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.

OP, you can invite whoever you want to your wedding. This is 2025, the old traditions no longer apply.

Also, no-one can force another person to feel something they don't. Each individual has the right to define family how they see fit.

There are so many complicated factors influencing why your neices feel the way they do about their father's girlfriend's child. They don't care that it was their mother who ended the relationship, they only know they don't have their Dad with them full time anymore and that hurts.

You absolutely should prioritise their wellbeing. You have a relationship with them as does your daughter. You are also entitled to the wedding you choose with the people most important to you.

If your brother's girlfriend doesn't have any childcare for her daughter, she should look after her. It doesn't seem like you have a strong relationship with her or would miss her from your wedding. My experience is that there are no invites because of tradition now, people have loved ones at their weddings now, plus ones aren't inevitable. Your brother's girlfriend would be a plus one, she isn't family to you nor close to you. There is no need for her child to attend especially if it will distress other children in the family.

No matter what vitriol anyone spouts, these 2 girls are children who have experienced the trauma of family breakdown. Their brains remain underdeveloped. I cannot imagine that their father's girlfriend's child would expect / want to attend a wedding of someone she barely knows / sees.

Anyone suggesting that your brother should refuse to attend the wedding if his GF's child doesn't attend and therefore that he prioritises the child of his current GF over his biological children is clearly not rational. They are likely women with children by multiple men or stepchildren who had negative experiences. This relationship could end tomorrow. It is ludicrous to suggest that he should sacrifice his own children for a stranger.

@CandidRobin

Oh give over, her brother has been living with his partner for 14 months. Presumably they were in a relationship for a while before they moved in together so she is definitely not a stranger. So it's not 'hard to imagine' at all that she might be interested in being included in his family.

Yes it is a shame if the daughters have experienced genuine trauma due to their mother ending her marriage to their father. Don't think that isolating and excluding a 9 year old is going to help heal that trauma in any way.

Nice moralistic quip about 'women with children by multiple men' btw.

No, I did not misunderstand.

Inviting the girl to the wedding will not only not solve any issues, but amplify existing ones and create new ones. Not just for all of the girls and their parents, but for OP. She doesn’t want to damage her relationship with her nieces, who she very much wants at her wedding, for the sake of a girl she didn’t even think to invite in the first place.

Teacherjw

Can you give more context? I am interested in this.

Why did you want to be included in events for non-family or did you genuinely think they were your family? Did your parents/stepparents encourage you to think like this?

Did you have step/halfsiblings? If you had step siblings, were they included in your family’s events (obviously on the relevant side)?

Did your own family treat you well?

Genuinely no judgement as you were a child, but did you want to be included because of a good event or was it something deeper?

The questions you’ve asked say everything.

This little girl LIVES with your brother so therefore absolutely should be included in family events of your brother. It would be illogical for your nieces to be included in your brother step daughter’s paternal family as, presumably, they don’t live with any of them.

’No judgement as you were a child’ - how could you possibly judge someone of any age for trying to be involved with their step-family?

That poor little girl.

Bundleflower

100% illogical for my nieces to be involved with the little girl’s father especially when she isn’t even involved with him.

This is why I said the following…

If you had step siblings, were they included in your family’s events (obviously on the relevant side)?

e.g. Were the mum’s stepchildren invited to her family events?

@BeleagueredBride why have you ignored every question on how long your brother and his partner have been together and how long he has been split from his ex?
And in the same way you clearly don’t think step families are ‘REAL family’ due to not being blood relations, do you feel that way about adoptees as well?

In my family, ALL step children (and unmarried partners children) were involved with ALL family events. Because that is what kind families do.

Absolutely. In my wider family you’d be judged extremely poorly for this sort of behaviour.

All for the sake of some 14 year old who feels her problems will be fixed if she successfully has a 9 year old excluded from a significant family event.

also, the fact that OP has now explained that the little girls dad has no contact. She gets rejected all around. Marvellous. If her dad was mega involved it might help soften the blow a bit. Never mind, hey!

tiresomee

I thought I had said how long they had been living together.

My brother and the mother of my nieces have been split for about 4 years as in she bought a flat at that time but I imagine they were living together apart before that. . They are not divorced because of inheritance etc.

My brother met his new partner about 6 months later and came out as a couple to family just before Christmas ‘23.

They have lived together just over a year in a rented house.

