My stepson's 18th birthday has left me feeling like I'm not really family after 10 years, and I don't know how to process it.

[Derkkk]

A few weeks back I posted here about my stepson's upcoming 18th birthday. He wanted to celebrate it with just his biological mom and dad, and his biological father had planned a week-long yacht trip

For context, I'm a 46 year old man, and my wife is 44. We've been married for 10 years. She has three children from her previous marriage an 17 year old son (he was 7 when I came into his life), a 15 year old daughter, and a 13 year old son.

I also have three children from my previous marriage my daughter is 19, my son is 17, and my younger daughter is 15.

For the last decade we've lived as one family. We celebrate birthdays together, holidays together, vacations together, school events, graduationseverything. I've always considered my stepkids my own, never treated them differently, and I've tried my best to be there for them emotionally, financially, and as a parent. My kids have always considered them siblings too.

A few weeks ago my stepson said that for his 18th birthday he wanted to celebrate with just his biological mom and dad. His biological father then planned an entire week-long yacht trip for him and invited my wife as well.

I'll be honest I wasn't comfortable with my wife spending a week on a yacht with her ex-husband. I didn't like the situation, but at the same time I also understood that this was supposedly about their son's 18th birthday. At first my wife actually said no because she knew how awkward it would be, but the kids kept asking her until she finally agreed.

Before everything was finalized, I talked to my wife again. I told her I wasn't trying to control her, but asked if there was any compromise. Maybe she could attend the birthday itself, spend that evening with them, then come home while the kids continued the vacation with their dad.

She suggested exactly that to the kids.They completely rejected it. They got upset and said that wasn't the celebration they wanted. They wanted both of their biological parents there for the entire trip because that's how they imagined celebrating this milestone birthday.

My wife tried to reason with them a few times, but eventually she gave up because she didn't want to make their son's 18th birthday into a huge family fight. I understood that, even if I wasn't happy about it..The problem is that my own kids already knew we'd been planning a big 18th birthday celebration for him ourselves for almost two months. We had family plans, gifts, dinner, everything.

When they found out about the yacht trip, my oldest daughter confronted my stepson. She told him she thought it was hurtful because it basically felt like he was saying we weren't really family. She told him he could celebrate with everyone including his biological dad and still go on the yacht afterward.

That conversation went badly..My stepson got angry and told her that this was his 18th birthday and, just this once, he wanted to celebrate with his "actual family." He also said he sometimes feels like he doesn't really have a place and never asked for this blended family. Hearing that after 10 years honestly broke my heart.

My daughter told him not to speak to her again, and since then the kids have barely spoken to each other. The atmosphere in the house has been tense and cold. Later we also found out that the yacht trip was actually his biological father's idea from the beginning, and he specifically didn't want me or my children included. My wife didn't tell me earlier because she didn't want to create even more conflict or ruin her son's birthday.

Today I drove my wife and the kids to the airport..I smiled, hugged everyone goodbye, wished my stepson a happy birthday, and came home.

I'm taking my own kids on a small trip while they're away because I don't want them sitting at home feeling rejected. But honestly, for the first time in 10 years, I don't feel like we're one family anymore. I don't blame my stepson for wanting time with both of his biological parents. I understand why turning 18 is a big milestone. But hearing the words

my actual family and realizing that after a decade I still might not be seen as family has really hurt.

Even my wife felt distant today. Not because she was being cruel, but because everything felt awkward. It honestly felt like today drew a line between their family and our family, and I don't know if that's just emotion talking or if this is something I need to accept.

Advice you would do well to consider in your own life in relation to posting on the internet. Every vile though doesn’t have to go on a thread.

I remember your previous post. I could see then that the 18 year old wanted his biological family to enjoy a holiday together (the yacht probably swung it!) but you’ve now said that the boy’s dad cheated on her and still wants her back (do you actually know that?), so yeah, I’d be uneasy about that.
I’m also wondering where this will lead to. All children’s birthdays being just with biological family? Wanting an annual summer holiday together?
I don’t think your families are as blended as you thought to be honest.

Stick up by all means but as is being demonstrated by a certain poster on this thread at the moment the level of vitriol is out of proportion.
Also, you are sticking up for the OPs DSS - what about his daughter? Are you going to stick up for her? There is pain on both sides.

Do people not have more than one celebration? My kids had a family meal somewhere where wider family were included, grandparents aunts uncles etc and then a celebration with friends. It would have been simple to have a celebration with his mother stepfather etc and still have his trip with dad and siblings. Not wanting to do anything with the people he lives with seems odd e.g. my GS had a celebration for his 21st with his housemates at uni.

I’m not sure why your wife even entertained this holiday idea. She should not have gone on it. Your step son should have gone with his dad and his mum could have celebrated his birthday another time (with or without you). When he said he wanted to spend his birthday with both his biological parents, it should immediately have been shut down. A meal out maybe fine but a week long holiday? Nah.

