Weddingbee boards

Sorry that this is sort of long, but I am literally at wit's end.  My parents divorced when I was two, and my mother re-married to my step-father when I was 4.  While my biological father was present in my life, I lived with my mother and my step-father, and so clearly my step-father was more involved in my day-to-day upbringing.  My biological father also remarried, to a woman with three children and he moved in with them.  While my biological father and I do see each other (only when I go to visit them), I don't feel like we are very close.  Yet I wanted to honor him in my wedding as well.  I asked my biological father to walk me down the first half of the aisle, with my step-father walking me the rest of the way.  Each father would have their own father/daughter dance.  My biological father said he was ok with this, but then a month later called me and said he thinks it's not right that my step-father get to walk me down the second half of the aisle, because my biological father is my "blood" and he should have that right.  He said he was very upset and made belligerent remarks about my step-father.  To my regret, the conversation got a bit heated and didn't end on the best of terms.  I called my biological father to discuss the issue further a couple of days later, and to apologize if anything I had said had hurt him, and to express again that I wasn't doing this to hurt him or spite him.  His response was that he was "just responding to the cards he was dealt" and that if I continued on this course he won't be attending the wedding.  Basically, he issued me an ultimatum saying if I didn't change the plans he wouldn't attend the wedding.  This was in September.

I don't want to hurt my biological father, but I don't feel like I should change the plans.  My rationale behind having my biological father lead off the aisle was that it represented the chronology of my life -- he was the first man in my life, my step-father the second, and my fiance, the third. But truly, my step-father has been there for everything throughout my life, and has truly raised me as his own daughter.  I also think that changing the plans now would be a slight to my step-father.  I feel like I've tried to be as equitable as possible.   I don't know what else to do. I also didn't want to have them both walk my down the aisle at the same time because my biological father can't stand my stepfather, and I know he would never keep/want a photo of the three of us together.  I wanted to split the aisle walking so that I could have my own moment with each of them. 

Thanks KarateChick.  I think that's the thing that upsets me the most.  He's acting as though I've somehow excluded him from all this.  The wedding is in HIS TOWN for heaven's sake!  He and my stepfather were each going to get separate father-daughter dances, toasts, etc.  I just don't know what to do with all this.  Part of me wants to call each and every one of the guests on that side of the family and say "you know what -- i never excluded him here and it's been HIS choice not to come." But on the flip side -- not one of those family members has called me to discuss the issue.  The closest I got to an acknowledgment was from my stepmother's brother.  Guess that says a lot about my biological father's family.

An update and I could really use the Bees' advice/support here --

One of my cousins on my bio dad's side called me.  He mentioned that he had heard about the whole thing with my dad and he was unsure how to handle, because it's clear that the entirety of my bio dad's side of the family isnt coming.  He basically told me that the way my bio dad had phrased this to people was that I was choosing my stepfather over him, and not letting him walk me down the aisle.

I can't tell you how upset I am over all of this.  I tried talking to me bio dad after the initial blow up but he just shot me down and I haven't heard from or talked to him since.  I told my cousin my side of the story, but let him off the hook for feeling like he's got to attend -- he lives with his dad (my uncle) and I can guarantee there will be backlash if he comes to the wedding. 

I am trying to resign myself to the fact that my dad won't come to the wedding, but I think it's really quite shitty that he's making it out like I'm some horrible person who excluded him from the wedding.  I know, logically, that if he's behaving this way, he really doesn't deserve to be there, but it's still painful and I don't know how to deal with that.

He accuses my stepfather is the cause of the divorce between my mother and him, and he hates him, so part of me feels like he'd find a reason to complain no matter what. As I have told him and my mother and stepfather -- it really doesn't matter what happened 30 years ago when they got divorced.  At the very least, I've lived on my own in the city (hundreds of miles away from my mother) for the past 12 years.  He drives past my house every day, but I rarely ever see him.  Nobody has ever denied him the chance of being a father.  Throughout the years, I've tried talking to him about our lack of relationship.  When I brought this up to him during our heated discussion about the order of the processional, he claimed that he remembered me crying, but didn't recall what it was about.

