Reddit Stories - BETRAYAL on the Waves_ A Mother's SACRIFICE and the DESERTION of a New Love_

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #sacrifice #desertion #motherhood #loveSummary:In a tale of betrayal on the waves, a mother makes a heart-wrenching sacrifice only to face the desertion of a newfound love. The story delves into themes of loyalty, selflessness, and the complexities of relationships.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, sacrifice, desertion, motherhood, love, loyalty, relationships, heartbreak, emotional, family, dramatic, fiction, storytelling, community, moral dilemmaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Mother secretly sold our father's residence to purchase a boat for her unemployed new spouse, but he abandoned her for a different lady, and now she is requesting to reside with me. After spending all the money. My mom, 50F, has had a very interesting life, if that's the correct adjective in this sense. She was never a bright student, which was fine, because my grandparents believed that women needed to take care of the house and family. She grew up with those beliefs and continues to hold on to them today.

She got married to my dad two years after she finished school when she was 20. At 21, she had my older sister, Jasmine, now 29 F, and two years later, she had me, Bianca, now 27F. Both my sister and I were always closer to dad. He didn't share the same views as Mom and was very supportive. He encouraged us to do well in school, enrolled us. in a bunch of extracurricular activities, and made it a point to always be there. He drowned me in art supplies because I loved sketching, and he never let my sister miss a single

day of soccer practice because that was where she showed potential. He was always there for us, and this really irked my mother. She didn't like us having hobbies, she didn't like the fact that we were academically inclined, and our nature and dad's support actually caused her to lose a lot of respect in her family. My maternal grandparents, in particular, didn't like us much. All of this changed when Dad passed away when I was 11. He was in a car crash, and after being hospitalized for a few days, he passed away. This was a huge emotional and financial blow for my mother, and of course, for us too. I don't want to go into the emotional ordeal we went through because it's not relevant, but financially, we were done for. Dad's hospital

stay had racked up thousands of dollars, and we didn't have enough insurance to cover it. Most of his savings went to pay the bills, and my mother had no savings of her own since she wasn't employed. A few weeks after his death, I remember we had to sell a lot of our stuff. I sold my art supplies, my sister stopped going to soccer practice, and we were given household chores to do. My life had completely changed, and I hated every bit of it, but there was nothing I could do because I was still dependent on my mother. That's when my paternal grandparents stepped in to help. We had never been very close because they lived three states away, so we didn't see each other much. But whenever I did meet them, they were always sweet to me.

When my grandfather came to visit us, he was shocked to hear that mom had sold my stuff to make ends meet. He offered to cover the costs of our hobbies and interests, but my mother shut down the saying she needed money to help us survive, not to fund our useless interests. She said if he wanted to send money, it should be for groceries or electricity. My grandfather got annoyed and said she could work to make ends meet, and he would be willing to take over the extra costs. Ensuring our survival was her responsibility, and he'd only help if she fulfilled her duties. My mother said no, and that was that. Even at that point, my mother still hadn't started working and was living off handouts from family. And these handouts were not consistent. Some months we had a lot, some months we had next

to nothing. It was mostly her parents paying our way. She flat out refused to get a job, insisting it was the duty of the men in her family to support her because she genuinely believed it was a man's job to provide. This went on for a few months, and her parents took pity on her and us and provided for our needs. But soon enough, that money stopped coming regularly. Mom was severely cash-strapped, and Jasmine and I had to take odd jobs for extra cash. We could be seen at a neighbor's house walking their dog, weeding their garden, etc. It was tough, but even then,

Mom didn't start working. Finally, her parents had had enough, and they sat her down for a talk. They told her they could no longer support her and us because they had planned to live out their retirement years a certain way, and couldn't afford to take care of us anymore. This came as a huge shock to Mom, surprise, because she had assumed that since Dad had died,

it was her father's responsibility to take care of us, since men provide. It was hard to argue with that logic, especially since my grandparents had raised her that way, but now they were changing their tune. They said it was the job of the husband to provide for his wife, and if the husband is no more, then the wife needs to provide for the kids. They were essentially cutting her off because it had been made clear to both my mom and her sister

that all their property would go to their brother. It was a shit show, with a lot of name-calling in tears, but my grandparents wouldn't budge. My mother asked her sister, Auntie Janice, for help. Now, Auntie Janice was a great woman and had a soft spot for us. Her husband was a surgeon, and even though they didn't interact with us much, he was willing to help. But what we got from them wasn't enough to support a family of three, so Mom went back to my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was more than willing to help, but only on the condition that my mom worked too. She had no choice but to agree because there was no way we could survive without their help.

