Step-daughter versus daughter Mumsnet Bingo

[GeorgeClarkefan]

Hey I have a full house on Mumsnet Bingo, do I win a prize to cheer me up?

1. Eldest daughter 9 abandoned by Dad, doesn’t see his family either.
2. Youngest daughter 5 with my husband.
3. Mother-in-Law wants to take grandchildren to Disney Land so my youngest, my stepdaughter and cousins, not my eldest.

And no we can’t pay for her ourselves in case you ask.

Yes this. It's so sad, I couldn't live like this with a man who shows such obvious disdain for my own child, who incidentally is still his daughters' half sister.

OP says she cares for her stepdaughter, but not to the degree she does for both her daughters. Makes sense her MIL would care more for her granddaughters than a step-grandaugter.
OP'S partner had a choice when he entered the relationship. His family did not so they can't be held to the standards he is
OP can prevent her youngest child from going on the trip. That's her choice. There may or may not be consequences of this in the future. Her husband's older child, half sibling of his younger child will be there with their grandmother and cousins

You couldn't have predicted your child would not be included with people that have nothing to do with her? You seriously could not have predicted this?

Sure in an idea world there would be no blended families and no never would never be left out of any but thia is real life

So what would you have OP do? Leave her husband so both daughters get to be raised by a single mum, to make it fair?

This would actually probably heighten the inequality, because it sounds like OP’s DH would fight for his daughter and remain strongly involved in her life, as would his family.

No but family therapy would help or be a good start. I'd want to see the DH showing a willingness towards accepting the daughter as part of the family.
He doesn't have to act like her father but come on, people treat their pets more as part of the family than this man is treating his wife's child and his own daughters' sister.

Your only decision is whether or not to let your 5 year old go abroad without you.

Your eldest daughter's circumstances aren't relevant to that decision, and nobody is obliged to become grandparents to children who aren't their family.

As your daughter is far too young to be sent abroad without her parents, it's a nice easy no.

As your younger daughter's grandparents will obviously keep treating her as their granddaughter and not treating your older daughter as their granddaughter, you should speak to your husband now about how you explain this to your children.

The only behaviour you can control is that of yourselves, you can't force happy families on anyone. They did not marry you, and did not agree to anything.

That's just life and railing about it won't change it.

Perhaps therapy could help her come to terms with, and accept responsibility for, the reality she freely created. He hasn’t done anything wrong here - she knew full well he didn’t consider daughter to be his when she married him, and she chose to accept that.

Not treating her as his daughter isn’t the same thing as not accepting her as part of the family any more than not considering your MIL to be your mother is. She is part of his family, but she isn’t his child.

Totally agree this is the only way .the only way off decent grandparents anyway .I don't like writing this but our eldest grandaughter had another dad before my son but she came into my house as a baby in arms really I loved her from day one .she knows the truth but also knows her place in our family .ie eldest grandchild I would never hurt a child like that how us it ever acceptable.

I don’t normally go searching user names and bringing up past posts because it always feels a bit dirty when it doesn’t add context and is just a way to cause a pile on.

Is this you though OP? I remembered the thread as if stuck in my mind.

As you have almost unanimously received support I thought I’d ask and link the post because it does kind of add context.

When you said you weren’t predicting this I wasn’t sure so I apologise if it wasn’t you.

It’s a difficult situation and I’m sorry you are put in such a horrible position.
For what it’s worth the reason the other thread stuck in my mind was because I realised as I got older that I’d been prevented from seeing my extended family members in similar circumstances. I got back in contact in my early twenties and was very very close to my nan but she died soon after.

I didn’t speak to my mum for a long time and was angry for not having longer with my Nan.
My parents are both dead now and I have no extended family due to feuds that started with circumstances similar to your OP.

I think you might have to just accept nothing is going to change but look to the future when making any decisions that might isolate your daughter from your in laws when she might need them.

My sister wasn’t bothered about not being close to my family as we got older and so it’s a shame I missed out.

I do understand how hurt and left out you must feel though.

This is normal and is a consequence of blended families and the children having different relatives. If your mum wants to treat her grandchildren (your eldest and youngest) does she also include your husband's older child (your stepchild)? The MIL is not a cunt for wanting to treat her grandchildren, at the same time if it will cause a lot of ill feeling, you can refuse on your younger child's behalf.

I think this is awful and would absolutely refuse to let my other child go. Your husband can't make that decision unilaterally. The only other alternative would be to take the money from you long term savings you say you have and to take her yourself. Poor girl.

What a sad situation for all the children involved. You can’t expect to be taken seriously when you say you couldn’t have predicted any of this OP. Just a couple of moments thinking of the potential difficulties that could arise when bringing a new child into a situation where there are already two step sisters living in different homes would have revealed something like this as an obvious possibility.

The Grandmother isn’t doing anything wrong and it’s lovely that she and her sister have the opportunity to take their grandchildren on a treat holiday after they have both been widowed. You can’t do anything that will spoil this for them or their grandchildren without the problem being your fault. While it would have been nice if the GM considered her step grandchild as her own, she doesn’t. Close family relationships can’t be forced on others just because it makes life easier for parents that have decided to create a blended family.

In this set of three sisters, one was always going to be excluded from nice things sometimes because it would not be reasonable to expect OP to never do anything with her own children that their sister might have enjoyed. This is no different, except this time it is OP’s child that might feel left out.