I am getting married for the second time having secured my own daughter’s future. As a result my brother spoke about his own situation They will never marry although she is upset by this, as things could become very complicated with inheritance. This is why they are renting together.

As for adoption, one of my cousins has a much loved adopted son, adopted from abroad, because of secondary infertility. He is much loved by us all.

I am seeing my brother tomorrow.

All for the sake of some 14 year old who feels her problems will be fixed if she successfully has a 9 year old excluded from a significant family event.

You've completely made up the bit about feeling her problems would be fixed. Why is that?

I haven’t made anything up. The 14 year old niece is obviously struggling and feels having the 9 year old stepdaughter excluded will help something. Or else she wouldn’t be wanting it. Why else would she possibly not want her to come? Or are you suggesting the niece doesn’t want her to come because she think it will make things worse?

Just have your daughter as bridesmaid 🤷‍♀️

Or your dd and step niece.

Nasty actions have consequences.

It sounds like she just wants one family event with her actual family.

Of course she doesn't consider the daughter of a woman her dad met two years ago to be part of her family.

You've blurred solving the problems (plural) and helping something (singular) in this one specific situation. They're not the same thing.

It's clear that even if DSD isn't at the wedding, DN1 would still understand she has a father who lives FT with another girl and not her, and the source of that problem would continue to exist. Basically, there's a large distinction between 'helping something' and solving the problems per se, which is important here because the source of the problem is DBs actions.

No they aren't and neither are you going by your posts on this thread.

Was the point of the thread to get permission to exclude a 9 year old girl?

I said this in my first comment about 18 pages ago. OP has made her mind up and wants us to validate.

OP, hopefully your brothers partner leaves and finds someone who comes with less drama.

Ok, let me ask this then - is everybody else coming family? So this is a strictly ‘no friends’ wedding?

As above, this is entire thread is about OP justifying to a mixed audience why this little girl isn’t welcome. But interestingly, she WOULD be welcome if the nieces didn’t have an issue?

The little girl will remember this exclusion forever. I also hope that the little girls stepfather backs away from this needless meanness towards a child.

So DN's parents are still married with no plans to divorce?? No wonder the 14 yo feels like the new GF is not her family. Crazy.

The the guest list is made up of people the bride and groom consider to be close friends and family. This child is neither a friend nor a family member of the OP or her fiancé.

Maybe being excluded would be hurtful to the child. And equally, having her there means that the OP's nieces, yet again, don't get to enjoy a family event with their own family without this girl tagging along. It's not their fault that she has no paternal family of her own because her mother chose to procreate with a deadbeat.

Unfortunately the OP's brother and his partner are the ones at fault here for moving in together and forcing their daughters on each other after knowing each other for about five minutes. A responsible father wouldn't have moved in with another woman and her child so quickly. He's not even divorced from his daughters' mother, for goodness sake.

DB and not actually XW are still married? Oof, this gets messier and messier!

I nearly wrote a post similar to that one in response.

As someone who was part of a step family, please don’t assume that this child wants to be at the wedding in the first place. My experience was that my mum and step father were determined to force families together, but no one except them was interested. I hated being forced to pretend we were all happy families and I hated being dragged to other people’s family events where I was supposed to pretend that they were my family too. My step fathers family were perfectly nice and welcoming, but I’d rather have spent the time just with my Mum or the people she and I were related to. I had step siblings and got on well with them when they visited at home, but it was different when they had their other cousins around. Not terrible, but not fun either. One of my step siblings admitted that they were jealous that I lived with their Dad. As adults, our parents were disappointed that we didn’t invite step families to our own weddings, but they just never felt like real family.

Personally, your whole family takes the fun out of dysfunctional. Your DB doesn't want to be married to his wife and lives as a bachelor, but stays married for an inheritance? WTAF? Has a new GF to do the cooking and cleaning for him and for sex, but stays married to the ex. Make it make sense!

I hope and pray his GF and her DD get their freedom from the insanity, and they can find someone more worthy of their love, because they both deserve it and the situation they are in now is never going to be good for them.

These are absurd and hurtful questions

I agree. Not just less drama but someone who split with his wife several years ago but will apparently never divorce her because he wants to acquire some inheritance. What does that even mean @BeleagueredBride? Whatever it means, it sounds pretty awful for the new partner and her daughter.