Apparently I’m spoiling my siblings wedding

[SpoilingTheWedding]

I have DD aged 11 with ExH who is supposed to be a bridesmaid for my sibling and their soon to be spouse, DD is the only child in mine and my siblings family but sibling in law to be (SIL) has a niece who is a bit younger than DD who will also be a bridesmaid.

We have a Child Arrangements Order for contact, and we do not deviate from this due to issues of control and violence from ExH (He took me to court, 3 times).

The CAO gives each of us our birthdays and parent days with DD (so ExH has her Fathers Day I have her Mothers Day etc).

Sibling has just announced they’ll be getting married on ExHs birthday in December (they were keeping the date a secret from everyone). I apologised and said DD won’t be there because of it being her dads birthday and apparently I can ask him to compromise “this once” and if I don’t I am spoiling the wedding deliberately.

My parents agree with my sibling and are saying that I have to ask ExH to let DD come to the wedding. They've told me if I don't ask ExH they will consider me trying to delibrately sabotage the wedding and reconsider whether they want contact with me - can you tell my sibling is the golden child?

DD is not bothered about being a bridesmaid, and personally I’d rather not risk upsetting ExH as he’s been known to refuse to return DD when I’ve upset him and has done (it’s his weekend that the birthday/wedding falls on, if it’d been his normal weekend I’d have swapped with him but as it’s his birthday I know full well he’ll refuse to return her to me in time for the wedding, which is fair enough because birthdays are a big thing in his family)

AIBU to not even ask ExH?

I was about to post all of this.

I am so sorry you have had to go through all of this with your Ex, but also the abusive behaviour of your family.

I hope you have some good friends
You can choose your friends, not your family.

Astounded. They are VERY lucky you haven’t cut contact with them quite honestly. How manipulative! I’d be very careful leaving your daughter unsupervised around these people because it’s giving me ‘turn your daughter against you’ vibes! I wouldn’t even be going to the wedding and quite gladly would use it as an excuse to cut them all off. Diabolical!

Never too soon to report them to the council/police for elder abuse.

"can you tell my sibling is the golden child?"
Well, actually, no I can't! Personally I loath the term. Parents don't love one child more than another!
I think that you should at least ask. You can couch it in terms of "I appreciate that it is your birthday and fully expect you to say no, but I just thought that I would ask in case you felt able to accommodate on this occasion". He will probably say no. You then have the text to prove it.

How very naive. Some parents absolutely do have a favourite and treat them accordingly.

What sex is your sibling? I hate this gender woo stuff where we pretend we don't know what sex people are. Presume it is your brother.
If your Ex-H is violent he should not have any contact with your DD. With any luck the law will change in this direction.
Anyway, why has your brother (presume) kept the wedding date a secret? A bit stupid since people have plans! Why no 'save the day' cards etc and why not check with you that DD will be in your custody the relevant week-end? YANBU, they are. Tell them so, and your dear parents - who don't seem to care if they don't see their only GDD anymore.

"Because they think the whole world revolves around them and everyone would find it endearing?"

You just don't seem to particularly like your DB and soon to be sil do you? Are you finding it hard that they are about to get married when your marriage failed?

Could it be that your parents, as the carers of elderly relatives actually know their routines and what times of day works best for visits?

What's coming across here to me is that, according to your version of events, everyone else is very controlling, heartless and unpleasant. But would they have a different version of events? Are their different interpretations or have you done anything that contributed to your poor relationships with your brother, your sister in law and your parents. I find it hard to understand that any parents would be fine having a relationship with a man who was very violent towards their daughter. I'm just very curious as to why they didn't believe you? That's not to say that he didn't abuse you, of course, but do you know why they would accuse you of making it up?? It seems like there is a lot of background info to this.

I’m not suggesting the OP orders the ex around?

I’m just saying that if she actually wants her daughter to attend the wedding then she can inform the ex that her daughter won’t be available to visit that weekend and that she shouldn’t be scared of the fall out. By the sounds of it he is a controlling arsehole and needs standing up to.

The family also sound awful but their demands are a separate issue and if they think he is so reasonable then maybe they should contact him and request a weekend swap so he can be “bad guy” to them instead of OP.

I genuinely love the fact that you cannot get your head around this because it means that you have never experienced it.