It is not reasonable to expect a grandmother to take a child on holiday when she doesn’t want to, and it is not reasonable to prevent the youngest daughter from being involved in her family’s events. OPs daughter gets to have a close relationship with her sister because they are growing up in the same house, but the sister from her Dad doesn’t get that. It will be good for their relationship to have this holiday so their father is right to insist that both his daughters go.

This really isn't the issue at all. OP has said the two adults are capable plus there are teenagers present to help with younger one. Ratios are not relevant here in a family situation with competent adults and (presumably) well behaved children.

To address the actual issue OP, I believe 5 year old should go. Unfortunately, your older child is going to have to live her life dealing with the dynamics of a step family you have chosen for her.

I do think its sad MIL doesn't make the effort. My own relative had a stepson for the briefest period in a relationship that gave him 2 daughters. Stepson has been considered part of my family ever since and included long after relatives relationship ended. But that is not typical, I can accept.

he wants both his daughters to go and spend time together.

How realistic is it that the 14yr old will want to spend time with a 5yr old if there are other teens she could be with?

Did he categorically say that he wouldn't treat your daughter as his own?

If so I can't imagine why either of you thought a joint child was the way to go.

As ever, it's the kids that suffer.

There has been little mention of the impact on DH’s DD in all of this.

Whilst OP is expecting her DD1 to be ingrained fully by the wider family, can you imagine how this feels to DH’s DD? DD1 will be spending more time with DDs DF than she does and there is the expectation that DD1 is treated the same as other GC. It could be a completely awful situation for DD if DF and DGM treat DD1 as if she was a blood relative as the first family (DD) ends up being pushed out due to DD living part of the time with the DM and not having as much contact with the DF and his family.

Women and men need to stop doing this to their children and put them first.

How realistic is it that the 14yr old will want to spend time with a 5yr old if there are other teens she could be with?

Yes, that does sound a bit optimistic doesn't it!

On Sunday afternoon husband spoke to his youngest sister in that they were in the same place at the same time; it wasn’t intentional.

He said he wished the whole thing hadn’t been proposed as it was causing real problems at home.

Apparently she was sympathetic but couldn’t see how things could be resolved.

She told the bizarrest story I have ever heard.

In the 1990s they had been in Spain when MiL had ordered a cocktail and Sisters in law as children had been jealous of all the cocktail sticks and cherries and whatnot so didn’t the bar owner do them what we would call mocktails now.

FiL asked what was in it and on high days and holidays would make these mocktails for his daughters and granddaughters.

So my daughter and I rock up and FiL is doing the whole mocktail thing and she is given one. Later on Sister-in-law claimed that she found their 9 year old niece crying because my daughter had ruined it and she wasn’t a Granddaughter and it wasn’t special anymore, I could not believe this.

My husband did not want to get married and I was ok with his honesty but when I was pregnant my mother kept pestering me about the effect this would have on my youngest. She might be affected because both of her half-sisters had parents who were married when they were born and she would think she wasn’t important enough.

I know that my in-laws spoke about my eldest when we announced our engagement. They wanted to know the effect this would have on their granddaughter/stepdaughter. SiL brought this up on Sunday and told my husband that he was wrong to suggest that my daughter should be treated the same as the existing grandchildren, and surely he had been told that when we were married.

He has told eldest the we aren’t invited instead of she isn’t invited and what shall we do on the days that youngest will be away.

I know she is putting a brave face on things but I don’t know what to say.

Tell her the truth, don’t make out that your husband’s family see her as family because quite frankly they are acting as if they don’t even like her.
Tell her that it’s not her fault and that some people are just nasty people.
I’ve had to do the same with my son years ago and it felt horrible but is better than lying.
Of course it means my husband’s family aren’t welcome in my home on Christmas ect because I’m not going to rub my sons face in it. It also meant in my situation that mine and husband’s bio child have grown up thinking there grandparents are dicks who couldn’t include her step brother. That’s on them though, take back as much control for your daughter as possible.

They sound awful.

You can't stop other people being shitty, but the unconditional love and support from you and your husband will counter a lot of the hurt.

So was he told when you were pregnant and getting married that your eldest would never be treated or seen as a grandchild? I feel that bits been missed.

when you marry your family becomes one. Your husband is a live in 24/7 step parent. If his family don’t accept all your children as all your children then quite frankly HE should be offended by them.

If this were my husband and he didn’t seem to care I would not be happy with him at all. If he can’t defend our family unit he doesn’t believe in it’.

Yes, that's an important piece of info here.

Yup and also that the dh seemingly didn’t actually want to get married and it would appear felt rather forced into it.

Not very happily blended even in their own house.

With what appears emotional blackmail from ops mums about how the unborn baby may feel. Which is bonkers worrying about wed and unwed parents when there are half siblings to start with.

Marrying OP didn’t mean he and his family had to take on her daughter as anything other than a stepchild, and indeed they didn’t.

I’m not sure why OP expects her in laws to treat her eldest as their grandchild/niece when her husband doesn’t consider her daughter to be his either. What’s more, OP knew he didn’t prior to marrying him.

I know she is putting a brave face on things but I don’t know what to say.

OP, you have surely understood before now, that they don't consider your dd9 as family?

Opinions on this vary - as seen by the responses and opinions - but ultimately, this is on you to manage. They do not see your dd as family and it is highly unlikely to change.

Sadly, this attitude is more usual than the families that fully embrace dsc. People should really think about existing kids and extended family dynamics and attitudes, before 'blending'.