Sian LLoyd a step parent excluded from Blair wedding

[2rebecca]

As a step mother this story made me sad www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/showbiz/sian-lloyd-pain-being-barred-6030231
The story also made the Wail and the Express yesterday.
It's sad that although she has been married to the bride's father for 6 years she wasn't invited but was snubbed by her step daughter.
It's sad that she then discussed her rescinded invitation with the press so that stories of her stepdaughter's wedding were full of theories as to why she was snubbed and how OK this was rather than focussing on the wedding.
Tony Blair didn't show many diplomatic skills where his son's wedding was concerned.

well she certainly hasn't guaranteed herself an invitation to the first christening either, has she?
I wouldn't expect to be invited to my DSD's wedding. Her mother and father have a terrible relationship & I am the original wicked stepmother (according to their retelling of history even though I wasn't around for a lot of it (I'm pencilled in for those parts) but I'd be very happy and supportive of DH and our DC (DSD's half siblings) to go and be part of her special day. I cannot imagine the nastiness in this woman to want to have a press article about it.
I wonder how long more her marriage will last?

A party is not the same as a close family wedding. That is a bit of an odd comparison.

mignonette I do not expect to veto my parents choice of partner, nor do I expect big tantrums from adults if I don't care for their choice and do not wish to have them attend my wedding.

Therefore, YOU chose your partner Mum/Dad and that's just fine but I don't like them/they've upset my Mum etc etc and so I do not wish to have them attend one of the most important days of my life.

In fact I am going to go all out here and say STEP parents should butt out and stop trying to muscle in and make themselves more important on other people's family occasions and in fact in their lives. I did not choose you my Dad/Mum did and I don't have to have a relationship with you if I don't want to. They made all their own choices quite rightly without reference to me and I expect to be able to do the same.

And while we are at it, I think if step parents stopped trying to muscle in and force a place for themselves, they would be far more likeable, maybe many blended families would work a lot better and a there would be far less angst here on the Step Parenting Board.

Isn't a wedding a party? It was a throwaway thing. Anyway, I have no idea whether I would care about hurting a parent I loved by excluding their partner, my Foster Parents are happily married to each other and I'm afraid my biological parents long since lost my love in that respect. I stopped caring about their feelings when I was 13. As far as I can tell they stopped caring about mine when I was much younger than that. You're asking the wrong person!

Agree with Sparkly, one of my Stepmother's problems was she wanted me to transfer my love for my Mother to her. Wasn't going to happen. My younger sister did which is why she stayed and I was sent off to foster care.

So Sparkysilverysequins when you choose a partner do you expect your parents to refuse to have a relationship with him and not to invite him to events just because they didn't choose him?
That seems a very odd way of looking at things. Your family isn't just the people you share genetic material with. I regard my brother's wife and mother's sister's husband as my relatives even though they aren't biologically related to me and weren't chosen by me, similarly my cousins' spouses.
Families also include the people our relatives live with and marry and care for.
Some mothers can be overly antagonistic to the women their exes marry and some stepmothers can be too pushy. Women seem to get in more of a pickle with this sort of thing than men do. Few fathers fall out with their exes new partner to this extent and refuse to attend stuff if their exes new partner attends. Women do seem to get in more of a tizz about stuff.

Kirk sorry to hear that and glad to hear that you have two foster parents that remain happily married. I am really referring to parents who separate and divorce without other people being involved then years later meet a new partner. Then you still hear of the adult children whingeing about 'having' to invite them which to me seems spectacularly childish and selfish.

I think a lot of step parents don't muscle in. I would refer to myself as a partner/wife of the child's father/Mother as opposed to a step parent because I do not parent them nor wish to. They have two parents.

I know that one of my parents would have hurt seeing my their ex with their latest partner at various family gatherings. However this parent was unselfish enough to not want his children to take sides and also encouraged us to not show misplaced solidarity by excluding them. It is about perpetuating division and sides or choosing not to. Simple.

Yes to "Rebecca. I do think there's an element of childish foot stamping to some of these situations.

And Sparkly when you say you do not veto your parents choice of partner then go on to say you choose not to have a relationship with them/invite them then that is precisely what you are doing.

What I am saying is that adult children do not have the right to object to their parents choice of new partner. Neither do they have the right to be involved in the choice. Parents do not have to make a decision to remain together with the adult children's needs in mind. Nor do you have the right to be taken into consideration if your parents want to separate after they have reared you to adulthood. It is, quite frankly none of your business unless they consult with you for your opinion.

No I don't expect that 2Rebecca but I don't expect to be forced into close relationships with people I would never choose just because they did. I would always be civil but I won't treat people like family members if I don't want to and don't feel that way towards them. Why on earth should I?

Does anyone remember that program on a few years ago where Sian was on a panel of judges looking for a new weather person? She was awful to the contestants. Unnecessarily nasty to them. Dh's step mum always causes problems at family functions including our wedding. Haven't invited her to anything since.

Yes but not treating somebody as a family member is not synonymous with not having them at a wedding. That is a different thing altogether.

I agree that Sian presents as an unpleasant person per se regardless of whether she is married to a man w/ children who are not biologically hers.

Different definitions of "family" I suppose. To me my SIL is my family as are my stepchildren. You don't have to be bosem buddies with them but to me inviting a member of my family and not inviting their spouse isn't being civil it's being nasty and is also being nasty to the member of my family that they are married to.
I don't see that inviting someone to your wedding is being forced into a close relationship with them.
When people marry into your family you do tend to see more of them if you want to continue seeing the person they married usually.
Sometimes people don't like the people their siblings marry but few would refuse to invite them to a wedding because of this if they were inviting their sibling.

I'm not a huge Sian fan, and it's hard to be objective. But I agree with the poster who suggested she lost any moral high ground by going public about it. A dignified silence is ALWAYS the best policy. She should have vented on here!!