90 year old grandma and cousins’ stepchildren

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My grandma is 90 and there will be a massive afternoon party for just two hours in a hotel paid for my mum, aunt and uncle.

All her descendants, their partners plus nieces and nephews without partners and one surviving sibling and two of her surviving cousins, one with husband. The surviving sibling and cousins will have one of their children with them given their advanced age.

Grandma does not want my cousin’s two stepchildren invited , they are teenagers who live almost exclusively with their mother.

Cousin has said her husband doesn’t want her to go with her elder child and their joint child.

Elder child’s dad has stepped in and insists that he will take child himself and sit in bar to wait for him.

My cousin, brother of this cousin is coming home from Japan for this.

My aunt has said she will make sure their joint child will be there as well.

What for you all think about this? Is cousins’ husband unreasonable.

I’m trying to get my head around this from the perspective of my own family. My sister has two children with her ex husband and he’s remarried and had twin boys with his second wife. The new wife is technically my niece and nephew’s stepmother but they were teenagers at the time so there wasn’t much mothering involved. Plus she then had her own babies. They maintained a relationship with their father and she was largely irrelevant to them other than their father’s wife. I think they would be invited to the weddings or significant celebration of their half siblings but I doubt they’ve ever met the ‘stepmother’s’ extended family and there would be no expectation that they’d be invited to her grandparent’s birthday party. They have the extended families of both their parents. They are not deprived by not being in the bosom of a totally different unrelated extended family. Still team grandma.

No, it’s the other way round. Cesspit refers to non kind people.

Why would you hire a professional photographer to come and take two photos? Let's be honest the photo is just an excuse. If people want to exclude children at least be honest. If you're too embarrassed to be honest then do what you know is the right thing.

This. My father re-married when we were young adults. His wife (she’s not and never has been any sort of stepmother to me) has a brother. We’ve never met him. He’s not my step-uncle. Their mother would in no way shape or form be considered by us as a step-grandmother. Let alone a step-great grandmother!

I think it’s mean of your grandma to exclude them

Yes, my husband has two girls. They were young adults when we got together, a similar age to my children. They met my sister and my dad at our wedding. They were then invited to my daughter’s wedding but not to my niece and nephew’s weddings. That seems normal to me. I think there are a lot of first wives on this thread whose ex husbands have remarried and had more children and are getting out of shape about the possibility of their children being treated second best. That’s valid re the father, but not the second wife’s wider family.

This is a different situation. We're not talking about the newly acquired in-laws of young adults. Instead, the youngest of these step-children is 13, according to OP, and their step-mum has been in their life for 6 -7 years. So since the child was 6 or 7. And they have a younger half sibling, as well as a step-sibling of presumably around their own age, both of whom are not just invited, but -great-grandma is desperate to have attend.

So it's not because she's technically their step-great grandmother or whatever, that she should invite them, but because she's inviting these dependent children's father, step mother, step sibling and half sibling, and therefore it will cause offence to leave them out.

It's entirely predictable that she'd end up without some of the great-grandchildren she does want to attend by rejecting their half-siblings.

Sorry but if Grandma is not a nice person. They are family, they are the cousins step children and the cousins sons siblings. If it would break her heart that much she would invite them.

If i was the cousin Granny would be getting told you can have all of the children are none 🤷🏼‍♀️

Exactly this. Cousins husband sounds a dick but honestly so does Granny. Shes anything but lovely.

The feeling I get is that the whole thing is getting too big and overwhelming for the 90 year old so she's trying to draw a line somewhere.

That sits alongside it being rude to treat established step children differently to birth children around event invitations.

The professional photographers can be briefed re making sure there are birth grandchildren only photos.

Beyond that I'd think about the space and how to create an event that suits the 90 year old - can there be a separate space for people to rotate out of the room / can the big kids play pool or something elsewhere for a bit etc. How many people does she want to talk to at once? How much does background noise (from other people's conversations) affect her?

It is different if they’re children, but still depends on the level of involvement prior to this. We spend a lot of time with my family, and had my husband’s children been young and partly in his care when we got together I wouldn’t have pursued a relationship with him I’m sure they would have sometimes joined in the wider family because we are so often together. However not all families are like that, so if they hardly know the other side that could be normal too.

Don’t enable your grandmothers bad behaviour ! Tell her if she w ate the ret if the family there then they should be too !

OP has not clearly explained ~ the post is very muddled but I do think that Grandma should be allowed to have or not have whoever she wants at her party.

In the words of Shakespeare:

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”

I've been informed that some great aunt or something has made a family tree of dp's side of the family but left me off it because we're not married, but included my child. Any family tree that my child is a part of should also include me in my opinion seeing as I bloody birthed him. Suspect this man feels that as his oldest children are siblings with the bio grandchildren they are family by extension. Just like all the spouses who have married in, not biologically related to Granny (you'd hope) and yet still invited to the party by extension.

Imagine being so annoyed that two teenagers dare to exist.

Jeez I can’t imagine wanting to go to a 90th birthday meal at their ages.

They aren’t her family. They’re essentially strangers.

They arent essentially strangers. Apparently she will be broken hearted if theyre brother isnt there. She knows exactly who they are, they arent randoms off the street.
But because shes old, no one pulls her up for being awful.

I don't see how you'd invite boyfriends and girlfriends of grandchildren but not stepchildren. They're equally related.

Have you heard of a family portrait?

What does wanting her actual great-grandson there have to do with her relationship with the half-siblings?

If I was getting married, I’d want my cousin there. I’ve met her half-siblings once.

What would Paul Nicholas suggest in this situation?

Have you heard of a photographer being engaged for an event and only taking one photograph?

The 90 year old isn't getting married.

What’s your point?