Reddit Stories - BETRAYED_ ABANDONED by my SPOUSE for His Ailing Ex, Mother Steps In During Labor_

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #familydrama #betrayal #abandonment #motherinlawSummary: A woman is betrayed and abandoned by her spouse for his ailing ex, but finds support from her mother during labor. The story unfolds with themes of betrayal, family dynamics, and unexpected sources of strength.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, familydrama, betrayal, abandonment, motherinlaw, spouse, ailingex, support, strength, labor, unexpected, drama, emotional, heartbreak, marriageBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

Spouse left me shortly before I delivered our child to console his former partner who was ill. His mom assisted me in initiating the legal separation process, and later I found out they embraced while he was away. Was gone. Hi Reddit, I'm in a very complicated situation right now and any sort of help or advice would be greatly appreciated. So my husband Jeremy, 35M, and I, 32F, have been together for five years, married for two. We met through work, so I didn't know much about his past, but eventually after dating for a while,

we got to know that both of us had only had one serious relationship after we graduated from college. My ex and I had been together for four years, three years of college and one year after that, but then we had broken up due to personal differences and we did not remain in touch. We had been broken up for almost five years when I met Jeremy. However, he was still in touch with his ex when we started dating and was actually pretty good friends with her. His ex, let's call her Valerie, was his high school sweetheart. They had been together since they were 16, right through college, and they had been broken up for five years when he met me. He told me that apparently they had to part ways because she wanted to move ahead in her

career, and for that she would have to take up a job in Australia, and he did not want a long-distance relationship. They tried to make it work for a few months, but after that they mutually agreed to part ways since that would be for the best. They were part of the same circle, so they continued to be in touch and stayed friends. I was fine with it until I met his group of friends for the first time after almost nine months of dating. All of them got together for dinner on New Year's Eve, and he decided to take me with him so he could introduce me to his group of friends. Valerie was there as well, which was a surprise for me since I hadn't been prepared to see her. Now I had only heard about her from Jeremy, and he only had nice things to say about her, so initially I was not insecure or anything.

But then as soon as I started interacting with her, I realized that her energy with me was way different from what I had expected. Jeremy had made her sound like she was really warm and relaxed, but I did not find her to be that way in the slightest. She made some really cutting remarks about me in front of all the people present there, and everyone just laughed it off because apparently that was her sense of humor, but I didn't like it one bit. I don't think anybody got it because she disguised the things she said as jokes, like how she remarked that it was surprising for her to see me in person because I looked different in pictures, and now that she had seen me, she was not sure if I was Jeremy's type since he

mostly preferred tall blondes, and I was neither, but she was. And everybody laughed since they thought she was just joking. She also made some remarks about how I was her successor, so she felt like she owed it to me to give me some training on how to keep Jeremy happy. These were all still harmless remarks, and I was willing to look past it because maybe she was not trying to target me, but maybe she actually did have a very weird sense of humor like everybody said. But then while we were drinking, she toasted the fact that Jeremy had finally moved on and how happy she was for him. I thought that was nice until she said that had it not been for her

decision to move to Australia, I probably wouldn't even be here with them. Nobody laughed at that, thankfully, because it was kind of awkward, but she quickly started laughing at her own weird comment, and everyone was forced to chuckle so we could just move past it. It was not lost on me that she was still kind of possessive about Jeremy, and once we got back home that day, I told him that I did not want her speaking to me again if he wanted to be with me. I told him that I was not comfortable with his friendship with her since she was clearly still not over him, and also she had been downright rude to me the entire time that we were together. I had put up with her respectfully once, I was not going to do that again.

