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 ....

ahem, marriage was not over, g&l.

if they were younger children at the time, they might very reasonably feel that her affair with their father destroyed their lives. their aunts likely had to pick up the pieces, esp if their mother was drinking.

perhaps in time the children will come to take a different perspective on the OP and their half-sister, perhaps they won't? in the meantime it's completely fair enough for the aunts to take their cues from children they already know have been hurt.

The suggestion that may see it that way is neither here or there.

I remember the OP's initial thread. IIRC the marriage was pretty much a sham and she was already drinking. This is not the OP's fault.

It is all incredibly sad. I do feel the OP should just let it go but I feel it is awful to penalise a small child like that.

why is it completely here nor there? the OP is querying why everyone can't just move on and see her child. that would be an answer.

and while it's of course entirely possible that the marriage was a sham/alread over etc, the OP wouldn't be the first other woman to, how was it you put it, 'absolve all personal responsibility for the situation' by blaming the current wife?

It may have been their perception of the situation but we don't have a clue for certain.

More than likely the children are blaming the OP for the reasons I suggested, it is easier than admitting that life is crap and parents are not Gods who can make everything good when they are in an unhappy, destructive situation.

OP went into a lot of detail about the situation, I do remember that she had made contact with the ex-wife to try to come to some sort of amicable conclusion. She didn't seem to blame her at all but was trying to help her and the children. I remember the vitriol against the OP and feel it was totally unjustified but pretty typical in the circs.

them's the breaks if you go out with married men.

Aitch, I'm with you.

OP hope everything works out for you and your family. Keep strong and just don't waste energy on them, move on with your life and enjoy your DD.

I doubt it has anything to do with your dd and everything to do with you. My ds has next to no relationship with his cousins. Nothing to do with him but everything to do with the lack of relationship between myself and SIL. It has never been good from the off (when we first met I was a snotty nosed teenager who she said intimidated her - she is several years older than me). I tried over the years to improve our relationship but it never changed. Ds came along and I found it easier to cut the relationship with db and sil (having tried for over 20 years by then!!).

Thank u grapeandlemon...

Aitch not querying why everybody cant move on and recognise dd .... saying that we will have too out of no choice, but this will not fix only make worse ....

worse for who? because you'll stop contributing to the dcs? i don't understand what was so wrong with the sister leaving gifts at the grandmother's, and i don't understand what's so wrong with the current situation, wherein their father acts like a father and runs them places?

actually i don't understand this whole thing, and repeat my impression that there's a big disconnect going on somewhere.

MCDL, you don't have to make a huge big deal out of it.

You could accept it with a stiff upper lip. Acknowledge that this was one of the possible repercussions

Your daughter will take her cue from you, so don't act as though you've been wronged for the next 20 years! Just try to live your lives as a small happy family unit, whilst respecting their position - which is not a crazy one imo.

Aitch nothing to do with contributing to dp children, in fact i would give all I had materially, emotionally and otherwise to see dp been able to give equally to his three children, for them all to be able to spend time together with their family .... but unfortunately this is not to be .... I see only further hurt for all involved because this can not happen ...

MCDL your daughter loves you unconditionally. This is one of the bonuses for pushing out something the size of a melon...

DP's daughters from previous marriage love their mum unconditionally as well...

I'm with Aitch, Shaz10 and valiumSinglteton.

Enjoy your lovely girl and good relationship. You don't need validation.

Until you can stop being so self absorbed nothing will come of this.

Your and your DP's actions have hurt this family greatly and condemned these children to an alcoholic parent while you two skip off into the sunset.

But the big happy Waltons-style family (with you, DH and DD at the centre) can't just happen because you've decided it's time.
His family (or at least a significant proportion of them) don't want that with you. They may never do.
As others have said, that's one of the "downsides" of having an affair with a married man. Amongst others.

It seems to me that you are expecting 'honourable' behaviour from your DP's family where you and he have shown none yourselves.

