Holiday

[Stepmumsy]

I'm looking for some clarity and stumbled upon this forum. I have a daughter (5) my husband has 3 girls (9,9,12). At the beginning my relationship with his girls was good but over the last few years it has really deteriorated and has now reached the point that they barely look at me. They really dislike my little girl lately that has become more apparent over the last 6-12 months and will actively huddle together to alienate her. I've tried lots of different tactics with them but to little avail. I guess I'm adult enough to handle or perhaps try to understand why they might be rude towards me but when they are mean towards my daughter that hurts like hell. I should be the one protecting my girl yet I've introduced her into this situation.

My husband told me he wants us to go on holiday as he really wants to take his girls away. When I suggested that I didn't think it a good idea for us all to go away together as it'd be quite stressful and unlikely enjoyable given the atmosphere at the moment he seemed put out. I told him that he should absolutely take them away. He thinks it is a slippery slope to take separate holidays. He told me he'd feel upset if I went on holiday with my daughter without them.

The current situation with the girls is putting some strain on our relationship so my rationale for not going is one to protect our marriage instead of putting us in a vulnerable position that has potential to come between us.

The girls are quite tricky and I've been told this by friends and family. Quite sadly I wad told by brown owl last week that she considers 1 of them to be a real bully.

I'm not sure what I'm really looking for by posting here but if one of you could wave a magic wand that'd be awesome!!

I think the counseling is a good idea even if you don't feel in the best headspace. A good counselor will see that & will help you through.
For what it's worth it reads like he wants you all to be one big happy family but is not facing up to the reality that he's never going to get that because the reality is that you are a blended family & while the blended set up can bring it's own great happiness it's not the same as a non blended family which is what he seems to be trying to recreate.
I could be projecting my own stuff here but dp & I had a huge argument about this recently with me having to get very vocal about the fact that he was trying to push a family situation that is just not going to work at the moment, onto everyone in order to please himself.
I see myself & my kids very objectively (ie I don't think my kids or me are perfect & I hold them & myself accountable for things we may do to hurt other people. Dp is VERY slowly coming round to the fact that his kids are not the perfect, beleaguered martyrs to divorce he thinks they are & it sounds like your dh has a lot of work to do regarding same - and again a good counselor will see this.
Go for the holiday.
Go for the counseling.
And take as much time as you need to deal with your grief

Go on holiday. Thank your relatives and take the holiday time to bond with your family and have special one on one time with your little girl.

Your DSD’s only behave the way they do as they know their father will validate their behaviour.

You dh sounds selfish and a Disney dad. I think you both need this opportunity to spend time away from eachother and with your respective children so the children have your attention and don’t have to share it.

I don’t think you sound selfish at all, you sound like someone who’s been told you should compromise and suck it up without being offered any compromise in return.

And your husband is wrong his daughters can be taught to be kinder and inclusive towards your dd he just doesn’t want to be seen as the bad guy. It will do him good to parent his children alone for once.

Go on holiday and take your dd, your DSD’s wouldn’t be happy anyway going with you.

“Even trips to the shops result in 3 of them huddling around daddy doing best to ensure we can't break the circle.”

This sentence says it all to me.. jealousy. I was in your position some years ago with dh’s children, we didn’t go for counselling and it resulted in his children cutting him off as adults. Dh was trying to please everyone and the holidays we all used to have just excaberated the situation.

However much attention your dh gives his girls might never be enough if he spends any time with you/your dd at all. I wish I had some useful advice but I really do hope you try counselling.

This sentence says it all to me.. jealousy

Well yes, but they have every right to be jealous. And to say so.

and she had been saving for a trip to Florida with her brother/ sister and their families (20 all in all) and had wanted to take my daughter.

I'm confused. If you mum had planned this and she passed away months ago, then surely it hasn't suddenly come out of the blue just after he booked his holiday.

He suggested you went together, you said no, not a good idea and that he should take the girls alone. He books somewhere, and then suddenly, you say 'oh by the way, I forgot to tell you but my mum had planned for the family to go on holiday to Florida and so I'm going with them. I meant to tell you before but forgot'.

