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.

Seems as though your in laws view your eldest dd as some kind of dirty secret piece of shit. They have loads of money but choose to leave her out. I suppose these are the consequences. The fact that they are withholding early inheritance money from your DH because he has a stepdaughter is just grim.

Not really. They don’t treat her a grandchild because she isn’t one, beck isn’t the same thing as considering her a dirty secret or a piece of shit.

Grandparents passing their assets to their grandchildren is increasingly common, at least partly because of blended families being increasingly common. They aren’t unusual in their approach.

Oh this won’t be over
It will all be swept under the carpet and will drag on interminably.

Expect another depressing thread from the op within a week or so.

Not to stomp on OP any further but really what’s grim is that ultimately she was okay with entering a marriage knowing her first DD would always be treated as not being family. She’s her mother so ultimately this is on her shoulders and her shoulders only.

I appreciate this might not be financially possible, but I would see their contribution(s) as a 2/3 subsidy.

Let’s assume it is horse riding and the cost is £150 a month per girl. So 3 girls is £450 a month. Your ILs are stumping up £300
of the cost so it costs you £150 a month to take all three girls.

It isn’t the IL’s job to treat them all equally although in an ideal world they would. It’s up to you and your DH to find a way of dividing up outgoings to equalise the situation. It may be that you need to cut back on another extra curricular of DD3’s to pay for the extra horse riding. I think it’s fair. As long as they all end up with roughly equal opportunities it doesn’t matter if you never actually spend your own cash on DSD and DD3 and the ILs do it.

Not paying for extracurricular activities for OP's eldest is not even close to treating her like a dirty secret. OP has said her MIL is polite and nice to her eldest.

MIL doesn't consider her a grandchild. OP is not her child. She's providing an experience for her grandchildren. She's not providing for OP's eldest. That's likely why she's bypassing OP's husband in the money gifts.

If she had passed out money to OP's husband, OP would be getting some of that as a marital asset. So MIL is doing the right thing if her goal is to keep her money in her bio family.

2 adults who should never have become parents. Either one of them.

2 adults who should never ever embarked on any kind of relationship together

I agree.
OP and DH should come up with a figure they can afford and that's what they are willing to pay for extra curriculars for teh eldest daughter... ILs can pay for the other 2 girls. Once that value they can afford is used up, no more activities for any of the kids.

OP's previous thread on this issue - www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5436923-step-daughter-versus-daughter-mumsnet-bingo

But if this is the op who posts frequently about this issue, agree.
shared dd is not allowed to do anything with her half sister from dad or her parental Gps without the ops dd being centred…:
the inheritance is a big thing, as op on that thread’s is insisting she gets exactly the same from non relations and has stated she will disinherit youngest dd to give her own dd more…

He said theres no coming back from what you said - what did you say to him?

So DSD goes to private school as her mother pays.
DH and you can’t afford to send your joint DD to private school so Dh feels inadequate
MIL pays for things for DSD and joint DD
Your eldest DD misses out on things MIL pays for
your eldest DD and your joint DD miss out on things DHs ex pays for for DSD

this is the reality of blended families. Yes we all think how nice to treat everyone the same but in obviously DHs ex isn’t going to pay for private school for 2x DD that are nothing to do with her and she isn’t going to not pay for private school for her own DD just because you can’t afford it for your others.

MIL is seriously crap for saying she can’t relax when your DD is around though. The big issue is your eldest doesn’t have decent paternal relations

But the problem is that they are not divorced at the moment, they are a family and live together? No matter how much the IL dislike it, the kids are all their grandchildren now. At least, this is how it works in normal families that dont split their blended children along the lines of "mine" and "yours". If they cant accept it then its best for OP to divorce so the IL can continue excluding older girl - but this time actually having grounds to do so.

Grandparents can fund the granddaughter - but they also should understand that its parents right to decide who is getting what, and to stop massive inequality between kids affecting the family. If I was the OP I would definitely knocked it on a head and only accept activities she can pay for herself.

In any case, seems like the OP wanted to be part of a wealthier family but it backfired. Having another child with her husband was a stupid move.

Stepdaughter (who I assume is not living with the OP) can live her own life but the two girls who live together should have same things available to both of them. I can even understand the SD wanting to see her half sister but not the step sister - fair enough. Everything else in OP is really wrong - especially MIL not wanting to see the stepdaughter and being openly shit about her.

But honestly, blended families are fucked up.

MIL is seriously crap for saying she can’t relax when your DD is around though
if you read ops- if she is the prolific poster on this matter, plethora of threads on this issue you will see why though.
no photo can be taken of her grandchild without ops dd being in it.
no time can be spent with her grandchild without ops dd being included
No present can be bought for the grandchild without ops dd also getting exact equal…
that may not be this op, but it’s always been a sorry mess that situation

That she wanted a divorce. At least that's how I read it.