No matter how disastrous his marriage, the 'honourable' thing to do, for him, would have been to ensure that that relationship was fully over before embarking on another. Equally, you should have waited to enter a relationship with him until he was free to be in another. Part of a parent's job is to lead by example. You and your dp have demonstrated that feelings are more important than honour or integrity- you cannot blame your dp's children for now doing the same.

I feel for your daughter, it is not her fault, but you may have to accept that your and your dp's actions have longer-reaching consequences than you would like.

you know your earlier post Aitch where you wrote that OP seemed fundamentally unable to emphasize with dh's family and you felt some kind of disconnection in the whole thread, I have felt exactly the same right through the thread but I could not put my finger on it. I also wondered if it might be down to a language problem.

MCDL you do seem very intractable about this. You keep saying the aunts must bring the children round to accepting your dd or else your dh will cut them off and that will not benefit anyone... This is your stance right through the thread and it is so unreasonable yet it doesn't ever get through to you, does it? I just don't know any way of getting that across, that you might see them as people with a mind of their own, rights, feelings. It's not that I feel you have to take on board the advice of some random , slightly batty woman on the internet such as myself who does not know any of the people involved. I don't mean that you should do what I or anyone else advises. Obviously as a grown woman you have to know what you're doing. The thing is though nothing anyone says gets through to you, does it unless they say you are right?

You're somehow disconnected and fixed on a one-way track and that's it. You don't see left or right, you don't realise how selfish you have been, fundamentally are, you don't really care much about the feelings of anyone except yourself and your dd. They are to "do" what you would like because anything else would be "ridiculous" but what they feel doesn't enter into it. Why not? You live in a strange bubble it seems to me. But ok I'm not Mother Theresa either and I think this thread is really pointless in the end.

So I'll do my Pontius Pilate here and withdraw. I still wish you luck getting out of the dramatic stage here and into some kind of peaceful settled life that you can all live with.

What I am saying has been taken up wrongly .... I will also be withdrawing from this thread ...

What jumps out to me from this thread that there is a family which is still coming to terms with the fact that your DH dumped them and moved on. Heaven knows it will have been devastating to not just those immediately involved , but a huge ripple effect throughout the whole family.

Your intentions may be good, but in the face of what has gone on in the past, may never lead you to a positive relationship with members of his family.

if you love this guy and want to support his children, then keep doing what you are doing. Its for him, after all. In time, things might change, but the toll on relationships of a marriage breakdown can last a lifetime.

And you are not really in a position to judge the others involved and what they should and should not be doing. They are entitled to live their lives they way they want to and that may be with out acknowledging you or your child.

Let them have some dignity in the position they have found themselves.

If my husband and her OW end up getting married and having children I can guarantee right now that most (if not all) of my family will have absolutely nothing to do with them. Ever. You may think this is wrong but they have been hurt by their actions and their memories are long.

Tough noogies, I say. Should have thought of that before.

Shaz 10, would your husbands family have nothing to do with him or with any children he may have with this OW ... You would not be expected too ...

they didn't have nothing to do with your dd, one of them was buying presents for her and leaving them at the grandmother's. i can't believe you didn't take this for the positive sign that it is, especially in light of the fact that the grandmother does want involvement. i fear you and your partner are handling this situation catastrophically badly. is there a language issue, btw, it might go some way to explaining the peculiar tone?

No language issue ... yes the aunt has said she wants nothing to do with dd... but still felt it ok to buy a gift ... these types of inconsistencies are to do with a little person who cannot speak for themselves, a wonderful little girl who does not deserve this treatment. It is hurtful and most confusing to me ... i get myself all wound up trying to figure it all out, i just dont want to have to deal with it anymore ...

No, your DD does not deserve this treatment. But neither did your Ohs DDs deserve to have their father walk out on them, leaving them to cope with whatever sort of life their mother was able to give them, or for their aunts to have to help pick up the pieces.

You don't have to deal with this anymore, because it is not your decision whether they want anything to do with your DD or not, it is their decision and it sounds as though they have made it very clear.