AIBU to be upset he has cut off my eldest daughter?

[GeorgeClarkefan]

I initiated a separation from my husband, the father of my youngest daughter two months ago. He has been the only father figure in my eldest daughter’s life and they had a good relationship.

He has engaged a solicitor who has now sent me a letter re: shared residency of our joint child and our house which I can stay in until our joint child goes to university (or is 19) no surprises.

I have to acknowledge however, that my eldest (other than a quarter of my assets) has no claims on any marital assets and there is also a line which says that in the event of my husband’s death my stepdaughter will not assert her rights until younger daughter goes to university (or is 19).

None of this bothers me but I am shocked and distraught that my husband never asks about eldest or includes her in any outings he has had with youngest.

When I challenged him he says he misses her but it would be too complicated to include her as the law is brutal and she could establish some rights if he continued a relationship with her, a child he has known for over eight years and who he saw more often than his eldest child. I am shocked he can walk away from her so easily.

Her mother’s ex husband.

The weight off the ex husband’s shoulders will be enormous. Not to have this endless needling from wife about forcing his family to to treat her child from a previous relationship 100% identically.

And the in-laws are now probably enormously relieved that they can go about having a relationship with their grandchildren without the dark cloud of the Op hanging over them trying to distaste things.

and the person who will be most relieved? The step child who the OP seems to think is some kind of devil incarnate.

Oh and as I say upthread… it will be a relief for mumsnet posters not to have another thread from the OP bitching about her in laws not paying for lessons for her child from a previous relationship and so on.

Imagine when the time came for university and the in laws perhaps offered to pay their grandchild’s tuition fees. The poison that would have dripped from @GeorgeClarkefan would have been unreal

I never understand the Mumsnet POV that more is expected of step mums than step dads. What I see in threads is an expectation that step dads pay for everything, treat their step children as their own, including their family and for life because they "come as a package". But a step mum paying for an ice cream or doing an occasional school run is "being taken advantage of"

The OP clearly wanted both of her children to have the same financial resources and the ILs not being willing to pay for her DD is a huge part of this.

Sorry to be brutal but if you want two children with the same circumstances - then don't have two different fathers. It's always going to be different in some way

There is a lot of history that the OP hasn't mentioned in this thread but in a lot of previous ones. The exh's oldest DD has been pushed aside for years by OP so that her two kids could always be together. The DSD has not been wanting to come to their home because of OP and her oldest DD so she has tried to spend time with her younger sister and dad at her grandparents place but then OP and her oldest DD would show up unannounced too. The exh really has been put in an impossible place by OP where he has basically had to choose between OP and his DSD, or his own oldest child.

Exactly, OP has said it’s poor form to look at previous threads but this thread is a little disingenuous because taken at face value anyone who hasn’t recognised the OP will think it’s awful that a man can just cut out a child he’s known for 8 years.
All the previous threads, and those of us who haven’t looked at them because we remember the previous posts know that this situation is almost entirely of OPs own making. She chose to end the marriage because of the inequality of treatment between non related siblings.
If I was the MIL and money was no object then personally I would have treated the three kids to same hobby, however OP can’t expect the eldest step child to want to hang out with her own eldest child, they are not related, don’t live together etc
Blended families are never going to be exactly fair, instead of rocking up to things they weren’t invited to, OP and her eldest daughter could have been doing something just for them, without a smaller sibling tagging along.
My children are all full siblings they are not all treated exactly the same due to ages/interests. Their treats are relevant to them, not equal. My 13 year old would be mortified to have to hang out and do an activity with my 6 year old.

@GeorgeClarkefan I really think AIBU isn’t the right place for this post, you’d be much better talking about these sorts of things on the relationship board.

I actually think this whole situation is incredibly sad. Did you and your husband ever explore counselling? I really think relationship counselling could have really helped this situation.

Personally I think his family treated you poorly and should have made you feel more welcome and some of the things they excluded your daughter from are cruel. I was brought up in a step family and my step-dad’s family always treated me equally and didn’t differentiate. However I think the hobby lessons, you should have let go and weren’t the hill to die on. I get you felt bad for your daughter, however arguably she’s in a worse situation now and has lost her father figure.

Where I think you have gone wrong is that as his family repeatedly tried to push you and your daughter out, at that point you should have sought relationship counselling and decided together how you were going to tackle this and put on a united front. I also think family counselling may have been beneficial with your stepdaughter. It seems there was never any real work of integrating her into your family life, or you into her life. She can only have been 5 when you met, unless things changed recently, a lot more should have been done to blend the family more. She comes across as jealous of your eldest daughter and I imagine that stems from her having grown up with her Dad, that is completely natural.

