Struggling to accept DP sisters will not accept our dd

[MCDL]

DD now 4.2, although after some time dd is now accepted by Grandmother and brothers, sisters continue to want to have nothing to do with her. They are close to DP children 18 and 23, who also continue to dis own her. Finding it difficult to accept this. Feel if they took the lead, dp's children would follow. Feel they using dp's children as an excuse to continue this ridiculous behaviour .... Any advice ....

i think it's fine that their first loyalty is to your dp's children.

It is not me they object to. It is not DP, it is not dd. It is untill dp's children are ready to accept their half sister then they will. It is such a shame seeing that they have such influence that for sake of DP, his children and dd that they would encourage, be seen to be building bridges etc. What they continue is not helping DP children.

Yes he can and he does ... this is if no benefit to his two children and driving him away ...

I suspect they do object to you, at least a little.

Well I am sure a little, but they see their brother happy, a better person than he ever was, a better father than he ever was. Surely they could help a little to encourage and support for sake of the three children involved ....

TBH, if they feel that they want to wait until your DP's older children are ready to accept your dd, then there is nothing you can do. And it's ok for them to wait imo. Their first loyalty must naturally be to the children who were hurt in the break up of their parents marriage.

Whether you or any one else agrees with that or thinks that it's healthy or right does not change the way they feel.

All you can do is wait, and get on with your life while leaving the door open.

You must also accept that they may never want to have a relationship with you or your dd, or a better one with your dp.

It sounds like you think everyone should be over the marraige break up now, but ime it does not happen like that. The consequences go on for much longer, and are far more painful than you seem to expect.

it sounds as if your dh drove his children away a long time ago by having a relationship with you and breaking off his marriage to their mother. You say their relationshp to their father is based on money and taxi services.

If he cuts them off for not acknowledging his child by you, he loses what little he has left with them.

It is not up to them to pander to his wishes after all. They were hurt by both of you as children. They are adults and they can do as they like in the matter surely? I find your attitude to them and how you report your dh's attitude to his own children as harsh and rather nasty tbh. Just based on your posts here, I have not read any of your other threads with the background so can only judge it on what I read here.

I think as I said before already, you should back right off and respect their wishes. Just get on with your own life and your own small family and leave them be. Ifthey want to come, they'll come and if you make them welcome then, that's all you can do.

They are aware I encourage and have always relationships between dp and his children, help support dp's children financially, am a good mother to their niece, good partner to their brother.

I may not have read this properly but if you refused or sent back presents sent for your dd, could they have taken this badly and felt you were rejecting their (presumably kind) gesture? Also if it's bothering you this much is there anything you can think of to do eg say you're so sorry for any bad feeling and that your dd asks about her aunts and longs to know them?

You may do all that now, but to them and the children you will probably always be seen as the cause of their misery when they were younger.

ZZZen speaks sense, back off and get on with your own life.

When they have come to terms with what happened and their feelings about their father, you and their half sister, and neice, things may change.

You just have to accept this could take years, or may never happen.

i suggest you go back and read bibbity's posts, OP.

Yes I have read all posts, have you overlooked 'bigmouths post' aitch ... There are no answers but to just do the best one can do to continue supporting dp and his children .... As for the aunts as I see no benefit for anybody involved only further pain, I can not accept this but will deal with it as best I can and move on with it ....

oh stop it. you're looking for insight into their behaviour. if all was well you wouldn't be posting. so bib has more to say to you than people who all got along well. would you but listen...

Oh dear - I do feel for you having been in a similar position.

My DH and I have two daughters who are ignored by his siblings and his chldren from his first marriage.

We didn't have an affair that broke up his marriage - we met 6 years after his divorce when his ex was already re-married. However his children have totally refused to accept our marriage or their half sisters. His brother and sister also behave as if our children don't exist.

I gave up a long time ago and our family is its own little entity. We don't need them and I have long since let it go. The only thing that matters is that our family unit is happy.

What anyone else thinks is unimportant - my step children refused to attend our wedding or their half sisters christenings and have shown no interest in getting to know me or our children. When our first daughter was born my husband's ex phoned and said "If she'd been a boy your first born daughter may not have been so hurt"

My advice is enjoy your family and stuff everyone else. If they come around all well and good but don't waste energy worrying. It's not worth it.

Thank you so much for your post AngelHMum. It is difficult to understand the behaviours of others, this i guess i need to stop ...

Does your husband have a good relationship with his children. Does your husbands family, brothers, sisters, mother accept your children.

Sorry you did say dh brother and sister also behave as if your children dont exsist.. Does he have any type of a relationship with them ...

By MCDL Sun 25-Jul-10 20:54:22
Well I am sure a little, but they see their brother happy, a better person than he ever was, a better father than he ever was. Surely they could help a little to encourage and support for sake of the three children involved ....

