SIL excluded DSS from family photo

[EMS23]

It's just a rant, she's a witch and has form for this sort of bitchy crap but I can't have it out with her as my parents can't cope with the fallout when she inevitably punishes them by withholding visits of her kids.

At a family event yday, my mum had organised and paid for a professional photographer and SIL tried to engineer it so that my DSS was excluded from the grandchildren photo.

She knows full well my parents consider him their own grandchild. He's been in my life for 10 years and lives with us 50/50. He's as much my family as my own children. My children are his siblings. How bloody could she?
Arrgh, I'm so angry. Thank god he was oblivious. And his mum, who I get on well with, would be so upset if she got wind of this. She and her whole family treat our kids like their own and they're not even her step children.
I flipping hate my SIL sometimes!!

Seasalt I also know a family like yours. My dds best friends. Her biological dad is still in contact with her and so is the step dad who was to all purposes her "real" dad as he raised her from 6 months to 7 years old. Her mum is now single but the step dad has remarried and dds friend is still considered very much his dd and goes to all family events etc.

It's much more normal than people think.

Thanks for the further posts - it's nice to hear about other families who have non traditional set ups and all get on with it.

I've had a long chat with my parents tonight and they are really upset about it. They didn't realise she'd done it and my Dad said he's glad he didn't get wind of it on the day or he wouldn't have been able to help himself but say something to her.

They've given me their go ahead to send her a straight forward email saying that it's not only unacceptable to me but also to my parents, as they consider him to be their grandchild.

I'm still mulling it over but I think I need to raise it with her, for my stepson. If I don't stick up for him, who will? (Other than his mum, dad and stepdad of course!!)

It will end in an email to and fro.

This is a conversation you and your parents need to have face to face with her.

I was married to my step-daughter's dad for 11 years and met her when she was 4.
Me and her dad split up last year when she was 15. I still see her. My parents still send her birthday and Christmas presents and I class her as my family.
Just for the record, at a recent family wedding, when they asked for family, that's exactly what they meant. No partners were on the family photos, even though they've been together years. I thought it a bit odd!!

Your SIL is a bitch, but you know that already. Send the email or talk to her face to face - she clearly needs telling that everyone else considers your dss to be part of the family, and a far more important one than old sourface to boot.

OP, what a super cow your SIL is, jealous, bitter, christ... Apart from her you all sound like a fab family , your boy is a lucky one to have you all and to have such a positive family set up (apart from her of course!)...

My parents embraced my ex-partners son as if he were our own child and their grandchild. He was at all family events, in all family pictures, got given gifts/cards just the same as everyone else. When that relationship ended, I found it very hard to let go of him, but never once have we looked back at those photo's and thought 'why did we put him in there'... That was our family, he was our family for a few years and it's memories and our past and I don't regret it, even though I'll probably never see him again. I still have photo's of him, on the wall and If he knocked on my door tomorrow I'd welcome him in with open arms. Because there is a bond there, you can love a child that's not yours, they can love you and it can endure.

As for Hygiene.... well, I can't even find the energy to type a response to that negative garbage.

There are all sorts of ways to 'be a family', and what matters is not blood but how the people involved choose to relate to one another. If your parents feel that DSS is one of their grandchildren, what business is it of your SILs anyway? FFS. Your SIL sounds pretty awful, but hopefully you can minimise any future problems, especially since your parents are aware of the situation. I wouldn't send the email, though, but would talk to her about it face to face...easier to talk it through and less chance for things to be misunderstood.

TO my right on my wall hangs a beautiful embroidered pipe holder.

It hang in my grandparents home the first time I walked into it age 5.

I remember my grandad getting the small pipe that hangs on there for one of his first birthdays I knew him.

Upstairs sleeps my 10 year old who has the feminine version of his name as her mn.

He was my grandfather and she was my grandmother as much as their blood related grand daughter and their adopted grand daughter adn grand son were.

No by blood I was not related but then neither are the 2 adopted children.

Technically they are not my cousins but I call them that and they call me that.

I have many many pictures of my as a child with my step dad his parents and his 2 sisters (my cousins on step dads side are all 20 years younger than I am - both aunts were in their late 30's early 40s when they had their children) I also have a picture from my grandads funeral where I am sat with 2 of my cousins on the sofa (last cousin did not attend as they lived to far away) None of us were related to this amazing man by blood but all of us were related to him by the love we had shared with him.

If any had ever done like the sil above or like some of the replies suggested I don't think I would have actually understood what they were talking about. As this pair was my grand parents as much as my much loved biological grandparents were.