I actually think it’s incredibly sad that the marriage has ended over this.

The step daughter is only 13 now and the youngest is 6 - some from at least the ages of 7 to 13 the step daughter has had her dad live with another family, including a new step sister, on a full time basis, whilst she only visits intermittently. That can be tough for a child and it sounds like she did struggle and wanted time with her dad and her younger sister without her step sister there. And her paternal family tried to support her - with the unfortunate impact of making the OP's daughter feel left out. However I think the solution to this would have been for the OP to support her daughter and help her understand why her stepsister needed to be with her dad and her dad's family - not to try and push for equal treatment for her daughter. Because the situation was intrinsically not equal.

Yeah, I remember those threads. The OP didn't really seem to register that her younger daughter has two half-sisters. Instead, the OP seemed to view her own daughters as "real" sisters, and her stepdaughter as stepsister to both of them, even though she was actually the half-sister of the younger one.

Honestly, being a child in a blended family sounds like an utter nightmare. I'm so grateful my parents stayed together while I was growing up rather than put me and my siblings through this shitshow.

I think a big part of the issue which the OP just can't see is that she wants it to be equal when it benefits her DD but doesn't care when it's her DSD. Which is fine in a way, we all favour our own, I think but she can't accept that in the same way that she favours her DD, her ex and his family were always going to be more interested in DSD

In her posts on this thread she is very clear that her ex spent more time with her daughter than his own but also snipes about him having plenty of time with her that somehow took away from her DD.

I mean there’s one thing ops made fair between her daughters. Neither get to live with their dad now 😅

So, you had a child with a deadbeat dad. Then met a rich man, fell pregnant quickly, forced him to marry you, and treated his existing child as an inconvenience. You didn;'t make her feel welcome into your home so much so that she doesn't stay there and sees her dad elsewhere. What you ideally wanted was to her to be shunted aside and your own DD to be slotted into her spot. You almost achieved this with her dad, but did not manage to completely do this with the in laws. There were a million things you could have done with your existing DD when your joint DD and DSD were together, but you wanted your existing DD to have the same significance to your in laws as their own grandchildren, including inheritence. It's very grabby and opportunistic. I am glad the man and his daughter are free of you.

okay.. I’m confused… is OP not the mother of the two girls. If not then, I changed my mind on the above. Has he a biological daughter before he met OP? I guess I don’t know the backstory well?

But the OP was treating her own stepdaughter very much as a spare.

There are three girls:

OP's daughter from previous relationship
Ex's daughter from previous relationship
OP and ex's daughter

Play immature silly games, win silly prizes. It’s all very messed up.

I came here to say the same.

OP you need some legal advice, he could be liable to pay child support for both children.

You can’t honestly think OP should apply for this?!

Was that the one involving a trip to Disneyland? That the stepdaughter (rightly or wrongly) wasn't invited to?

I wonder if this is the same OP who was trying to take over the SD's bedroom so that her mother could stay in it over Christmas?

The OP had a SD, and 2 DD, the older one from a previous relationship.

The SD wasn't sure of her plans as her mother's family's plans were undecided. So instead of OP's DD giving up her bedroom for her own grandmother and bunking in with her younger sister, she expected her SD to stay away for the Christmas period so that OP's mum, an unrelated woman to her, could have her ensuite room.

The SD had an ensuite room in the house which the OP felt should be her daughter's as she lived in the house full-time. The husband disagreed as it was his house and his daughter's bedroom before the OP moved in with her child.

I know OP said she hasn't name changed, so it might not be her, but it does sound similar.

Why would he pay for a child not his? So do women have to pay for their ex step children?

That would be foolish, given that right now he’s freely offering for her to remain in the house. If she takes it there, it’s unlikely that her daughter would be considered a child of the family, since he’s made a clear distinction between her and his children, and he could in turn pursue his daughter being considered the same, in addition to his share of the house now.

It sounds like the dad had no custody time with his eldest, only visitation with OP's eldest always there unless he had visitation at his parents house and even then, OP would "drop" by and be shocked that the sisters were there spending time with their dad. It almost sounded like he had to take visitation and get the sisters together without OP knowing or she would have thrust her eldest in or had her usual upset.

I really felt for SD and still do.

Exactly, OP has said it’s poor form to look at previous threads

yes I bet she did. Why? Because it reveals the shedload of horror that has preceded this thread. The poor step child and the in-laws and probably the husband are jubilant at this development. Life is going to be so much easier and happier for them.

Oops, sorry, I quoted the wrong poster above. I meant to quote a post saying that the OP's ex was treating his stepdaughter as a spare.