always disregards his daughters' feelings in this way and insists on forcing her daughter on them all the time, it's really no wonder they can't stand her or her daughter.

If the step daughters aunt was paying for a family Disney trip for everyone but the stepdaughter decided that she didn’t want the other kids to go because they aren’t real family/she wanted quality time/etc etc etc, Mumsnet would be up in arms.

If dad’s partner threw a big party but this child wasn’t invited because step daughter deemed the other children irrelevant, everyone would be saying how awful and cruel it was.

basically any situation where the impact was on one set of kids rather than this kid.

Neither of those scenarios are remotely comparable to this.

@BeleagueredBridehow long has your brother been with his partner? How long ago did he split from his ex?

Some would be but I think the majority get that it's aunt's money to spend on who she wants. It's come up in numerous threads where former wife feels her kids are shafted because new wife or her relative are paying for a vacation and not including steps. It's for the new wife's nuclear family, and the steps will have their own vacation time.

This is OP's wedding, she's paying, and bro is trying to fuck it up. He knows there's issues regarding the kids being together and his ignoring them in favour of a show for his gf. The polite thing to do would be his gf and her child bow out.

As far as we know, this couple isn't married so there's really no step here.

But surely OP you are missing an easy solution.

if im reading it right you haven’t mentioned bridesmaids yet? in which case get on with that! I strongly suspect realising you are giving them a special and important position to your nieces will make them feel valued and a lot happier about it all and smooth over a lot of this?

and overall I really wouldn’t uninvited the 9year old, none of this is her fault and as a step daughter being included in these types of events makes all the difference.

She isn’t their stepsister, but even if she was that’s a title that means as much or as little as you want it to. She’s a girl they don’t like for whatever reason, and want little to nothing to do with.

Their father and her mother made a huge mistake putting their respective children in this situation because of their own desire to live together. OP’s nieces it seems are already starting to limit the time they spend with their father, and if he keeps trying to force them together he runs the risk of his daughters refusing to go to his house at all, or losing them altogether.

I’ve misunderstood then as I thought it was the dads biological children and his step child, making them step sisters.

I agree all your points are valid, but they are also a blended family which is really hard. Ignoring a 9 year old is possibly jealously from the other girls so simply pretending she doesn’t exist is also not that productive either. Imagine it from the other angle - the little girl, her step dad and his side of the family possibly never accepting her.

I don’t think either are wrong or right, just different points of view and it’s a sad situation.

NAILED IT! The only one I feel for at all is the 9-year-old, who is being treated so poorly because she and her mother joined a family without hearts and kindness in their souls.

She isn’t his stepchild. They’re not married, and OP hasn’t said that he considers her to be a daughter.

Yes, it may well suck for the 9 year old, but that doesn’t mean she’s entitled to a specific relationship, or even just a relationship, with people that don’t want the same with her. It also sucks for the nieces to have their father ignore their feelings and try to force a blended family on them. No party is getting what they want here, other than the parents who get to live together.

The bottom line is that they can’t be forced into accepting this girl or playing happy families. By the sounds of it they’ve already pulled away from their father, and if he continues then all he’s likely to do is make things even worse.

I think the problem is that they're not in fact blended. DB has blended himself with his new partner and her DD, which is not the same thing, and he cannot dictate that his DC or anyone else feels the same. You can only blend what you're in charge of.

Agree though it's a very sad situation. I feel sorry for all 3 of the children who've been placed in this position by DBs irresponsibility. As well as OP!

Problem is there is no blend. The little girl and her mother might be happy to suddenly have a daddy. But his children are not happy at all. That’s not blended. That’s sacrificing his children for a women and her child.

None of these children chose this it’s the adults only thinking with their genitals.

All really good perspectives. Thanks all.

This! Those poor girls. Sounds like their dad no longer prioritises them or spends time alone with them. They want him back & this is their way of taking a stand (albeit cackhanded & immature - as is understandable given their age!)