She got a housekeeping job at a nearby hotel, and it paid decently, so our lives were back on track. With help from our uncle and grandpa, we were back to living comfortably. This arrangement continued for the next two years until I was 14 and my sister was 16. That's when our mother introduced us to Dan. Dan was her new boyfriend, and they wanted to get married. One look at him, and Jasmine and I were disgusted. He looked and smelled like a pig, and I'm not exaggerating. It felt like the last time he bathed was in high school.

He reeked of cigarettes and had this lost look on his face as if he couldn't register a single word anyone said to him. Needless to say, Jasmine and I didn't just disapprove of him. We hated him with all our hearts. Unfortunately, Mom was madly in love with him, or so she claimed. They got married in a hush-hush ceremony, and Jasmine and I were sworn to secrecy. We couldn't tell anyone on dad's side of the family that Mom had gotten married again. She was worried that if our grandparents found out, they'd stop the monthly payments, and since it was a generous amount, we genuinely couldn't have done without it.

So Jasmine and I kept quiet. I don't know what was going through Mom's head when she married Dan, but I think she thought that if she got married and had a man in her life, she wouldn't have to work anymore and he'd take care of everything. I'm sure that was her assumption because a week into their marriage, she quit her job and was back at home. The problem was, Dan was unemployed chronically unemployed. He couldn't hold a job for more than two months,

and after that, he'd sit at home playing video games, then maybe look for another job when he got bored of the games. All of Mom's dreams came crashing down because this man had no intention of providing for any of us. Jasmine and I went back to doing odd jobs for people to earn some spending money. So in this family of four, most of the money came from my father's parents or my mother's sister's husband. It was dysfunctional, to say the least, and Jasmine and I were desperate to move out. We kept our interactions with Mom and Dan to a minimum, focusing on school and our part-time gigs.

This was the setup for the next four years until I left for college and went low contact with Mom. By the time I was on the verge of leaving, Mom and Dan were having problems because, in addition to being unemployed, Dan was also a serial cheater, which honestly came as no surprise to either me or my sister. Mom kept forgiving him or pretending not to notice, but things were messy. Once I went to college, I went very low contact with Mom. I stayed in touch with my grandparents and aunt and uncle, so somehow, my mother always had information about what was going on in my life.

I graduated from college when I was 23 and landed a decent job after that. The problem was that I graduated right before COVID, so my promotions and raises were small. I couldn't save as much as I thought I would, and life kind of came to a halt for a bit. My grandpa, the good one, offered me some help, but I didn't want to burden him, so I said no. Thankfully, I wasn't laid off, so I shouldn't complain too much. A few months ago, I got a promotion at work in a hefty pay rate. raise. This put me in a comfortable position to buy a small house since I'd also saved during the COVID years. I lived as frugally as possible, and even though I'd targeted becoming a

homeowner by 25, this was just a two-year delay, so I was happy. I don't know how, but my mother found out I'd bought a house. She called me, saying she wanted to meet me because it had been so long since she saw her baby. I knew something was up because the last time I saw her was during my final semester of college. I had never asked to meet her after that, and she had never offered. I told her I'd let her know when I was free and get back to her, I wasn't planning to get back to her, ever. She then said it was urgent and that I needed to let her know soon. I knew she wanted something from me, so I made an excuse and ended the call. Two days later, she called again, saying she was in a bit of a mess and needed my help. Before I could even agree to

help, she said she heard I'd bought a house and wanted me to let her and Dan move in. They basically wanted to move in together into my house. I couldn't help but laugh at her audacity. I told her I was surprised Dan was still around and had hoped she'd left him. I said I didn't have a house like she thought it was a studio with a balcony, and there was no way the three of us could fit. I didn't want to tell her that I didn't want her there, so I hoped the size and space argument would be enough to deter her. but I'd been too hopeful. She told me since it was a one-bedroom apartment, I could vacate it so Dan and she could move in together.

I told her there was no way that was happening. I hadn't worked so hard just to have someone else live in my house, plus I had a mortgage to pay. I told her I'd charge her the market rate for rent, and she lost it. She started screaming at me, saying she couldn't believe I'd take rent from my own mother and that she hadn't raised her daughters to be such leeches. I told her I didn't have time for either her or her screaming, and if she wanted to beg for scraps, she could do it somewhere else.