Think you need a serious talk with your wife about the precedent she has set here.

My wife and her ex's family are still close. He's still invited to my in laws' home, as well as to my wife's sister's parties and family events, and my wife's family also attends events hosted by his family.

This puts a very different complexion on her decision to go on the trip.

Her ex comes to her family events at her parents' and her sister's homes. She goes to events at her ex-inlaws. That's multiple socialising events a year, presumably, so they are still very close.

This isn't someone strong-armed into spending time with a loathed ex, it's someone on a luxurious holiday with her kids and a man she still enjoys the company of.

The only reason she initially said no is being the OP wouldn't like it. I'm sure they are having a great time, and yes, I expect the same thing will arise for her other kids' birthdays.

@Derkkk , you need to decide whether your jealousy of their good co-parenting relationship is more important than your marriage.

You also have unreasonable expectations about how much contact to get while they are there. It's a miracle to get more than a photo or a WhatsApp from my own kids when they're away having fun. Expecting messages from step kids after a couple of days is plain daft.

It's ridiculous to be offended by photos of them together. Photos of them does not erase your marriage unless you already think the marriage is flimsy and disposable.

She’s 19 I think, so an adult.

This would end my marriage. Going away with his ex would be a boundary that I would not accept. No I would not let my husband do this and stay my husband, there is no way that I would allow him to disrespect our marriage by going away on holiday with another woman. Yes I am saying let, it doesn't stop him making his own choices but that choice comes with consequences, in this case the consequence would be divorce.

How do you know she enjoys time with her ex? My family were the same with my ex, I hated it. In the end I told my mother it was fine, she could invite whoever she liked but if she invited him she had to accept I wouldn't be there.

I know that you're speaking from experience, but it seems to depend on family dynamics.

When I was teaching, I had pupils who absolutely considered the step-parent's children to be their siblings. Unfortunately, what sometimes happened would be that the parent and step-parent would break up and then the children had the trauma of losing their siblings.

This is a very complex situation where the DW spends time with ExH extending family and is invited to many family gatherings, obviously because of cousins, DGPs, uncles and aunts. None of which could be said to be unreasonable. DW is clearly still part of that family and OP has lived with this throughout his marriage.

As I said previously, this explains why DW
could even consider going on this holiday.

I agree she shouldn’t have gone, but she is very much part of the dynamic of her ExH family.

She can do this, many us I couldn’t.

Imo the ex DH has been totally manipulative, organising the yacht trip. Looks like wealth can buy you many things, he’s even trying to divide your blended family and it looks like he’s achieving his goal!

For someone who cheated multiple times, he’s still welcomed by all of your DW’s family?! Are they dazzled by his wealth? If he wasn’t wealthy, I’m not so sure they would be as accommodating, maybe?

Your DW hasn’t helped this situation either. She should have stood her ground and told your DSS that if his Dad wants the yacht trip, that’s fine but that DSS doesn’t get to dictate who goes, (through his Dad’s manipulation)! Does DSS know that his Dad was a serial cheater and that’s the reason why his biological parents are no longer together?

I actually think the 18 year old in this is massively out of order as well as his dad too, expecting his mother to go on this holiday and play happy families after the way his father treated her.

Men really really don’t care about women do they?! so long as they are happy and getting what they want.

MISOGYNY at its finest.

She might still be in contact with ExH family but this situation is entirely different! It’s FAR more intimate! It’s totally disregarding the feelings of half of a blended family, they haven’t been invited! It’s like they don’t matter and the DW has gone along with it!

This isn't that unusual.

My late husband's first wife tried to get him 'to come home' while she was still with her affair partner.

Fortunately, in this case the children were adults and away from the family home before their mother started the affair - but the downside is that they were unaware of the reality of the situation.

I'll not derail your thread, but it was clear to me that my husband's ex always considered herself to be the wife. [She tried to gatecrash our honeymoon. I still don't know whether to find that amusing or horrifying.]

She's currently still with her 4th partner, I believe. Nevertheless, she manipulated the kids in order to ensure her attendance of my husband's funeral. (I had no intention of stopping her, but she didn't know that. Her 4th partner dropped her off and picked her up at the lockdown funeral.)

I had phone calls from the kids telling me how 'devastated' their mother was.

Three days after the funeral, she turned up at my front door, the excuse being that she was 'walking the dog' - she lives in another village, and tried to persuade me to place DH's ashes in a place of her choosing (close to where she lives with her current partner half the time).

DH and I were married 27 years.

People who are used to getting their own way never give up and can be very adept at manipulating their children.

Worth pointing out that people who can't see beyond their own circumstances goes both ways too. Blended family threads invariably feature contributions from posters who are outraged on behalf of their own blended families and can't analyse the situation beyond what they think/hope/believe would happen in their own setup. This thread is no different.