Sorry OP, it sounds like I'm going against the grain but if indeed that family trip had been planned before but you wanted until he booked his to tell him, he does very much sound like the whole thing was planned in which case, in your OH shoes, I'd be furious.

@swiftofthings the grandmother was planning to take the OP’s DD, then she died so the OP can now go in her mothers place.
DP is jealous that OP now has the opportunity to go and has kicked off.
That’s how I interpreted it anyway?

@swingofthings I meant x

Maybe it is a just a big coincidence, but it just seem quite a suspiciously timed one that a week after OP told her OH that he should book a holiday with his dds alone and he goes ahead reluctantly, OP's family informed her that they wanted to take her in addition to her dd on a family holiday and that holiday would never have been mentioned before (even if at the time, OP wasn't party to it).

It's understandable that under the circumstances, he would be questioning how it all came about.

Even if that was the case he still doesn’t get to dictate what holidays the OP and her DD get to go on. Separate holidays are fine as long as it isn’t impacting on the overall family finances.
His kids are getting a holiday with him alone and so is the OP’s DD.

Yes, but it would have been a very deceitful thing to do. If OP had posted to say that she was hoping to go on holiday with the whole family, but her OH had said that he didn't think it was a good idea and that she booked to go with her DD alone, and then just after she did, he had announced that his family who was planning to take his kids had now decided to pay for him to go somewhere special OP had wanted to go for some time but couldn't afford, I expect the responses would have been very different.

As I posted on the first page, my OH and I go on separate holidays and it works for us, so it's not that I think it's not a good idea, but I would never book to take my kids somewhere I knew he would love to go to and tell him just after he'd booked his holiday. That's not what caring partners do.

I agree that would be awful if I had preplanned something. I have never been going on this family holiday but when I was telling my family about the situation of my husband going away with the girls they asked what i was doing with my daughter. I told them nothing cos I couldn't afford it and was told that there was on all expenses paid trip with my name on it. There is room in the villa and the family will pay for flights and passes. Initially I said not but was told to think about it.

OP, so sorry for your loss. Sounds like a very tough year and you are trying very hard to protect your daughter and make your blended family work. It sounds like you and your OH would benefit from a safe space and advice to talk things through, counselling sounds like a good idea. If not couples, maybe you would benefit from speaking to someone privately? You are juggling so much after losing your mum and dealing with relationship stuff. It sounds like your SDs are not being done any favours by their dad in not sorting out this behaviour. Ok 5yos can be “annoying” in PPs words, but seriously? At their age they shouldn’t be bullying much younger chn by leaving them out, not constantly- or being unpleasant to you. The Idea of eldest babysitting sounds good. Or maybe a few little trip s out with you, your dd and one of them at a time, so they can bond as individuals outside the sibling unit. Good luck, take care

But surely you can understand how he might feel that the whole thing was planned. Did he know at all about this family holiday and that your dd was always going to go anyway?

I agree that although he has no right to tell you what to do, that you can't tell make him feel differently to how he feels, which is disappointed and maybe a bit paranoid.

By the way don't mean to be harsh don't know what it's like to lose a mum. Do work things out between yourself because there does seem to be underlying resentment and when that sets in its hard to pull back.

I’d absolutley go on the holiday. Would he really be happier if he goes to Spain without you, at least partially because he hasn’t tried hard enough to make his daughters more polite to yours, and your family go to Florida in memory of your Mum also without you and you go nowhere? What does he say when you ask him this? You can miss out on something without thinking your other half should have to miss out too.

op..you say your DP said the holiday he isn't happy at all but says he can understand all the points I'm making but it doesn't mean it changes his feelings. His feelings are his feelings and just because they don't align with mine doesn't mean he is selfish etc.

Remember that you are NOT responsible for his feelings. He is of course allowed to feel disappointed and so are you. He has no right, however, to guilt trip you and try to stop you going.
He has very quickly booked a holiday without caring about your feelings if you and your DD ho nowhere..it's not a good sign.

Please, please put your DD first this time and don't allow her to miss out. She is NOT responsible for his feelings either.

