To have called time on my marriage. A family of two halves.

[GeorgeClarkefan]

I have called time on my marriage.

I love my husband who is a genuinely nice guy but it’s all the extraneous stuff that gets in the way. It’s his daughter, my daughter and our daughter and never the twain shall meet.

My eldest does not see her father or his family which is no fault of mine. I never expected my new in-laws to step up and they haven’t. They are always kind, and always polite.

My stepdaughter and younger daughter have many advantages which we simply cannot afford for my elder daughter. She doesn’t understand and gets upset.

I posted about the Disney debacle where it emerged that my MiL feels she can’t act normally around her grandchildren if my daughter is there.

Latest spat has come about because of an extracurricular paid for by MiL.

My husband has said that that is it and he is insulted and won’t beg me. He has walked out.

I am going to potentially lose some time with my youngest but I can’t go on like this.

My mother cannot look me in the face she is so angry.

If Op had actually accepted what she claimed she had before she decided to marry this man and have another child with him, then they wouldn’t be divorcing.

No one has said OP’s daughter isn’t part of their family. She is, as a in-law. She’s not a grandchild or niece and never will be, whether you like it or not.

You're cutting off your nose to spite your face OP. Whilst divorce will mean your eldest doesn't have to see your in-laws, you've said yourself they treat her well so she's not actively being mistreated around them.

The inequality comes in terms of the hobbies and activities they fund for your youngest. That's not going to change when you're divorced. In fact, they're likely to spoil your youngest even more when she's staying with her dad, now that they don't have another child whose emotions they have to be mindful of.

And then, when your youngest is back home, your eldest will still hear of all the things she's been given or treated to.

In essence: you'll:

• have less time with your youngest
• deprive your eldest of what you've said is a good stepfather figure in your husband
• won't mitigate the financial inequality
• have to manage your household and 2 daughters on one income

I think you should seriously reconsider divorce.

Then why isn't OP's mom offering stuff for her daughter's stepdaughter? Is she leaving her money in her will?

No. She isn't paying money or even part for her bio granddaughters to do this activity that's caused so much conflict, much less paying for her daughter's SD's activities.

What's going to happen going forward, though? You'll have other relationships, presumably? With other men, who will probably have kids and other family members? Only this time you'll be doing it with not one but two kids who are not his and not related to his family? (And in the meantime, your younger daughter will still have a father and extended family who care about her, and your older daughter will not. Which is shitty for her, but cannot change unless her father changes). This stuff will happen again. The only thing to do is to accept that when you have children with more than one person, this stuff will happen. You'd have been entirely justified in saying "no, my 5yo doesn't go abroad without me". But the rest is not really going to change.

There will be no more relationships for me.

I don’t think MiL has an obligation to pay or even include my elder daughter
How is any of that true when you say what sparked your demand for divorce to be Latest spat has come about because of an extracurricular paid for by MiL. am assuming the horse riding?

I’m not sure it’s her call anymore. Her husband sounds like he’s well and truly had enough himself.

Why don’t you just pay for your eldest child to do the activity. None of them need to know who’s paying for what.

I haven't said SD shouldn't be catered for by GPs.

"those children automatically become part of your family too - whether you like it or not."

That's clearly not the case in all blended families, otherwise such threads wouldn't exist.

What you'd do is irrelevant as that's not what OP's in-laws are doing or seemingly intend to.

Fantasy land is all children being loved and protected by all adults, but that's not relality.

Poor daughter's own biological father cant be bothered, yet you expect a non-relation to step up more?

GPs can't be forced to love or fund anyone.

You're still not making much sense and based on what I've read yes you're cutting off your nose to spite your face

You claim you need to leave for your older daughter now you will no longer see your younger daughter 100% how is that fair on her?

And now your older daughter no longer has a father DH who treats her equally at home and her own real father is still not in her life so how is this the right approach?

You claim you don't think you MIL has any obligation to pay for your elder daughter yet you're upset that she isn't paying for pony lessons for your elder daughter as well.....