On the "flipping the order" point -- My bio dad said he thought it should be the other way around, with my bio dad walking me the second half of the way -- but I just dont agree with that and I don't think it represents my life.  I was more willing to come to a compromise before he issued me an ultimatum, but in my opinion, if he's going to be that selfish -- that it's all about his pride and what he thinks should be done, regardless of how I feel about it, then he's just being a bully.  Why should I give in to a bully?  It's starting to feel like this actually has nothing to do with me -- or my relationship with my father -- and only about him somehow getting back at my stepfather or proving somehow that he has top billing. 

In terms of a happy medium -- I just don't know that there is one.  The reason I wanted each to walk me halfway is because I wanted a separate moment with each of them and I know, absolutely, that my bio dad would never ever keep/hang/want a photo of he and my stepfather walking me down the aisle.

Thanks guys -- I think part of the reason I'm so against changing the plans is because I just feel like his wanting to walk me down the second half of the aisle has got nothing to do with his actual relationship with me.  When I asked him why he felt the way he did, all he kept saying was that he's my blood and it's his right, and that "etiquette dictates" that he be the one to "give me away."  He apparently has also been claiming to that side of the family that my mother put me up to this and that I'm doing to this to try and make a point. 

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for your replies -- this continues to be a difficult issue, and I feel like every "decline" I get from his side of the family is a little slap in the face.  Of course, there aren't that many left, so that'll stop soon.  I talked to a cousin of mine, and, while it's all second-hand information, it sounds like the way he's telling people this went down was that I was choosing my stepfather over him and I didn't want him "giving me away" and that I was somehow doing this to try and make a point.  I obviously gave my cousin my side of the story, but I haven't spoken to anyone else -- nor have they called me.

@mewcakes -- I haven't called him since he told me he wasn't coming to the wedding if I "proceeded in this fashion."  I've sent him birthday and Christmas cards, and of course the invitation. 

@ rockocko -- I agree that as we get older, the family relationships become ours to maintain.  But this side of the family has really never ever done anything to maintain that.  I've tried maintaining contact with some of them -- I never get much in response.  I'm not even informed when family members die, so I've missed more than one funeral and my chance to pay respects. 

Thanks everyone, again, for your continued support. 

@Kay -- Most of my step-sibilings are married, but there was only one girl and she did the same sort of thing, but had her bio dad walk her down the second half and my father walk her down the first half.  As for talking to the individual members of my family, you know, it's shitty that i'm being badmouthed/mischaracterized, but in the end -- these people aren't really family.  They're people I see at funerals if/when my father actually mentions to me that someone died.  He's purposefully not told me about a few different family members' deaths. 

@weddingdiva-in-training -- I feel your pain! For me, it was important to try talking it out, but when it became clear that it was his way or the highway, i chose the High Way.

@sandandsea -- thanks so much for your support, I'm doing my best to focus on the unbelievable amount of love we've gotten from the family and friends who ARE showing up and ARENT making our wedding day all about them.

Wicked StepMom -- I appreciate the sentiment, but clearly we're coming from two different experiences with a father here. Nobody ever kept my father away from me. He was invited and welcomed to anything having to do with me.  He chose not to. Every opportunity that was given to him to act like a father, he turned down.  And again, I've been living on my own since I'm 18 -- I'm 31 now. It's not like he hasn't had the opportunity to get to know me as an adult. Again, the only time I see him is when I make the effort.

On the flip side -- a bit of advice from the daughter of divorced parents -- whatever excuses there are for being at the "outside" of her life when she was a child don't hold up when she's an adult.  If you want a relationship with her, make it a priority, not a matter of convenience, and take responsibility for your part in it.  Nobody can "keep you away" from events involving her. If she's getting married, she's an adult. Treat her like one and stop playing the "role you've been given."  You make your own role.

To CherryPie and RonneyKay - he'd doesn't acknowledge my existence whatsoever at this point.  He thinks I've got "stockholm syndrome" and that I'm siding with the "captor that is my stepfather."