He has very quickly booked a holiday without caring about your feelings if you and your DD ho nowhere..it's not a good sign.
OP told him to do so. The poor guy can't win. He suggested they all go, he is told no and to book the trip, he books it, and he is told that he is selfish because he didn't think of OP's feelings.

I hope you can work it out quickly so that there is no resentment building up on either side but totally agree with whitecat that it has nothing to do with the children and they shouldn't miss out because of the dynamics of the relationship. Saying that, she was always going to go, it's OP who was missing out, not her daughter.

@swingofthings. Thanks for your posts yesterday. I hadn't even considered he could be thinking I'd planned it all. I talked to him again last night and it turns out that he had been feeling this way. We had a good old chat and cuddle without the hostility from the night before and he says he wants me to have something to look forward to and thinks it'll be good for us and wants us to have a nice time but he can't help feeling disappointed that we are not going together. He knows he handled the discussion poorly with his knee jerk 'this isn't fair reaction' initially. I think the fact that he doesn't want separate holidays anyway has compounded the way he feels. He knows I want us to get to a place where we can all holiday together. Things between us feel much better now.

Swing the DD would miss out on holidays with her mum. She is only 5 surrounded by step sisters who actively dislike her and step dad who doesn't care. If OP doesn't go with her DD to spare her partners "feelings" it would be a pretty bad parenting example and putting her child second...For no gain.

His dds will get holiday with dad..with all the attention..why is OPd DD not entitled to that?

This is a great update Stepmumsy, talking is always good and it's great that both seem to be listening to each other. Maybe next year you can plan a holiday together, maybe starting with one week and plan in advance, including the kids in the discussion so they all feel included and deciding how to make it work together so all get some enjoyment out of it.

WhiteCat, I think you are jumping to conclusions. Step-sisters being unpleasant doesn't mean they hate the child, and the SD not forcing his kids to include OP's DD doesn't mean he doesn't care. The original plan was for DD to go without OP, the difference now is that the family have agreed to pay for OP, so it had nothing to do with 'sparing' his feelings.

You know what? I think it would be very good for his daughters to see you and your daughter have the better holiday and know its because of their behaviour.

You say your husband is the 'realist' but i think tha just means that he accepts it and doesn't put a stop to it.

His 'wants' have to come second to your daughter' 'needs'.

overthehedgehammy. The reality is my lovely mum would have paid for everyone to go if they had been nice. It used to upset her enormously how they are with us so she was only prepared to treat my dd. The straw for her was when I found notes stuffed down the side of the sofa that said 'I hate (me and my dd)' and I received a text message from one of the 9 year olds phones calling me a bitch. So their behaviour does go beyond the alienation of my daughter but it's the alienation type stuff that'd make a holiday very difficult. But I'm stepping into whole other thread waters here!

I think it would be very good for his daughters to see you and your daughter have the better holiday and know its because of their behaviour

Are you kidding? What an immature reaction. The kids are 9 and 12 and their behaviour is not that horrible. They don't gel with OP's dd. That's not different to older kids not gelling with their young siblings. Do they need to be rubbed it in their faces that the youngest get to go on the holiday they dream off and they don't but that's what they deserve of being horrible children?

That would really help OP's relationship with her OH and make the kids accepting OP's DD much better without a doubt!

I received a text message from one of the 9 year olds phones calling me a bitch
Taking back my previous page, that take things to a totally different level. What is being done about this?

Still feel that rubbing it in their face will only justify their feelings towards you and your DD. Surely what matters here is what has caused them to feel so negatively towards you to the point of taking such action as this text. It's very extreme behaviour.

Why are there no consequences to this awful behaviour from the SD’s?

If they get to go away with their dad alone as a result of the dynamic they are creating surely this reinforces the behaviour when in fact there should be negative consequences.

I see this as (yet again) an OH problem.

In the sad circs I think OP is entitled to a break and a holiday where she can relax.

Am glad OP and OH have had a good chat but it doesn’t seem to have come anywhere close to solving the actual problem that the SDs are getting away with murder and being able to wield a lot of power.