I hung up and blocked her. I called Jasmine to see if Mom had given her a similar call, but she said no. The last time they talked was a month ago when Mom asked where she was living. Jasmine told her she had moved in with her boyfriend and that they were saving up for a house together. I couldn't understand why Mom needed a place to stay in the first place. She still had our dad's old house the one we grew up in, where Dan had moved in with us. I had no idea why there was suddenly a need for her to move somewhere else.

I called my paternal grandparents to ask about the house. That's when I got the full picture of what was really going on. So, the house we grew up and was in my grandfather's name. It was supposed to legally go to dad when my grandparents passed away. The understanding was that my dad and his brother, our uncle, Liam, would each be given a house owned by my grandfather so they could live rent-free. This was to give them a good start in life and allow them to invest in properties for their children. So legally, the deed to our childhood home wasn't in my father's name but in my

grandfathers. When dad died, my grandmother was adamant that grandpa should keep the house in his name so it could be given to Jasmine and me when we became adults. However, considering mom was unemployed, Grandpa didn't want to create more trouble for her. I think he also felt bad for her, which is why, when she asked him to, he transferred ownership of the house to my mother. This was done with the understanding that when I turned 25 and Jasmine 27, the house would be given to us. I now believe this is why Mom told us to be careful and not mention that she had married Dan. Word eventually got out, though, according to Grandpa. They found out she had remarried and were upset that she'd kept it from them.

That's when they wanted to change the ownership of the house as soon as possible. They insisted that since Jasmine was an adult and I was almost one, they wanted to get the paperwork done to make sure Dan and Mom couldn't do anything with the house. But very conveniently, a few weeks after they made their intentions clear, Mom told them Dan had left her for another woman. She was sobbing uncontrollably, which naturally made my grandparents not want to pursue the ownership issue anymore. Gradually, they forgot about it, and it took a back seat.

That was the last time they talked to her about the house, and their contact with her had been sporadic since. I told Grandpa that Mom had called me, saying she wanted to move into my house with Dan. If that was the case, what had happened to Dad's house? He said he'd try to find out because he had no idea she'd gotten back with Dan or that she was planning to move. I have a bad feeling about this, and I'm sure it's going to erupt into her. more drama soon. Edit, to everyone who's commented, surprised that I didn't know such important details about my mother's life. This is what happens when you go low contact. I chose to cut her

out of my life, and I have no regrets. The minute I turned 18, I bolted from the house and her life, and I've been very formal with her since. That's why I didn't know that Dan had left her or that he'd come back. As for why Jasmine and I didn't know about the house, well, we were kids. We assumed our mother would protect us, and so did our grandparents. That's why the topic of property or home ownership never came up. Mom and Grandma never thought to discuss it with us because, at the time, we were minors, and they were dealing with our mother, who was supposed to take care of us, not cheat us. As of now, Jasmine and I don't know what happened to Dad's house, but we're going to ask Mom

and possibly stage an intervention if it comes to that. I'll keep you guys updated. Update 1, things are bad. Two weeks after my first post, Jasmine, her boyfriend, my grandparents, and I decided to meet with Mom and try to see what was going on. We didn't tell her we were coming, so she was surprised when we showed up. The best part? When we went to our house Dad's House, our childhood home the door was opened by a young couple.

We initially thought they were relatives of Dan's or maybe Mom's friends, but they said they were the owners of the property. I wanted to laugh because I didn't believe them. But what they said was true. Mom had sold the house without informing either Jasmine or me or getting my grandparents' consent. And, interestingly enough, the sale had happened over six months ago. Our house had been sold by her six months ago on the sly, and now there's nothing we can do. Unfortunately, since the paperwork and transfer of ownership were never completed by my grandparents,

she was the legal owner of the house, and it was within her rights to sell it. This has come as a huge shock to everyone, and we all feel betrayed and disgusted. We tried to find out where she was living. It was in some shady neighborhood downtown, in a one-bedroom flat surrounded by junkies. This was Dan's place, and I wasn't surprised. He looks like a junkie himself, so it made sense. When Mom saw all of us standing together, she turned as white as a ghost. She literally tried to close the door on us, but we weren't having it.

Thankfully, we had Jasmine's boyfriend with us. He's a strapping man, six feet four inches and pretty intimidating. We forced our way inside, and there was Dan, lounging on the sofa with a cigarette in his hand and a dazed look on his face. Mom nervously greeted us, but we went straight for the jugular. I told her I knew Dad's house was supposed to go to us, and she had sold it without informing Jasmine, me, or our grandparents. She burst out crying, saying that if she hadn't done it, Dan wouldn't have come back. Basically, she launched into this long sob story about how Dan had

left her twice for two different women. When Mom had that conversation with Grandpa about the house and told him Dan had left, he had actually left. She had to beg and plead for him to come back. He finally returned when he got kicked out of his new girlfriend's house. Then, a year Later later, Mom caught him cheating with a girl barely out of her teens. I just looked at her like she was insane. I asked why she hadn't left him when he was so problematic and wasn't helping her out in any way. She had no response to that, and I didn't have the patience to feel sorry for her. My grandmother was furious.

