Reddit Stories - BETRAYED_ A Child's Vengeful RECKONING Years After ABANDONMENT_

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayed #abandonment #vengeance #revenge #familySummary: A story of betrayal and abandonment unfolds as a child seeks vengeance years later. Gripping tale of retribution and reckoning that will keep you on the edge of your seat.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayed, abandonment, vengeance, revenge, familyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Child openly criticized me after supporting my former partner in the divorce and cutting ties with me. Many years later, she attempted to disrupt my wedding and is currently demanding an apology. I, 45F, got married for a second time a week ago to James, 39M. He and I have been together for the past four years after we met through some common friends and after living together for almost two years, we finally decided to make it official. But my wedding was almost ruined by my daughter and James had to kick her out to prevent her from causing a scene at the wedding. And now everybody is blaming me and accusing me of having failed as a

mother because she was really upset at being kicked out. My daughter April, 19F, wasn't even invited to the wedding and I know it sounds bad but I had valid reasons for not inviting her. She and I had no contact a couple of years ago because she had taken her dad's side in the divorce and had publicly insulted me. My ex-husband Donald, 47M, and I got divorced six years ago because we just weren't compatible anymore and I was sick of trying to make our marriage work. He and I got married really young when we were in our early 20s and had April shortly after. Things started changing and getting difficult for both of us once we had a daughter because now, there were several more expenses that we had to think of and Donald just wasn't taking his job

seriously. It felt like he was never going to get promoted and I would have to have to continue doing everything for him. He was incompetent at all the household work and I could pretty much say the same thing for anything to do with April. He was just lazy and it was like he wasn't even interested in stepping up and helping me out. I got tired of doing everything on my own and being with him was becoming exhausting for me, but I still pushed myself and tried to make that marriage work for several years. I had fallen out of love with him way before I even filed for divorce, but I was trying to make it work for the sake of our daughter. Unfortunately, even April was becoming like a miniature version of my ex-husband and expected me to constantly run after her and do everything for her.

It was really difficult for me to deal with both of them since I was not only working in the office, but I didn't get a moment to myself even after I came back home and they would make me do even the most basic of tasks for them. And the worst part was that they were never even grateful for any of it and practically treated me like a maid around the house. I just got sick of it one day and I decided to move out without telling anyone and then I filed for divorce. My parents and a couple of my friends were really supportive, so I didn't have to worry about where I would live or even about finding a lawyer. Donald tried to get me to come back when he was served with the divorce papers and said that he would change, but it was too little and too late for me. So I rejected that and said that I was going through with the divorce and he couldn't

change my mind. He tried many times to win me over and get me back, but when, even after almost a week and a half, I still hadn't changed my mind. He changed gears and told me that he was going to make sure that I regretted the divorce. He hired one of the best divorce attorneys with the help of his father, who was paying for everything, and decided to file for full custody of April and tried his very best to make sure that I didn't get much from the divorce. His lawyer was ruthless and it was a really long and difficult process for me personally. Because they were dragging my name through the mud and I just didn't stand a chance since they had manipulated all the facts and made me seem like an unstable and selfish person.

Worst of all, they had portrayed me as a terrible mother and April had actually been part of it. She had made a very public post on social media during the divorce where she claimed that I was a bully and that I constantly kept picking on her. She said that I made her miserable and she wanted nothing to do with me after the divorce. She added that she wanted her dad to have custody and wished that I wouldn't even have visiting rights. That was pretty much the final nail in the coffin because if April herself didn't want to live with me, then there was no point of of a mediator or any custody battle. She had made it very clear to the world that she preferred Donald over me and would rather live with him. So the custody battle ended with Donald

getting full custody of April and I got visiting rights, but they would have to be supervised. I did get the house and the divorce but that was about it and it broke my heart because I had wanted my daughter to be on my side and to realize that her father was not the man that she imagined him to be. She was just 13, which is probably why she didn't understand that being the fun parent wasn't enough and that he was raising her to be just as lazy and incompetent as him. It would be cute for a while, just like it had worked out for Donald while we were in college. But that sort of behavior wouldn't fly when she was in the real world and didn't have her family to shield her from real life responsibilities and expectations.

