Anonymous wrote:First you've got to realize that everyone has opinions and yours isn't more valid than anyone else's. For example, I think the reverse about graduations. The high school one doesn't count at all in my eyes, and the graduation that counts the most is the last one: so either Bachelor's, Master's or PhD, depending on the person.

Second, it IS impossible for your daughter to attend her brother's graduation. In no rational world should she sacrifice a night of sleep to make it work! Therefore, you need to split up: his father attends his graduation, and you attend your daughter's. This is what needs to be done in such situations, out of respect for both children.

Father should be at the daughter's high school graduation

Son is being immature and selfish

Anonymous wrote:You’re just favoring DD over stepson. I would try and do both. Grad school is a big deal, much more important than finishing high school.

Do not listen to this post

He should be discussing this with his father, not you.

If he asks you, I’d say “DD and I won’t be able to make it because of her graduation. I’m not sure what your dad is doing, ask him” Then drop it. If he keeps bothering you, just ignore it.

Let your H figure it out on his own. If he wants to scramble last minute and try to take a red eye home, that’s on him.

Let SS know and then stay out of the entire mess.

No way I'd make my daughter miss the run up to graduation and seriously risk missing her own graduation event. Stepson is being way too self centered and childish. He needs to grow up. Dad can plan to be there and if he misses his daughter's graduation he'll need to figure out how to make it up to her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I haven’t seen you answer the questions about whether his biological mom will be there or any members of that part of his family. You’re also not explaining WHY your stepson aka your son is making this a test of some kind. What exactly is he texting, and what’s the history behind that?

Op, also haven’t seen you answer the question as to whether when insisting on everyone’s presence for his ceremony your stepson is equally emphatic that he also plans attend his sister’s graduation the next day.

Clearly the travel logistics make this impractical/potentially unfeasible (and either way you and dd should definitely not travel) but this point is telling as to whether he’s just a little out of touch with reality or a complete narcissist.

I don't think he's a complete narcissist. I do think he's a little immature, and, what I've noticed is that he majorly regresses when interacting with his sister. I don't think this is so unusual, but it's like he steps in the door and regresses a decade. But yes, he thinks his graduation should be prioritized. That's why I think dropping this for a while is smart. There's too much to argue about at this time. What if the ceremony is an hour earlier next year? What if flight schedules change?

At the end of the day, I'm hoping with time both he and his father will realize how unfair it would be for his sister to miss/risk her graduation.

I kind of love the watch party idea.
I'm going to keep that in my pocket. With a stadium event, you are pretty much watching a screen anyhow!

From what you’ve described I don’t know where you are finding hope that SS and DH are going to suddenly get it. You don’t need to argue but you absolutely need to set the expectation that DD will attend all her events and you will attend her graduation. You need to make this really clear for DD. Don’t leave her in the position of having to answer to any of this.

Well, I'm not sure what else to do. I think, when presented with the reality of flight schedules, DH will come around. He's the sort that travels overseas with 2 months of planning and just takes crazy connections and stays wherever to make it work. Whereas I'm the type who plans 14 months in advance, saves up credit card points to grab cheap tickets and then grabs exactly what I want 11 months out. So to him, yeah, this is way too early to be thinking about it

And I did leave it with my position pretty clear. We've just skated perilously close to the "let DD decide" the last time it came up, and no good can come of that. My position couldn't be clearer. I said it didn't look possible, and I wasn't going to discuss flight logistics when it was too early to even look at flights, but as things stood, it was not reasonable. (Please, please frontier just drop the 10pm flight and then we will move to actually impossible!)

Anonymous wrote:You and your daughter absolutely stay home and go to your her graduation. The stepson is 26-28, he’s had 2 graduations already. This is your kid’s first milestone moment. Your *husband* has to be the one to decide what he does about trying to attend both or just one but your decision is clear and simple.

This is good advice. While his accomplishment is wonderful, this is a teen girl we’re talking about. He needs to be an adult in this moment and hear the group.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I haven’t seen you answer the questions about whether his biological mom will be there or any members of that part of his family. You’re also not explaining WHY your stepson aka your son is making this a test of some kind. What exactly is he texting, and what’s the history behind that?

Op, also haven’t seen you answer the question as to whether when insisting on everyone’s presence for his ceremony your stepson is equally emphatic that he also plans attend his sister’s graduation the next day.

Clearly the travel logistics make this impractical/potentially unfeasible (and either way you and dd should definitely not travel) but this point is telling as to whether he’s just a little out of touch with reality or a complete narcissist.

I don't think he's a complete narcissist. I do think he's a little immature, and, what I've noticed is that he majorly regresses when interacting with his sister. I don't think this is so unusual, but it's like he steps in the door and regresses a decade. But yes, he thinks his graduation should be prioritized. That's why I think dropping this for a while is smart. There's too much to argue about at this time. What if the ceremony is an hour earlier next year? What if flight schedules change?