I am in a face bookgroup with many of my cousins on my mothers side. Last week I added a group picture it was taken in 1966 long before many of us were born. On the picture is my father and one of my aunts. Neither are today married to who they were married to when thepicture was taken. They are still considered part of the family.

A few years ago my niece lived with us whilst studying in England. We went to the photographer with the idea of gettng some pictures of my mothers and fathers grand children (there is only the 5) and some family pictures. When we came to pick them we picked one with DN in it. The photographer said to us at the time.

To me a picture is a snapshot in time of how your family is right now..
Right at that time DN was a part of our family so she had earned the right on that picture.

There is so much more to creating families than simply blood ties.

I was blessed to have the amazing wonderful man in my life who I was allowed to have as my grandfather. I really don't care if others don't get it.

I know the truth.

Thankfully so does the rest of my family who are related by blood and who are related by love.

I wish my step mother had been as lovely as you EMS

Your SIL is a bitch.

Ignore and move on.

Thanks for the further msgs and stories shared.
Thanks Catnuzzle, very nice thing to say.

I sent the email. Face to face wasn't an option as we love hundreds of miles from the rest of my family so won't see them for months. (We moved to be with my stepson after spending the first few years commuting every weekend).

I sent a very calm, concise email. No accusations, no horrible words.

Unfortunately, she immediately replied with criticisms of my parenting generally and then my brother (her husband) sent me a long email listing all my failings both as a parent and a person. I sent one back just saying 'let's leave it at that, this conversation can't go anywhere good'.

It's a shame but my DB has always bullied me and this is their reaction to being pulled up on their shitty behaviour. Attack attack. I'm used to it but some of his words were hurtful.

I'm still glad I pulled her up on it - I stood up for my family and I wasn't wrong.

What an awful response. for you op

Crappy response, but shitty people have to justify the shitty things they do...

Hopefully she won't try the same thing again.

I am a stepparent and of course I would include my stepsons. Families come in all shapes and sizes and dont have to be linked to you by blood to be a part of the family! Hideous attitude to exclude them. Really disgusting.

And you know what Op? You are lovely. Print out that vile email and show the rest of the family. Then have very little to do with the rancid bitch.

My parents' first grandchild, as far as they are concerned, is not a "blood" grandchild - she is my sister's stepdaughter. But my sister has had care of her since she was a few months old and her mother fucked off and left her. My sister has 2 DDs of her own as well, and as far as they are concerned, they are all real sisters (they do all have the same dad). My oldest niece does know that my sister didn't actually give birth to her but it makes no odds, and it made no odds to my parents. The only one who was bothered was my brother, but he doesn't get on with the rest of the family anyway. He would possibly try to do what your bitch SIL tried to do - none of the rest of us would.

Disgusting attitude from your SIL.

Oh and your brother is no better.

I like "family by love" - much better than having to put up with ignorant pigs with whom you share blood.

Jealousy comes out in all sorts of ways. It sounds like SIL and DB have been sitting picking holes at your life to try and make themselves feel better about their own.

The stepchild thing could quite possibly be trying to climb the ladder in family affection with grandparents - 'we're more important, we're one unit all real family'. Are they very insecure? What a load of childish nonsense.

They need to look a bit closer to home at themselves and their conduct rather than trying to better themselves by running down others.

You've been very controlled in our responses. Keep the upper hand, leave it at that. It really is just their issue.

Sorry they responded so badly, but you did the right thing and having it "out there" might be easier to deal with than sneaky, PA behaviour on her part anyway. And you have your parents' support.

I am a step-mum to a now 44 year old woman - but when I was bringing her up from aged 14 years with DH, only DH and I were invited to a family wedding in MY family (other natural children of siblings invited). I decided that none of us would attend because there were 3 of us in our family. My Mum and Dad treated her like a grand-daughter, she attended family events which 'didn't cost' - but my eldest sister (mother of the groom) would not accept her as part of MY family.

It saddened my family that I and DH did not attend the wedding, but I had to show DSD that I considered her as my immediate family and she was so important in my life - it was 3 or none.

A couple of years later she was included on the invitation to youngest brother's wedding and when it came to photographing the 'groom's family' she was very hesitant and didn't know whether to follow her Dad and me or not. I reminded her: "It is 3 of us or none".

My husband died in 2001, my DSD was offered an opportunity to re-build bridges with her natural Mum and her 2 siblings as long as I stayed out of her life from that day. I loved her enough to let her go.

Do you really think we are cutting DSD out of family photos? She was a HUGE part of our lives for so many years. '.

Sad widow, have you never seen her since?