It was devastating for me but I still tried to keep in touch with April, in spite of the things that she had said about me, because she was obviously being misled by Donald. Even during the divorce, before she made that post, I would often pick her up from school to spend time with her and she would try to convince me not to go through with the divorce. And I would try to tell her that I was just miserable in that marriage and it was better for all of us if her father and I separated. We would argue about it, but she would at least talk to me. In the weeks leading up to that post, she just cut me off, and even when I would try to pick her

up after school to hang out, she would blow me off to spend time with her friends or make up some excuse and avoid me. It was very clear to me that something had changed and it was Donald who had convinced her that I was the bad guy here. Nonetheless, I tried to keep in touch with her after the divorce, but she just wouldn't speak to me. And because Donald had full custody and I could only get supervised visits, he had a lot more control over her and made sure that I didn't get to see her more than once or twice in six months. I tried to reach out to her online but she blocked me there. I even tried to renegotiate the custody terms, but my lawyer advised me against it because it was just too soon and they had already painted a very

negative and unstable image of me. I was also struggling at work so it was just not a good time for me and I made one of the most difficult decisions that I have ever had to make. I showed up at Donald's house unannounced one day and demanded to see April. I caused a racket when he said no and April came into the living room to check out what was going on. When I saw her, I asked her point blank if she wanted me as her mother or not. I didn't beat about the bush and I tried not to let any of my emotions show on my face. She thought about it for a while and then she told me that she didn't consider me her mother anymore because I had broken up their happy family because I was too selfish to think about her so now, she wanted nothing to do with me. I had already seen that coming,

but I just wanted to hear it from her before I cut her out of my life. Just so I would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried my best and wouldn't have any regrets in the future. Once April had made it clear to me that she didn't want me to reach out to her anymore, I stopped trying because I needed to get my life back on track. It was a really difficult call for me to make because I had to cut the most important person out of my life and it was devastating for me, but I powered through it somehow and threw myself into my work. I did keep tabs on April and I knew that she was doing well in school. I wanted to reach out tomorrow a couple of times, but I held myself.

back because I felt like if she wanted to talk to me and make things right with me, then she would have to take the first step. Because now that I was older and had already gone through so much, I was too fragile to handle another heartbreak at the hands of my own daughter. So I didn't talk to her for years after the divorce, which is why I didn't even consider inviting her to my wedding. For starters, I didn't even think that she would want to be invited because if somebody doesn't reach out to you after almost six years, then it probably doesn't even occur to you that this person might want to reconnect. So when the invitations were sent out, I didn't include my daughter on the list because we hadn't spoken for a really long time and I didn't want to get

insulted once again. But somehow, she managed to find the details of my wedding, probably from some loose-lipped relatives, and then showed up on the day of my wedding. I got really lucky because by the time she turned up, James and I were already done with the ceremony and we were just about to have our first dance as a married couple. We had a really great security team because, and because they knew better than to bother us while we were in the middle of something. Instead, they waited until they knew for a fact that we were done with our first dance and then they summoned us outside to ask if April was wanted at the wedding or not. Apparently, they had caught her trying to sneak inside the venue

after they had denied her entry the first time. April looked furious and demanded that I let her in because, after all, she was my daughter and she deserved to be at my wedding. Honestly, I was so shocked to see her that my brain just stopped functioning and I couldn't come up with anything to say to her because this was the first time that I was seeing her as an adult. Seeing how shaken up I was by April's arrival, my husband decided to take over and told the security team to take her away because she wasn't on the guest list and our wedding was no place for her if she wasn't invited. So they escorted a kicking and screaming April out.

James and I spent some time alone on the bench outside so that I could process what happened since I was really shocked. I absolutely hadn't been expecting April to show up at any point because she had never expressed any interest in my life ever since the divorce. It took me a while to realize that this was my wedding day and it was about me and James, so it was okay for me to want to celebrate this without making this day about anybody else. After I had pulled myself together, we decided to rejoin all our guests and take my mind off April and her sudden reappearance.

We had a really fun day and by the end of it, I had almost forgotten that April had even showed up at the wedding. But I was reminded of it the very next day when Donald called me for the first time after the divorce to berate me about what my husband had done. He was really pissed off because he believed that James had no right to have her kicked out, especially when this was my wedding that April wanted to attend. He told me that April had showed up at the wedding so she could extend an olive branch and make peace with me but James had ruined it by having her escorted out. Apparently, she had been really upset and humiliated by what we had done and Donald believed that I was responsible for it. So James and I owed her an apology.

I told him that I wasn't going to apologize because that was my wedding day and if she wanted to really reach out to me and make things right with me than she should have done so before and I would have even invited her to the wedding. But the day of my wedding was supposed to be about me and James and I didn't think there was anything wrong with us kicking her out because we had several valid reasons to do that. The first one was that she had tried to sneak into the wedding and even when she was caught, she had a really nasty attitude and was acting as though she was entitled to attend a wedding that she hadn't been invited to instead of just apologizing and dealing with it nicely.