At the end of the day, I'm hoping with time both he and his father will realize how unfair it would be for his sister to miss/risk her graduation.

I kind of love the watch party idea.
I'm going to keep that in my pocket. With a stadium event, you are pretty much watching a screen anyhow!

From what you’ve described I don’t know where you are finding hope that SS and DH are going to suddenly get it. You don’t need to argue but you absolutely need to set the expectation that DD will attend all her events and you will attend her graduation. You need to make this really clear for DD. Don’t leave her in the position of having to answer to any of this.

Anonymous wrote:OP, you didn't respond about DD's grad rehearsal. Would she miss that if she went to SS's event?

DSS graduates on a Saturday afternoon.
DD graduates on Sunday morning.

If the high school doesn't change up anything, the closest official event is baccalaureate on Friday evening. There's no rehersal I can see on the official schedule. (I had asked for one from a friend to check this exact question out earlier)

OP, you didn't respond about DD's grad rehearsal. Would she miss that if she went to SS's event?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in favor of the divide and conquer suggestions and think even risking your DD missing her graduation is not the best idea.

A PP mentioned the dissertation - is it possible you and the family could be there for that? Or celebrate with him after his defense (like that night)? It does seem that's a huge accomplishment and could be a way to make the kids feel better about splitting graduation weekend.

Also, I may have missed this, but is your husband your DD's step-father?

His defense is complete.
And DH is the biodad of both kids

I still don't think your DD should risk missing her graduation! It is ultimately up to her, but I also don't think she should have to miss her other graduation weekend events. I hate this for you, OP.

Anonymous wrote:I am in favor of the divide and conquer suggestions and think even risking your DD missing her graduation is not the best idea.

A PP mentioned the dissertation - is it possible you and the family could be there for that? Or celebrate with him after his defense (like that night)? It does seem that's a huge accomplishment and could be a way to make the kids feel better about splitting graduation weekend.

Also, I may have missed this, but is your husband your DD's step-father?

His defense is complete.
And DH is the biodad of both kids

I am in favor of the divide and conquer suggestions and think even risking your DD missing her graduation is not the best idea.

A PP mentioned the dissertation - is it possible you and the family could be there for that? Or celebrate with him after his defense (like that night)? It does seem that's a huge accomplishment and could be a way to make the kids feel better about splitting graduation weekend.

Also, I may have missed this, but is your husband your DD's step-father?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I haven’t seen you answer the questions about whether his biological mom will be there or any members of that part of his family. You’re also not explaining WHY your stepson aka your son is making this a test of some kind. What exactly is he texting, and what’s the history behind that?

Op, also haven’t seen you answer the question as to whether when insisting on everyone’s presence for his ceremony your stepson is equally emphatic that he also plans attend his sister’s graduation the next day.

Clearly the travel logistics make this impractical/potentially unfeasible (and either way you and dd should definitely not travel) but this point is telling as to whether he’s just a little out of touch with reality or a complete narcissist.

I don't think he's a complete narcissist. I do think he's a little immature, and, what I've noticed is that he majorly regresses when interacting with his sister. I don't think this is so unusual, but it's like he steps in the door and regresses a decade. But yes, he thinks his graduation should be prioritized. That's why I think dropping this for a while is smart. There's too much to argue about at this time. What if the ceremony is an hour earlier next year? What if flight schedules change?

At the end of the day, I'm hoping with time both he and his father will realize how unfair it would be for his sister to miss/risk her graduation.

I kind of love the watch party idea.
I'm going to keep that in my pocket. With a stadium event, you are pretty much watching a screen anyhow!

Anonymous wrote:OP, I haven’t seen you answer the questions about whether his biological mom will be there or any members of that part of his family. You’re also not explaining WHY your stepson aka your son is making this a test of some kind. What exactly is he texting, and what’s the history behind that?

Op, also haven’t seen you answer the question as to whether when insisting on everyone’s presence for his ceremony your stepson is equally emphatic that he also plans attend his sister’s graduation the next day.

Clearly the travel logistics make this impractical/potentially unfeasible (and either way you and dd should definitely not travel) but this point is telling as to whether he’s just a little out of touch with reality or a complete narcissist.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I haven’t seen you answer the questions about whether his biological mom will be there or any members of that part of his family. You’re also not explaining WHY your stepson aka your son is making this a test of some kind. What exactly is he texting, and what’s the history behind that?

OP here. His mom is his relative I know. Her mother has passed away and there are no other aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I have no reason to think she won't be there.

Why is making a test out of this? I'm really not sure. I could guess, but I'm not sure that's fair. But, he's normally not a huge planner, so yeah, grabbing me over a year in advance to ask about getting plane tickets and hotels is kind of out of character. All I can say is he definitely didn't know about the conflict with his sisters graduation when this first came up, so I don't think it was, at least at first, anything about her.