u/smoothoperator7123

Hi all,

I would greatly appreciate any and all advice.

I (F 24) just got engaged but we have been talking about getting married for the past few months so I’ve had lots of time to think about it already.

My parents split up when I was only a few months old and I visited dad every other weekend throughout primary school. He was a kinda shitty dad and despite me trying for our relationship it just never felt like he even wanted to be a parent in the first place. Even my half sister was not planned, he and my step mom are not married despite dating for 20+ years and I remember as a child I was already able to notice they seemed unhappy with each other. I always felt bad they decided to bring a kid in this unhappiness so I’ve felt protective over my 14 years younger sister and tried hard to plan day trips so I could spend time with her as well. Despite that I was never invited to family picnics and even my sisters’ birthday celebrations so I stopped trying for a few years.

Last time I saw my dad was 2 years ago. I just started college after two gap years between high school. In our country a parent is legally required to pay child support as long as a child is in school or 26 years old. He contested that, so the last time we saw each other was in a mediation with social services because he came there claiming to be broke (he has been hiding income and working illegally to evade taxes for as long as I can remember). I was only looking for like 100-200€ per month and offered to settle at 100€. He wouldn’t even give me that so I told him then and there we are going from low contact to no contact as he obviously doesn’t feel any parental obligation to me. He said fine and stormed off. Obviously there is more to cutting ties than just money but I am trying to keep it short. This was just the tipping point.

About a year ago my sister reached out to me, at just 9 years old. She found me on social media and told me she misses me so we talk sometimes.

My dilemma is - I would love to make her feel included in any and all parts of my life but I do NOT want him there. The whole reason I even decided for no contact was because I simply couldn’t imagine him walking me down the aisle or holding my baby once I have kids. This will not change so please give me more logistical advice on how to handle this.

My initial thought was to reach out to step mom but I don’t know how she will react (we were never close). Grandparents might not even wanna come, no contact with them as well. My fear is he’d tag along out of spite or take it as a personal insult and make a big deal out of it.

EDIT:

I have an unfortunate update if anyone is interested. My sister messaged me today expressing sadness that we haven’t seen each other in a while. I responded with a promise that we will hang out once she is old enough to hang out unaccompanied. Like one of the comments suggested I wrote a very short kid appropriate message only saying I unfortunately don’t have a good relationship with our dad, but I do want one with her and I’ll always try for it ❤️.
She then unpromptedly responded saying that her mom told her they don’t like me because I wanted to get a lot of money out of our dad (conveniently not telling her it’s my legally owed child support but okay 💀) and that her mom doesn’t want us hanging out.
It hurt a lot that someone else is “ruining” our relationship and that it’s completely out of my control but I decided to listen to the advice from comments and only wrote back that this is not entirely true but it’s nothing she should worry about as a kid and that I will explain when she is older :)

It hurts and I’m sad but at least I know where things stand. I decided to send a save the date via private message to step mom once we start planning despite that and try to involve her. If not I’ll send my sister a letter (still kid appropriate!! No trauma dumping, just nice bonding words) and some pics from the wedding.

Thanks to all comment, despite only getting a few you guys were very helpful :)