Her husband has left because the blending hasn’t worked out. They are prioritising his daughter and their daughter over her daughter.

In the end of the day all of this is OPs fault - unless her husband and his parents massively lied to her at the beginning of the relationship. This is what happens when you think you can force your child onto other people who have no interest in it.

All I can say - poor kids.

This OP needs extensive professional support I think.
For herself.

The issue with this is now you're asking her to punish her other daughter to protect her older daughter. Unfortunately neither of them chose to be part of a blended family and it should be obvious by now that blended families are complicated and you need to manage expectations. Expecting your child to be treated equally by her step grandparents is unrealistic.

Yes I think there should be some degree of treating them the same but if a grandparent decides to buy a house or help the grandchild with a deposit for their house, will you expect that they must do the same for the step grandchild as well? No that will most likely never happen and refusing the gift in the name of being fair will be ridiculously unfair to the grandchild who is losing out.

Her older child's father and his family are not involved in her life and her DH has taken her as his own but in the name of fairness she want her to either restrict her younger childs relationship with her grandparents to make things fair for her older child??? And now it's gotten to divorce her older child no longer has DH as a father figure anymore and her real father still doesn't care about her so what has been accomplished???

Is she going to get into another relationship and try again in the hope this would be less messier, have another child into the mix and create another mess looking for fairness and now dealing with 3 fathers and families all treating the kids differently?

Yes it's nice for grandparents to treat the step kids nicely and as the same as possible but there's a difference between getting them all Christmas gifts, birthday gifts etc and huge commitments like helping with house purchase, demanding they must do the same for your other child is ridiculous, and depriving your other child is also ridiculously unfair. She doesn't get to demand that the grandparents must pay for an expensive hobby for the step child and it's also unfair to deprive her younger daughter because she wants to be fair to her older daughter. This will also lead to resentment in the you her child who is being punished because adults couldn't make their marriages work and created this blended family mess.

And what will divorce accomplish? The grandparents will still pay for the hobby and her older daughter will still miss out. Now her older daughter no longer and DH in her life and her own father still doesn't care about her and isn't involved so what has been accomplished?

She is cutting off her nose to spite her face.

This is from her post so please explain how divorce is the right option here:

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

My husband treats my daughter the same as our youngest but MiL doesn’t and he feels he has his hands tied.

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"

It looks like DH has tested his stepdaughter very well and stepped in when her useless father was there but because OP is upset his mother wouldn't pay for her daughter to have the same expensive hobby she will divorce and older daughter will lose all this how the hell does that make sense???

I'm guessing that since he prefers to treat all three girls the same, his parents have assumed that one third of anything they leave him will end up going to his step daughter, as part of his estate when he dies, and they want their money to stay within their biological family.
TBH though, they could have got round that by leaving 'his' share directly to his two biological children in trust till they reach an appropriate age, with appropriate notes in their wills to head off challenges / deeds of variation. There was no need for all this drama over it.

The older girl already knows she is in a worse position. And it is not something that is going to change. H's family will not stop paying for SD and youngest. She will know this for life.

She knows it now, because SD and youngest get to do a hobby she doesn't.

She knows it now because SD and youngest have two parents, and she doesn't.

She will know it in 10 years when youngest is getting loads of pocket money from her father's side and she isn't.

She will know it in 15 years when they go to university and youngest doesn't have to worry about or get a job to meet rent or tuition.

She will know it in 20 years when youngest gets a house deposit and she doesn't.

She will know it in 30 years when youngest gets a big inheritance and she doesn't.

Pretending that these two girls are equal is not going to work. They are sadly not.

Their circumstances are not going to change. Even with a divorce, youngest will still get to do her hobby etc.

The best thing that can be done is to try to communicate this to eldest and help her make peace with the disparity and find other things she enjoys, rather than letting her grow up resenting her sister and mother.

The children should get treated the same. If MIL only wants to pay for one and you cannot afford to pay for the other then it’s not on at all to just treat the one child. Imagine how that would feel as a child! People that can treat kids this way disgust me. I would be putting a very large foot down and saying a firm NO to MIL.

Oh her.

You need to stop playing the who would blame who game, OP.

Your youngest child needs to learn that her parents are the ones who make decisions about what she can do, not her grandmother. And your eldest child needs to see that is the case as well. You constantly blame your MIL, without taking the action needed to be a half-decent parent in this scenario yourself (along with DH). It’s fine for the younger one not to ride ponies or go to Disneyland, but you have to make it clear that it is your decision.

Frankly, the only way any of this is going to work is for your DH to be more committed to you and your family unit than his mother. But you also need to stop measuring fairness like this, and start taking responsibility for making sure your two daughters are treated fairly within your own family unit.