"I don’t think MiL has an obligation to pay or even include my elder daughter. Obviously when she sees her I expect her to respect her and be kind and give her ice cream and the usual gubbins which she does"

So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?

And neither should inlaws expect to confine their largesse to their 'blood' granddaughters when it will drive a wedge through the family. What they want is irrelevant and if they don't have the wit to see what's wrong, DH needs to spell it out to them.

But DH and the OP don't want that... they still want the 2 girls funded. So the grandparents literally cannot win unless they start funding a non-biological grandchild.

It’s their money, so they can very much expect to confine their largesse to biological family.

What they want is not irrelevant when OP’s husband is in agreement with them, and has repeatedly spelled that out to OP.

There's not a communal pot of money for OP to use for her eldest. It's MIL's money, and no one else's. She decides where it goes. I would imagine she feels if OP and her eldest have a problem with how she spends her money, that's their problem.

OP is divorcing because her eldest can't deal with youngest having an experience gift that she doesn't get and is make ng OP's life miserable. Whatever OP said to her husband, it sounds like he's running with the idea of divorce now. He's out of their home. OP has now lost a decent father figure for her oldest that treated her better than her bio paternal family. She's losing her sister in the home all the time.

Will the youngest be allowed to talk about what she does at Dad's without her sister getting distraught? Will OP take her to activities on her custody time if her eldest isn't going or invited? If eldest makes the home miserable, what if youngest wants to spend more time at her dad's, especially as she gets older? Those teen years are coming.

I believe it was OP who told her DH she wanted a divorce hence why he has moved out.

Honestly op. I understand you're frustrated but I don't think separating is going to solve your issue. Your oldest daughter will still have less things than her baby sister. It sounds like your stbex will want very decent access as well so all that will really achieve is less time with her baby sister .
If it was me i would explain that her younger sister was lucky enough to have a rich granny and she didn't and she would probably get treats that the ops daughter wouldn't get. I would try and compensate where I could by doing lovely things with my daughter when her sister was doing these expensive hobbies etc .

regardless of who lives where , your youngest daughter will advantages over your oldest .

This is on you for a) having your first child with a deadbeat, b) marrying into a family which didn't care about you or your child because only blood relatives matter to them, and c) providing said family with another blood relative to spoil while continuing to disregard you and your eldest child.

Why did DH's first marriage break up? Did his ex get sick of being excluded by her in-laws as well?

I do agree that divorce will even things out a bit as your youngest will now also come from a broken home, even if she doesn't have to deal with the same level of rejection as her sister. Though who knows, when daddy remarries she'll probably have a whole new world of crap to deal with.

Well the in-laws are doing just that, and OP's DH is happy to accept it.

He has a say on how his parents treat his children too. What the GPs wants is very much relevant as they are family to DH and two kids.

OP and DH were unequally yoked from the get go, she chose to go ahead still.

You seem to think the GPs are the problem, they're not.

What happens if the other two marry into wealth when older, will OP expcet them to subsidise their half/step sister?

There comes a time when one has to hold their hands up and take accountability.

In this case, OP.

Her DH hasn't felt the need to spell it out to them, but to end the relationship with OP.

Yes, but but he was completely insulted by something she said to him and told her he stuck by her even when it got him basically disinherited. So yeah, he's holding her to the D.

My marriage is over. Husband feels completely insulted and told me there is no going back from what I said.
He says that he has been disadvantaged in relation to inheritance etc because he has a stepchild and not once asked to divorce but I now have, over a hobby.

OP so you think that divorcing your DH your DDs will be treated equally but there still will be a lot of inequality as your younger one will still be treated by her GM and your eldest one won't, so it won't change anything for the girls only upset at the home breakup.
I would reconsider your divorce if it's only due to the girls being treated differently, surely you can tell your DH how this is making you and your DD feel and find a solution.