This family hasn't worked out like that though. So your family is irrelevant.

It's not a thread about whether blended families work or not.

It's a thread about OP and his DC feeling rejected because their step-family DSS said he wanted to spend his birthday with his actual family. And now feeling like the family is broken and some not wanting to speak to him ever again because they wanted him to see them as equal or better to his actual family.

The DW going on the yacht trip is crazy but it's not the core issue of the situation.

This may well be true in some respects, but he is 18 so he is no longer stuck and hasn't been for a while. And where is his consideration for his mothers life. His Father was the one who had a fling and created the need for a divorce, his Mum had to pick up the pieces and now the son has no consideration for his mother. He is old enough to understand at least some of these issues.

It's sad for the daughter but the stepson is allowed to say how he feels.

If you have an acquaintance and they start saying they're you're best friend, and they should be invited to your birthday, and on holiday with you... and you say no, you don't feel the same way about them, you're not being cruel.

The daughter confronted him and caused an argument. The stepson didn't go out of his way to be cruel, he was cornered and felt attacked. He's clearly had to suppress how he feels for 10 years and it eventually came out.

The daughter is a victim of OP pushing the big happy family narrative and not giving any room for the children to define their own relationships.

The OP didn't say anywhere approaching that the step-sister was upset at how her Father was being treated.

It said she was upset that DSS didn't want to celebrate his birthday with her and the other step-family, that he wanted to spend it for once, with his actual family.

It's all here in the OP.

"The problem is that my own kids already knew we'd been planning a big 18th birthday celebration for him ourselves for almost two months. We had family plans, gifts, dinner, everything.
When they found out about the yacht trip, my oldest daughter confronted my stepson. She told him she thought it was hurtful because it basically felt like he was saying we weren't really family. She told him he could celebrate with everyone including his biological dad and still go on the yacht afterward.
That conversation went badly..My stepson got angry and told her that this was his 18th birthday and, just this once, he wanted to celebrate with his "actual family." He also said he sometimes feels like he doesn't really have a place and never asked for this blended family. Hearing that after 10 years honestly broke my heart.
My daughter told him not to speak to her again, and since then the kids have barely spoken to each other"

It's a power play by a wealthy man who seems to offer little to his kids and his former wife other than money.

His kids are young and can be forgiven for falling for this kind of manipulation.

You wife on the other hsnd, should be mature enoigh to recognise it for what it is. She met her ex when she was very young, still close of all her ex in-laws, took the path of least resistance - keep the kids happy, no fall out with ex or in laws.

She had to disappoint someone and that someone is the OP. The reason for this choice is the most important thing in all of this. Is it because she naively thinks that you are the softest place to land and the one who will accept her decision the easiest - that she know you love her and ye'll get through it or is it becsuse she minisises your feelings above everyone else's?

I suspect your wife will regret going. Her reaction and treatment of you went she returns will tell a lot. Does she apologise? Does she understand she allowed herself to be manipulated to your detriment? Does she have a plan to prevent it from happening again? What will happen with future birthdays?

The Ex is selfish, controlling and manipulative? Will his behaviour and your wife's actions, cosr you your marraige or will your wife have wised up after the trip?

You have a wife problem!

An 18yr DSS is old enough to accept its just not on for he and his father to be demanding that your wife attend.
Emotional blackmail and coercive control. Your DSS is not a good person.

Yes go on the 18th Birthday yacht trip with your own dad and blood siblings but accept that will cause family upset.

DON'T blackmail your mum into going on a trip with an ex. That part of her life is over.

This would be marriage ending for me. Leave and prioritise your own children,

But that's a completely unrelated scenario isn't it?

Unless your GS was forced to live with his housemates aged 7, accept one as a new parent and the rest as his new siblings and be rejected if he said for once in 10 years, he didn't want to celebrate his birthday with them but wanted just to celebrate it with his actual family.

Because blended families only work when the adults hold those boundaries firmly, even when someone is upset.

Is that a blended family 'working' or it that parents ignoring their children's upset and prioritising their own romantic relationship?

But that's the point... why are OP and his kids being rejected? They've been in that boy's life for 10 years... unless OP was vile and abusive why is that boy behaving as if they're insignificant? What has made him behave like OP is NOT family?? The boy is 18.... he must fully understand that it's not appropriate for his mother to go on the trip and yet he spat the dummy out when she said no!! And why are any of them allowing the ex any say in what they do, especially after TEN YEARS !! My point was that it's unreasonable for the OP to be rejected like this. That boy must know what OP has done for the family. Yet he can dismiss it all out of hand. He seems to be a spoilt, manipulative brat and happy to cause problems. OPs daughter was right IMO. I can understand why she's upset. And so many posters are saying that blended familiar never work... I was just pointing out how decent, civilised people navigate what I know can be a tricky situation.