So we knew that she hadn't changed since I had told James all about April and her behavior in the past. I think he judged the situation correctly and made the right call by not letting her in. Also, James and I had planned for months to have a perfect wedding and the invitation had been sent out several weeks ago so if she knew where to show up I was assuming that she had known about the wedding for a really long time. If she had really and truly wanted to make comments with me, then she would have reached out before the day of the wedding instead of leaving it for the very last minute. That was just really suspicious and it made us feel like she had just been looking for an opportunity to sneak into the wedding and ruin it. And that's why James had not let her in he had to make that decision on his own. I thought that these were all valid reasons and told Donald that April would just have to deal with her disappointment. He didn't take that well and accused me of being a failure of a mother.

So I reminded him that I hadn't been her mother for the past six years, thanks to the custody arrangement that they had asked for. I also reminded him that April was the one who had said that I wasn't her mother and that's the reason why I'd even cut her off. He was the one who had turned her against me, so now he had no right to be mad about the fact that she and I didn't share a relationship of any sort. He got annoyed and hung up on me when I said that and I thought it was over, but then he got more of his family members to contact me and tell me that I was being a terrible mother. He, along with his entire family, is now accusing me of failing to understand my daughter's feelings and it's getting to me. James doesn't think that we did anything wrong but I have started to feel differently and it's messing with my head. I'd offer letting my husband kick my daughter from my previous marriage out of our wedding because she showed up uninvited. Update 1, Hi, so James and I would just like to thank everybody who commented on my original post and made sure that we knew that we were not in the wrong.

We have since blocked Donald and everybody who was texting me because I don't need the kind of negative energy in my life and I don't need to question myself when it comes to my daughter. Honestly, my only regret is that I didn't block Donald a really long time ago. The only reason I didn't do that was that I had always expected that at some point, he would reach out to me and tell me that April wanted to speak to me. And well, I guess it kind of happened but not the way I had expected it would happen. Either way, I don't think that I'm a bad mother because I just decided to put myself first for one day. And it was my wedding day, mind you.

It was supposed to be special for me. If April and Donald don't understand that, then well, tough. because I'm not going to be apologizing to either of them for sure. Now that that's out of the way, I would also just like to touch upon certain things that people had said in the comments of the original post. A couple of people had accused me of abandoning my daughter in the comments and I would just like to say that I had really fought hard to get custody of April.

I think I made it very clear that even after the court order that April was going to stay with her father and I would only get supervised visits, I still tried to see her and get the order reversed. I did everything in my power to have a relationship with April, but she was the one who rejected me, not just once, but every single time. And I really don't know what anybody else in my position would have done. I didn't abandon her because she was living with Donald and she was quite happy without me for the last couple of years.

That was very obvious. If she had wanted me in her life, then she could have reached out to me any time and I would have gladly accepted her back into my life, but the truth of the matter was that she didn't want me back. So she didn't reach out to me and I know that I'm her mother that should always forgive my daughter, even if she doesn't ask for forgiveness. But I'm also human. So I hope that clears things up because I would hate for anybody to think that I abandoned my daughter. Update 2. So it's been a week since I got married and April reached out to me today, but unfortunately it was not a nice conversation that we had. She texted me in the afternoon and told

me that she wanted to speak to me in person but I was at work, so I told her that I could speak to her once I got off work. And that was enough to make her snap at me. She accused me of not caring about anything apart from my work and myself, which is why I had cut her out of my life in the first place and let her grow up without a mother for all these years. She told me that she had been waiting for me to reach out to her and tell her that I loved her, but it never happened. and even when she decided that she was going to make my wedding day a bit more special as a gesture of peace, I rejected that and let my husband kick her out. She told me that she had expected me to at least apologize to her the day after the wedding

and accept that I had made a mistake by kicking her out but even that didn't happen and instead, I doubled down and tried to justify my behavior to Donald and the rest of her family. She ended her rant by telling me that she was disappointed by the way that I was treating her as if she wasn't even my daughter. That remark really got to me because, for years, I had been fighting for her to be with me. And I knew that Donald was the one who had alienated her from me so he was the one to blame, but even after she grew up, she didn't think that she owed me an apology. So I kind of lost my cool with her and told her that I had no regrets about what I had done because I didn't trust her anymore after that scathing and untrue post that she had made against

me during the divorce. I had worked hard to salvage my marriage and build a relationship with April when she was younger, but Donald spoiled all of it. And in spite of knowing the truth, she decided to go ahead and make that post against me so she could take her dad's side. That had broken my heart, but I had still persisted and tried to forgive her

because she was just a child and she didn't know what she was doing. So I kept trying to reestablish my relationship with her, but she didn't want it and turned me away by telling me that I was not even her mother anymore. I reminded her of that incident and told her how much it had hurt and how depressed I was after that,

but she had no idea about it because she just didn't care about her mother's feelings. In all these years, she hadn't even bothered to contact me even once and I couldn't forget that. Even on the day of my wedding, she showed up and made that day all about herself without bothering to think about how it would make me feel. I told her that if she had truly wanted to reconnect with me then she had the opportunity to do so before, but she chose the day of my wedding because she didn't even think about how I would take it. I told her she had grown up to be just as selfish and entitled as her father and I wasn't going to speak to her until she decided to change. Because I was done dealing with the two of them.

