SD baby shower drama!
My stepdaughter is due in April. She has already told my DH that I can't have a grandparent name. OK, I can deal with that as hurt as I feel. (Been married to DH for 10 years and thought we had moved forward.)SD has a good relationship with our young son so I am willing to take a little #$%^ for his sake.
Bio grandmothers are having a baby shower next month DH's ex sent me an invite without my last name on it. He confronted her and her reply was "Can you both help pay for the shower?"
He replied "Are you serious?" and the rant started with all the venom from 10 years ago. It's like a rerun of our first years married. Vicious hurtful name calling.
I feel sick thinking that we finally got away from the drama and now it's restarting with the birth of DH's first grandchild. We have a trip planned (over a ten months) and SD has already complained about DH being away when baby might arrive; told him he would have to fly home.
I want to bag out of the shower. But I also don't want to allow an angry ex to feel empowered with her nonsense.
Any advice?
No way would I go to this
No way would I go to this shower. Utter ridiculousness. If my SD28 and her mother pulled a stunt like that, I'd let them carry on without me. I hope you and DH enjoy your trip!
Name calling was one-sided
Name calling was one-sided from her, that wasn't apparent as I reread my post. She told him to do awkward things to himself, and referred to him as a stupid f-ing moron.
In the past she called him: fat loser, cheap Jew,a-hole, etc. (and she is Jewish too so that's weird for me) I was known as "bimbo, whore, homewrecker, etc.
She is very poisonous. :O
Don't go, have fun on
Don't go, have fun on vacation, keep everybody apprised of all the fun you are having without them. Send lots of pictures. Kill em with happiness.
Your SD has made it clear you
Your SD has made it clear you are not wanted or appreciated. Make sure that includes your money and gifts too. Do not give this little B%$^^ a thing.
Thank you folks. Not many
Thank you folks. Not many people can appreciate how this feels.
DH has always had my back. At times that has been excruciating for him. He loves all his children, tho his ex has tried at every turn to poison them pretty bad against him. Sometimes (esp money issues) she is effective. He straddles the line but never deserts me. SD is always good with my son. They have a close relationship and she loves him a lot. (He is a sweetie!) She has attended everything he is involved in - strangley she separates him from her feelings for me which are certainly ambivalent at best. She is a good sister, just a poor stepdaughter.
I want my DH to be able to enjoy his new grandchild. He is a wonderful father and it will be a blessing for this new child to know him, too. The child is his family, too! His angry ex shouldn't be able to take this from him. We will have to try to set up some boundaries to avoid all contact with his ex...a copy of her text should suffice as a proof that we can't "bridge the gap."
No shower for me (or my mom and sisters who were also invited.) We'll take a pass and stay calm & classy!
I think it's pretty
I think it's pretty remarkable that your SD can separate her feelings for your son from her feelings for you.
My kids have a half-sister who is totally cold towards them, as cold as she was to me. Which is fine... and more typical, in my opinion. Your SD could surprise you one day.
May be once your SD becomes a mother she will grow up some. Your perspective does change when you stop seeing yourself as the crown jewel of creation. In the meantime, good luck with boundary-building. My DH also has a rabid NPD ex who will, i have no doubt, try to put every barrier between him and his future grandkids. It will be a shame if she succeeds.
Thank you for your wonderful
BM and SD are toxic people. I
BM and SD are toxic people. I would wait after the baby is born for a gift. I am sure you will all her about what she got too much of and what she really needed. It is not the baby's fault. SD must really feel entitled to tell her dad...he would need to fly home. Then to have balls to tell him that you can not have a grandparent name. I would call her on that, if I was her dad. This is also another reason to delay any gift giving.
Oh, the baby showers. Gimme,
Oh, the baby showers. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I'd rather scrub my vagina with a wire brush.
Do not reward toxic behavior
Do not reward toxic behavior in any way shape or form. In fact bare SD's and the XBMs toxic asses for their crap. SD has dicatated that you get no grandparent name. Who the fuck does she think she is? Empress of reproduction? If you DH engages with this crap at all then he is just enabling the bullshit.
Toxic people should feel complete total wrath for their bullshit IMHO. My parents accepted my SS as their grandchild. Period. God protect anyone who told my mom and dad that my SS was not their grandchild. There would be carnage and mayhem if that ever happened. My mom used to give my SS's Sperm Grandma the benefit of the doubt until Sperm Grandma started in on the "(Rags) is not your REAL dad and those people are not your REAL grandparents. " When that crap started my mother joined the Rags life long campaign to destroy the Sperm Clan by baring their asses legally, financially and socially to their church, their community and their frieds. Don't piss off my demure 5'2" little Southern lady mom unless you want to feel what being destroyed to the fullest extent feels like.