I think that at least part of the answer lies in your own words. He is now a better father than he ever was ie: he was not a very good father to his daughters from his marriage. Of course they are going to feel hurt. And it is natural that their aunts would want to support them. If my own experience is anything to go by, it will have been the aunts who were there to help them pick up the pieces when their dad left. Unlike Angel, the affair between you and their father caused him to abandon them. Yes, it may sound melodramatic to you, but at the ages they were when it happened, they probably felt that way. Especially if you were pg when he left or very soon afterwards. When my parents split, it was around 12 years before any of my Dad's family would speak to him, and they only relented because I asked them to at least be civil to him on my wedding day. However, none of them ever accepted his new wife or their child.

With the passing of a long, long time ( around 40 years)now that I am an adult I know that it was not the fault of my half-sibling that my dad and his mother chose to have an affair and to destroy two marriages as well as deserting five children ( yes, she left her 3 children, aged 18m, 3y and 5y behind when she went with my dad), but it still hurts that he got to spend his whole childhood with my dad, to have holidays with him, to share successes at school, to know him as someone more than just an occasional visitor. My dad and I eventually had a wonderful relationship, not helped by his new wife, and he is no longer with us, but no matter how much I loved him and forgave him, there will always be a little bit of hurt that lingers. And if I feel like this after 40 years, how must your partners DDs feel after just 5?

Yes I am so aware of all of this, mumsnet has really helped me see the wrongs, helped me feel the wrongs.

DP was in a very bad place, with a wife who was drinking heavily for 10 years previous in his marriage. She still is. I was very foolish and naive but thought the situation would improve for them if he was away from the abusive marriage. He would be and thankfully is a better father to them. We were wrong to start a relationship and have a child without ending the previous one properly. The hurt this has caused will never mend ...

MCDL, what doesn't seem to be acknowledged here is that your DP left his DCs with an alcoholic - and it is therefore very likely that those aunts had to do far more for the DCs than in a normal situation. Perhaps they resent that terribly - as do the DCs. Try and reverse the roles. If your DP became an alcoholic, would you leave your DD in his care while you went off with another man?

MCDL, 'never' is a long time.
Obviously there is a lot of hurt that shouldn't have happened, but these things do, and I'm going to stick my neck out and say , be patient because sometimes in the end it can work out.

My father left my Mum when I was 15.. and when my brother was just 3 months old (wanker). He eventually married the OW who had three daughters of her own. Initially I didn't want ANYTHING do do with them, I was hurt and resentful..and a teenager!

However OW made every effort to invite me over, to include me and my little brother, and very very gradually a new family bond did form... and I now consider my Step Mum to be very much part of my life and family, and my children think of her as their 3rd Granny...
Yes there are some people in my family who will never forgive or forget, but most of us have moved on...on one occasion my Mum and Step Mum attended my brothers parents evening together.. without my dad (still a wanker )

Sometimes just keeping the door open and making sure they know that they are welcomed in your life is all you can do, and hope they reciprocate eventually.....

Not sure what is so hard to understand OP. You had an affair with their father, he left their mother for you, you were pregnant with his child whilst still married to their mother, he left them with an alcoholic parent, he wasn't a very good father to them when there.

It might be nicest for you and your DD if they all put the past aside but that kind of hurt doesn't heal easily, not only for the kids but for other family members. I can see perfectly well why other family members prefer to support the other children in this situation. You need to stop looking at it from your perspective and realise you can't airbrush out of history the hurt you and your DP caused to other people and expect them to have got over it by now.

Yes indeed he did, and there in lies the problem ... He lived alone for some time and hoped his children would live with him, but they did not want to leave their family home which was next door to their grandmother, aunts and uncles, they did not want to know him ...

Presently they have left the family home and doing their own things (one to start college this september). They do not speak to their mother and when at home at weekends or for different things stay with their grandmother.

I think you said your dh's grandmother was now willing to start having a relationship with your dd.

So why don't you concentrate on building that relationship for now and leave the aunts/grown up kids. It will be lovely for her to have a relationship with her granny.

I would leave off all the attempts to force aunts and grown up children to do what you want them to do by refusing to take presents, insisting on them having contact, threatening to cut the kids off as punsihment for not towing the line and anything of that ilk. Your dh is thinking that he has to come down harshly on them and make demands, that he has waited long enough for them to come round but he does not have a right to have your dd acknowledged, liked , wanted, however much he feels that way. I think they could come to care for her if they knew her but there is no reason why they should IYSWIM. You and dh are not necessarily in the right demanding it is my outsider's view anyway.

Have a think about how your dd can get in regular touch with her granny. That's something positive to do.

Perhaps you could suggest that your dh try to maintain a good relationship with his sisters (after all they looked after his dc for him, something he should have done himself, he is in their debt) and try to maintain a good relationship with his sons (he wronged them after all not v.v.). Maybe it would work ok if he manages to seperate those aspects of his life - e.g. he sees his sons regularly but away from your home perhaps and leaves off putting any pressureon them about this - and he sees his sisters when he visits them without you and dd.

Maybe it really isn't that nice for you. Dd as yet is probably not that aware of it all, it is more about you and dh at the moment and your concerns for her which I do understand but her well-being doesn't always override everyone else's feelings/wishes which is tough on a mum. Distance yourself from it a bit and get on with working on the good bits and making them better

oh if they stay with the grandmother, probably your dd will not end up being all that intimate with her granny after all.