But it is a thing. Believe me it is a thing. And you know what? Its often the Golden Child that suffers more. The Scapegoat will escape, make a better life, learn, treat their own child equally, not continue the abuse. The GC? Not so much. Either they become so utterly self obsessed and lacking in self awareness that they alienate every one that they encounter, or they are deep deep into the FOG (fear obligation and guilt) that they dare not ever step out of their assigned role as the Perfect Daughter/Son. Ask any therapist, its a thing.

Ask my sister. She was the Golden Child and it has fucked her up good and proper. She once said to me "Sometimes I wished she hated me as much as she hated you, at least then I could do what I wanted". That is fucking heartbreaking.

Naive? How many people on here with more than one child loves or prefers one child over another? I do not know of a single person in real life where the parents love one child more.

However, I do know people who believe that this is the case regarding their own sibling. That to me smacks of sibling rivalry more than anything more substantive. If one sibling appears 'more successful', then often that person is automatically labelled as a "golden child". It's an attempt to undermine their 'achievements'. It also is deflective by blaming a lack of parental love and lessor treatment for the perceived 'failures' or 'lack of success' by the other sibling. It's based on a lot of assumptions.

If, as a parent, you cannot conceivably imagine loving your own children differently, then why not afford your own parents the benefit of the doubt? That's not to say that they have to treat their children the same. They can respond to them as individuals. I will concede that they are some cultures that favour or prioritise males of course, but these are in the minority.

But you really believe that your parents hated you??

That is what you've got from this thread ?

I feel so sorry for you.
I would tell your parents to ask ex about swapping his weekend then if they think he's so great.
Your parents sound horrific and I would go as low contact as possible (while your relatives are still alive) , your parents sound so controlling and abusive. It's not really surprising they like your ex as they are the same as him.
Your sibling keeping the wedding date a secret is ridiculous, stupid and controlling. I would just say I can't make the wedding.

You're not spoiling your sibling's wedding. Your sibling is spoiling their own wedding.

Really, what were they thinking with the short notice date when they'd booked it ages ago? On that notice, lots of people might have other plans, or might be working that day and find it harder to get the time off at this stage. And they knew the CAO was for Ex to have your child on his birthday; assuming they remembered the date, they had the option to avoid it, or to check with you if they weren't sure exactly what date in December it was. Or they had the option to give you the date a lot sooner, when it might have been more feasible to do something about changing the dates.

As for the things previously discussed: if you did try telling your family you'd asked Ex and he refused or didn't reply, is that likely to blow up in your face? Is there any chance they'd find out that wasn't true, for example might they speak to Ex themselves and he'd say he didn't know what they were on about?

If your family did approach Ex themselves, how is he likely to respond to that? Would he tell them to piss off (showing them what he's really like) or might he turn on the charm, oozing something like "But you only had to ask!"?

Hard to understand, sure, but not that hard to believe - there's a situation in my family right now where it's not quite the same, but has some similarities (without getting into any specifics that could be identifying, in this case, it's an uncle and aunt rather than parents who have sided with our family member's soon to be ex who has been acting like a complete and utter cock for months. The rest of our family are not happy about it and have gone very low contact with this uncle and aunt). I have no problem believing OP's family are just dicks.

OP you ANBU. People who think you could try asking him just don't have experience of this kind of dynamic.

I was put in a very similar situation by my family who decided to plan an important event on a date my DC couldn't attend - despite me giving them a list of dates when DC would be available and them not having confirmed anything before checking with me.

They thought I was unreasonable not to ask ex but there was no way in which I could let myself be put in a situation where I owed him something. He regularly causes problems around contact even though we've been to court multiple times and there's a CAO in place.

I'm NC or LC with several family members as a result because they made a decision to exclude my DC even after I explained what a difficult situation they had put me in for no reason. They've always minimised ex's abusive behaviour and I think they just consider me to be over dramatic despite the shocking and unbelievable things he continues to do to on a regular basis to cause problems in my life even though I left him years ago.

I'm pleased to see how much support you've received OP, as even though I know IANBU they make me feel like I'm the one in the wrong.

This continues to pander to them which needs to stop.

I wouldn’t have time for my family if they resort to blackmailing me by threatening to cut me off if I don’t do what they want or worse believing an abusive ex over their own daughter.

@SpoilingTheWedding your relationship with your parents and sister or an unhealthy one and frankly you should consider going LC with them if not cut them off. How close are you to them?

Based on this alone, I would let them go NC with you over this. I'm sorry that your family has treated you so poorly. You deserve better!

Your family sounds awful...

Yes. As does my sister. Its not a belief, it is a fact.

I ruined her life.