She screamed at Mom, telling her she wasn't interested in hearing excuses for why she'd been such a colossal failure. All she cared about was the house that was supposed to go to Jim. Jasmine and me. Mom said she'd sold the house because Dan wanted to buy a boat. Now, this man knows nothing about boats. All I know is that he worked as a coast guard for a couple of months at a beach a few miles away, and that's when he decided he wanted a boat. He threatened to leave mom again if she didn't help him buy one. So, my mother, the biggest genius on the planet, sold her house and used part of the money to buy this idiot a boat. The rest of the money, instead of

saving, she gave to him. He spent all of it. Every single dime. When they had nothing left, he had to sell the boat and buy this condo they were living in. And guess what they hated? That's why mom wanted to ask if I could let her and Dan stay with me. After she finished her story, she admitted, in defeat, that she was sure I wouldn't let her live with me anymore. Before I could say anything, Jasmine tore into her, and boy, was she brutal. She listed all the ways Mom had failed us as a mother and failed dad as a wife. She had robbed us of the one thing that would have kept us connected to our father, just to support her deadbeat husband who didn't care about her.

She told Mom she was dead to her and should never expect to hear from her again. I couldn't say much because I was still in shock, but I agreed with Jasmine. There was nothing I wanted to do with my mother. Mom started sobbing, saying she didn't deserve to be treated like this. We told her she did. She had stolen from us, from our grandparents, and most importantly, she had robbed us of a connection with our childhood and our father. We weren't going to forgive her ever.

We left. Since then, she's tried calling us and our grandparents, but none of us are speaking to her. There's nothing we can do about the house. That money and property are gone for good. I'm considering saving up and buying it if it ever gets listed again because I don't want to lose that part of my childhood, but I know it's a far-fetched dream and not very practical. My grandparents are furious and heartbroken, but there's nothing they can do either.

Grandpa keeps cursing himself for trusting her, and we keep telling him he couldn't have known she would do this. It's just a sad state of affairs, and we all feel helpless. Update 2, Dan left Mom again. I know it sounds cruel, but I love every bit of it. Apparently, she's been trying to get in touch with us, using new numbers and whatnot, but neither Jasmine nor I have responded. She tried to involve Auntie Janice. I got a call from her last week, asking me to talk to Mom. I told her not to get involved and spilled everything to her.

She was horrified because she didn't know the house was supposed to go to us. She apologized for trying to take Mom's side and has since blocked her. Whatever little updates I got from Mom were through Auntie Janice, and she told me Dan had left her. Mom is now homeless with nowhere to go. Auntie Janice and her husband were initially willing to take her in, but after they learned what Mom did to us, they put their foot down and said no. Yesterday, I got an email from Mom. She basically said she was down and out, homeless, and had nowhere to go.

She asked me to let her stay with me while she looked for a job. I know it's a lie. She's not going to look for a job, and if I take her in, she'll never leave. I haven't responded yet because I don't want her here, but I also feel bad about letting her live on the streets. She genuinely has no one who would be willing to help her. I know she brought this on herself, and she's the only one to blame, but I can't help feeling sorry for her. I hope I don't cave because I know if I do, she'll ruin my life. Update 3, I told Jasmine about Mom's email, and she said she got something similar. She hadn't responded either but said that deep down, she was tempted to help her.

Jasmine told me she'd support my decision but advised me to think it through carefully because we both know what Mom is like, and if I let her in, she'll control and destroy whatever peace I have. After a long talk, Jasmine knocked some sense into me, thankfully. I ended up responding to Mom. I wrote her a long email, telling her I wouldn't help her, neither now nor ever. I let everything out the betrayal, the anger, the resentment, and the disgust. I marked her email as spam, so I don't know if she's responded. I did send her contacts for some women's shelters that could help her, but that's as far as I'll go.

She has been emotionally negligent and financially malicious our whole lives, and she doesn't deserve our help anymore. I don't know what she's going to do, and I've asked Andy Janice to keep me out of it. I don't need updates on her life. She's not my mother anymore, and she was the worst part of my childhood. I'm ready to leave her behind.