But the dh would have to agree with not going forward with the divorce and don’t think that would happen?
It just seems so sad that in wanting to prove to her eldest how important she is, the youngest gets chucked under a bus

These threads come up so often and they always make me feel so sad.

To my mind, a stepchild should be part of the family and treated the same way, especially when their bio dad isn’t involved.

Once you’re a committed couple - eg/married or with a joint child - then a young stepchild should be treated in the same way that an adopted child would be. And for any decent person, that means part of the family. Neither an adopted child or a stepchild is blood - which is the excuse I often see trotted out on here for exclusion. There’s absolutely no reason that both can’t be welcomed and on a day-to-day basis treated like other blood-related children.

I’ve been the child in this scenario, the step-parent, and also the bio parent so I’ve experienced this from all angles. My views gave never changed. It’s a shit move excluding a child that’s part of the family just because “they’re not blood”.

In your case OP I think there’s a lot that’s being said behind closed doors as your STBX’s DD has no interest in seeing her step-sibling, only her half-sibling. Things are being said, I would suspect, that means this was never going to be a harmonious situation. What a shame for you all.

Can we please retire the phrase "broken home"? It's such a Boomer expression. There are many children living with two married parents whose homes are broken due to Daddy dearest abusing their mum, or where they live with two parents who can't stand each other. Or who exist in a loveless truce. I'd say those homes are much more broken than ones where children are no longer living with that toxicity.

Now that we know so much more about abuse and its effects, including emotional abuse and silent treatments, we know that everyone is better off out of those homes. That's why "broken home" is an inappropriate phrase today. And such language is part of the stigma of divorce that kept - and still keeps - women and children trapped in bad situations.

(Divorce is still stigmatised. Just check out all the clueless posts on MN saying how breezily, with no proof, that people just give up too easily these days. When, in fact, most people's marriages are vitally important to them, and they tried like they were climbing Everest, and stayed way, way too long.)

In most cases, I'd call a home where a child lives with their mother post-divorce a fixed home.

But OP's eldest daughter will no longer be exposed to OP's in-laws treating her differently, or having to live with a father figure who treats her differently. I know the youngest daughter would still get stuff that the eldest doesn't, but the eldest wouldn't have to see/live with the people who are excluding her. I bet it would be a huge relief for her never to have to see the MIL or stepdad again.

And OP's husband does treat her differently, because he has not stopped his family from being mean to her. His daughter from the previous relationship (OP's stepdaughter) felt free to tell eldest daughter to go away when she sat down in her own home to watch a movie with them. MIL feels free to express that she can't act normally around her grandchildren with OP's eldest daughter there. (WTAF?? I don't think I've ever heard of anything so spiteful, and I've heard a lot of things.) And then we have the Disney thing and this hobby thing, with no effort from the adults to even things out, which OP's husband should have done.

From what OP has described, her eldest daughter is one hundred percent the Cinderella in this set-up, and it must be very damaging for her.

If I was OP, I'd have a huge urge to gather up my eldest and go off and have a nice life together. (Obviously with the youngest too, when OP has custody.)

I don't think I could get past the meanness and the utter disrespect shown to OP and her eldest. And her husband sounds completely wet, saying he didn't want to get married but then got married. Why didn't he stick to his guns, if that's how he felt? Why am I not shocked that the same man is too weak to insist that his stepdaughter is treated better?

OP's eldest daughter may not be a granddaughter of MIL, but she and MIL are connected via OP's youngest daughter, who carries both MIL's and the eldest's DNA. Put another way, OP's eldest is half-sister to MIL's granddaughter, so the eldest does matter in a familial sense. She's part of the tree, same as MIL.

I cannot believe that MIL took NINE children to Disneyland and yet there were no funds to include OP's eldest.

I think you're best off away from this family, OP, I really do.

I have no respect for people who are all MY BLOOD MY DNA ME ME ME because they often cannot see the value of others. And who do they think they are, anyway? Superman? Wonder Woman? What's so special about their DNA? 😡