My kid (SS-21) knows who his REAL grand parents are. When he visits family, he visits my family which he does once a month. He and my dad also go hiking once a month just the two of them. His mom and I live overseas so we can't see our kid as regularly as we would like but he engages with the Rags clan regularly. The Sperm Clan tries to extort money out of the kid to help support his three younger also out of wedlock Sperm Idiot spawned half sibs but our kid pretty much has written the shallow and poluted end of his gene pool off. He will go visit them about once every 2 years or so and does keep up with his half sibs via email, Skype, phone and text but for the most part the Sperm Clan has been left far behind.
"empress of reproduction"
"empress of reproduction" LMAO!!!
I didn't go to SDs shower
I didn't go to SDs shower because I strongly suspected that SDIL made invite to make me feel excluded.. again. She did this a lot through FB posts etc.. Additionally I had to ask myself.. "do I want to be at a shower with husband's ex (not bad person really) and 3 people (SD, SDIL, MIL) who had shown hostility towards me?" Nah. It was the beginning of very empowering decisions to no longer go where I wasn't accepted or even liked.
I never have regretted it. Neither will you I suspect.
You can send gift card w/a small gift. That's what I did. I was done with overdoing it. When you do don't do much you aren't hurt when you are barely acknowledged. Let's face it, the baby won't know the difference anyway so it's not hurting the child.
Also, why should anyone contribute to the cost of a shower? They really don't cost that much if you're careful. I've thrown a few showers and I've never asked anyone to contribute $. That seems tacky.
If they want to hold it at a restaurant or something, sure it will be expensive. That's their decision and they need to eat the cost.
Exactly. It's not that an
Exactly. It's not that an inexpensive gift, if it's thoughtful, is bad necessarily. It's the inappropriate (size 12??) or minimal gifts given to us or our kids whose message seems to convey "you are not important". Since baby nephew won't know any better, it's smart to save yourself headache and give a low key gift. These little proactive changes do wonders by preventing resentment before it rears it's ugly head.
Good Grief this post brought
Good Grief this post brought back memories - all bad - of the princess (SD31)and the baby shower she HAD to throw for SD30 and BD25. What is it about a baby shower that brings out the dragon in some women?
Skip the shower.
Keep your money and let BM pay for it herself. Repeat after me "No, thank you"
Go on vacation - don't think about SD or BM.
Send a gift to the shower and flowers to the hospital.
Let DAD call and congradulate her on the baby.
One last note, if SD can't even allow you your last name on the invite then she cannot acknowledge that you are part of the family. I would be concerned that SD might be willing to cut you out of the baby's life whenever it suites her.
I concur with everyone saying
I concur with everyone saying don't go. I would just send a gift with a card, nothing major, and like someone else said -- that way when you aren't acknowledged, it's not a big deal. Prepare yourself for not being acknowledged for your gift. I've dealt with all of this from two weddings and one baby shower. I even went to my SS's wife's bridal shower -- thinking that it would be okay. It wasn't. Small digs here and there, and it was just plain awkward and uncomfortable -- and BM wasn't even there! Best wishes to you!!
My stepdaughter baby shower
My stepdaughter baby shower story goes like this.
SD and BM were not on speaking terms for over a year. She married her husband during this time, BM refused to go. Putting it simply and sparing all the gory details, BM is a piece of work who treated her horribly over the years. SD would break away but always gets sucked back in to the crazy. I had high hopes when she got married because we were very close at that time and I hadn't realized the strength of a SD's allegiance to a BM, even when the mom is a horrible human being. Pepper liberally with a hearty dose of daily PAS since the age of 4...and well, it was enevitable that mama would be back in the picture at some point. Which she was. When SD was about four months pregnant. They went from not speaking to moving into BM's section 8 apartment in about three months time.
Back to the shower.
I made a quilt. It was so pretty. I worked in it for months. Got a super cute gift bag and mailed it off to the hostess. Waited eagerly for the FB pictures of the shower. YAY! There was my super cute gift (and unusual) bag on the table! Clicked through all the pictures of her opening each giftie. Ummm....my gift wasn't in the bag. Huh. So I sent a text to the hostess and she said that SD opened my gift when it came in the mail. Oh. Okay. And I never got a thank you or even an acknowledgement of the gift. I don't expect guilded thank you note or for her to fall all over herself thanking me. But geez. Part of the joy of giving a gift, especially a homemade one, is that you brought joy to the recipient and hearing that. So yeah. That stung. Which were her intentions. shes the type who deliberately withholds that kind of stuff to punish. For what, exactly, I'm not sure. For all the pain I've caused her mommy, I guess.
We've since disengaged. It makes me sad sometimes but life is more peaceful now for sure.