'AITA if I support my husband and don't attend my daughter's wedding?'
"AITA if I support my husband and don't attend my daughter's wedding?"
I have been together with my husband for 12 years. At the time he had 2 daughters ages 10 and 8 (now 22 & 20) and he had full custody as they split when the girls were 2 & a few months old. She didn’t fight custody and even when I entered the picture would only get them in the summer.
After they started turning 13 did she start picking them up on the assigned holidays too. Now keep in mind we have 3 boys together and only after the oldest left to college (in a college near her mom so she didn’t have to pay for rent or live in dorms) did we both get a much better paying job and now we live much more comfortably.
Ever since she left to college she hasn’t called or been around much which is understandable as teens start experiencing the world and becoming a young adult. The problem is she is getting married in a couple of months and when they told us they said it was just through the courthouse maybe a dinner after and that was it.
We both work out of town so it’s hard to get time off unless we make arrangements way in advance and she told us 2 weeks before the said event. We told her we might not be able to make it as it was very sudden so she changed it to a few months after so we could attend. We were very excited!
Then a month after that she tells us that they are throwing a party after all and her mom got her the dress and her finances family is paying for everything else so if we wanted to we could get the DJ which we obviously agreed to.
Now when the topic of the father daughter dance came up, she started making excuses about how she didn’t know if we were gonna make it so her “stepdad” offered and well she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. Husband feels like that right is solely his as he raised them all his life and honestly WE are the only ones who have always been there for her.
I don’t want to ruin her day but if hubby doesn’t want to share that dance with her step dad he said we’d still pay for the DJ just not attend. I kinda do feel like the dance is solely a hers with my husband but it’s a situation where as the step parent I will always be 2nd plate.
AITAH if I support hubby and not attend? Or should we give in and continue to be 2nd place over the other pair who haven’t ever been there for anything really?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
skipdog98 said:
Do not, I repeat, do NOT skip the wedding. Take the high road. Go to the wedding. Maybe ask if she will do two father dances. But honestly, suck it up. Go to the wedding.
QueenMother81 said:
I don’t believe that the daughter is being honest with you both and she has been around her mother and stepfather for at least 4 years and spent very little with you both now. There needs to be a real conversation.
Not an argument, but a conversation about how her Dad feels about the choice she’s making. It may be her day, but she has always had him as a father, so he should be able to talk to her about this.
Autodidact2 said:
It's not about AH or not but I think you'll regret it and your husband will regret if you don't go.
ActualWheel6703 said:
If you enjoy drama. Skip it. If you'd like to have a functional and happier family. Go. It depends on whether you're mature or petty.
TheSavageBallet said:
Not attending a child’s wedding is a nuclear event, if he is this hurt over it and wants to no longer have a relationship with his daughter, that is honestly his right, he does not have to suffer and feel bad forever just because he has a child.
But know in advance it means basically choosing to go low or no contact, which again I emphasize parents have the right to do with their adult children if they are hurting them. Just have to decide what will make you happiest in the long term.
TGin-the-goldy said:
Stop being petty. This is her choice (rightly or wrongly) and skipping the wedding will cause an enormous rift between your husband and his daughter. I should know, it happened in my own family.
OP replied to a comment:
The reason she lived with her mom rent free through 2 years of college (she already had an associates by the time she graduated HS) is because she went to a college 6 hrs away from us but only 1.5 hrs away from her mom keep in mind by this time their dad & I already had 3 kids of our own (her half brothers ages 7, 3 & 1) because of that she qualified for tuition but we had no extra means to pay for a dorm let alone an apt like she wanted.
We took out a car for her before she left to college which she gave back because her mom got her literally the same car just a 2017 instead of a 2015. And again to our knowledge her future husbands family is paying for most of it. They’re already married this is a late party to celebrate the union.
Out of the 4 years she’s been gone we’ve barely been doing better financially in the last 2 years. But we are away from home a lot due to work and right now my mom helps us with our boys.
Her wonderful mom tried taking us to court when she turned 13 because she felt that’s when she was capable to be a mom and because she didn’t want to keep paying the $300 a month of child support for 2 daughters that she rarely even saw back then. So no.
We are hurt because we’ve both been snubbed countless time and we’ve always said we’ll kids are kids they’ll get it when they’re older but now they’re older and honestly it feels like she cares more about whatever her mom wants instead of the man that’s been there her entire freaking life. Why should we keep putting up with it?
Cuz they’re our kids? If they prefer their mom then they can stay with her at this point. Just don’t come running back when she breaks your heart like she always did growing up. I love them but I also have our little family and well being to think of mentally physically and emotionally.