I had divorced Donald's several years ago already, but I had still been willing to hold out hope that April wouldn't turn out to be like her father. Clearly, I had been wrong and she was just like him. I told her she could reach out to me once she was ready to apologize, but until then, I had nothing to say to her and I didn't want to hear from her. I didn't give her. I didn't give her a chance to continue the argument and disconnected the call immediately after I was done speaking. It didn't feel as good as I thought it would and I almost called her back to take back everything that I had said. Because even though we were fighting, it felt nice since at least now she was talking to me and not pretending that I didn't even exist. It's weird but that's how it is.

Update 3. A couple of days have passed since April last called me. Honestly, I had expected her to reach out to me sooner, but it hasn't happened yet. I am a little disappointed that she hasn't contacted me yet, but there's not much that I can do. So I'm just trying to manage my disappointment by spending more time with James and planning our honeymoon, which we are supposed to leave for in a couple of days. James thinks that if we are meant to work things out, then April will reach out to me before that. So I really am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that she calls me before the honeymoon begins. But Donald has tried to reach out to me and obviously, whenever he tries to talk to me, it's never good news. He showed up at my office the day after I

spoke to April on the phone, but I refused to speak to him. So instead of leaving like a normal human being, he decided to shout and tell me that I needed med to cut ties with April instead of trying to manipulate her into going against him. He also told me that the reason that she was just like him was because he was the one who had raised her while I was off romancing other men. That was way out of line and he had no right to say that so I turned around. at that point and told him that I would call the cops and report him for stalking if he ever showed up anywhere near me again. I was sick of him thinking that he could say whatever he wanted and get away with it and I wanted to scare him bad enough for him to stay away from me since I'd

had enough of his BS. So I told him that I would call the cops if he didn't leave and he thought that I was bluffing until I brought out my phone and told him that I had already dialed the numbers. All I had to do was make the call and he would be in really big trouble. I could see on his face that he didn't want to leave because he didn't want to appear weak, but after weighing the odds in his head, he decided to get into his car and drive away. Good for him, honestly, because I really would have called the cops if he didn't leave me alone. When I told James about it, he suggested getting a protective order against him and I'd love to, but I don't know if we have grounds for it just yet. We have spoken to a lawyer just in case we need it in the future, but right now, we're not doing

anything because I don't think he poses an actual threat yet. He is weak and stupid and I'm not scared of him in the slightest, if I'm being honest. Update 4, hi, so there are just two days to go before James and I leave for our honeymoon and April finally got in touch with me today. I honestly couldn't be happier about it because things walked out exactly as I had expected them to. Not only did she reach out to me, but she actually apologized to me this time and said that she had been a horrible person for the past six years. She acknowledged the fact that she had been her father's daughter all these years, but after speaking to me on the phone that day, she had done a considerable amount of soul searching and realized that she had made a mistake.

She had tried to speak to Donald about it, but his reaction just proved what she had been afraid of, that he had been misleading her all along and alienating her from me for his own gain because he wanted to get back at me for the divorce. They got into a big fight on the day of our phone call in the evening and I suppose that's why Donald showed up at my office the next day to berate me. But after that, April had been thinking about the way that she had been behaving with me and figured out that the way that I had reacted to her showing up at my wedding had been completely normal. Because I obviously didn't trust her the way that I used to and she had nobody else to blame for it but herself because she hadn't even apologized to me. She had realized

that she made a terrible mistake, so now she wanted to set things right with me and make sure that she didn't waste any more of the time that we had together. It was a really emotional conversation and we decided to meet each other in person tomorrow and she even told me to bring James along because she felt like she owed him an apology as well. So we're getting together for lunch tomorrow and I really hope that it goes well. Update 5. So James and I just returned from our lunch with April an hour ago and it was surreal. Because it felt like we were finally catching up on the time that we had lost and I had never even thought that this could happen. It was kind of emotional in the beginning and then after the apologies and stuff were out of the way,

we started speaking to each other about everything that had been happening in our lives. It was quite fun to hear her talk about her time in college and then we shared the story of how James and I had met. We actually had a really nice time and we have decided that we are going to meet for either lunch or coffee once a week at the very least, along with therapy. This is going to be quite a shock for Donald, but April told me she doesn't care about it anymore. And I'm really looking forward to fixing our relationship.