And I was very clear about my boundaries because even in my earlier relationships, I have had to deal with things like this. Thankfully, Jeremy seemed to realize where I was coming from. He told me that he had also found her behavior very strange and had come to the conclusion that he would have to cut her out of his life because he did not want issues in our relationship because of Valerie. So that was that, and after that incident, I never heard him mention Valerie. or speak to her again. He had told me that he had blocked her, so I was content with that

explanation. I met his friends several times after that, and they also never brought up Valerie with me, probably because Jeremy had told them that I didn't like her, and things had been going smoothly until last week. Now I've actually been pregnant, and last Sunday was my due date. It's Thursday today, and Jeremy left to attend to Valerie because she had some emergency and she needed him to be there by her side. So he left two days before my due date and came back last night. We had a massive argument about it too because I had assumed that he had blocked Valerie everywhere and hadn't kept in touch with her, and he told me that he had indeed done those things, but she had used a different number to contact him and she was pretty desperate.

Apparently, she had been diagnosed with stage two brain cancer, and she really needed somebody to be there for her. I was furious at him because there was no way I could accept the fact. I was that he was willing to leave me alone when I was so heavily pregnant. And honestly, Valerie had just been diagnosed, and I could understand that it was difficult for him to accept it. Somebody he used to be close to might not make it, but it's not like she was going to pass away the very next day. He could go after he had at least been there for me through the labor,

watch his child being born, but the day that he received this news, he had to leave immediately. I tried to tell him that it was ridiculous that he was even considering leaving me alone when I was in this condition, but he told me that he would be back before I went into labor and that due dates are not accurate, so I might still have time for another week or so. And he told me to just deal with it until he was back and then left for the airport that very day without

even bothering to finish talking to me. He was well aware of the fact that I did not have my family here, my parents lived in Iowa, and I was completely relying on him. After he left for the airport, I tried to call him several times, but his phone had been switched off. I was really upset and desperate, so I called my mother-in-law instead because she has always been nice to me. And as soon as I explained the situation to her through tears, she came right over and started trying to call as well, but of course his phone was switched off. She comforted me and was there for me throughout that day because I was really upset and just kept crying throughout, since the pregnancy hormones were also messing with my emotions.

We couldn't reach Jeremy until the next day, and even then when we called him, he did not answer and only sent us both a text message saying that he would be back soon enough and hopefully before the baby was born. He apologized for pulling this on me and said that he was going to accept whatever punishment I thought was beneficial for him when he came back, but for now he just had to be there for an old friend because she also did not have any family in Australia,

and her parents couldn't fly out to see her since her dad was very good. sick as well. So she was really counting on him to be there for her, to at least process this, and he just had to be there. That explanation did nothing for me, and it only pissed me off even more that he thought it was more important to be there for an old friend because he thought that a cancer diagnosis was an emergency. Whereas he was ignoring somebody who he should have actually been there for, his wife. And I don't think that a cancer diagnosis is any more of an emergency than a literal pregnancy, because what was he going to do about that, hear her instantly? No, right? So he should have just stayed here with me. My mother-in-law

was thinking along the same lines, and when he sent me that message, she asked me very bluntly if I wanted to leave him, and I didn't think much, I just said yes. So she spoke to her lawyer and had him draw up divorce papers for me, along with an agreement to terminate parental rights for Jeremy. She told me that if he came back within the due date, then I was free to make a decision about whether I wanted to file for divorce and get this over with, or would rather speak to him and then clear the air before doing anything. And if he was not able to make it, then it was very obvious what I had to do. She had raised Jeremy herself and had been a single parent,

so I could understand why she was so bent on this. She even told me that she would make sure that Jeremy paid child support, unlike his father, who had never even bothered to meet Jeremy after he was born and had left his mother all by herself to raise him. She promised me that I would not go through the same thing as she did and was there for me throughout this week. For the next couple of days, neither of us contacted Jeremy, and on Monday I went into labor. Then my mother-in-law tried to call him to at least let him know that I was giving birth, but even then he did not pick up, and she decided not to text him about it because

there was no point. My parents had flown in the day before, so that was pretty lucky, and they were all there for me. But even then, I felt Jeremy's absence very strongly that day, and I made up my mind that no matter what happened when he came back, I would not be able to go back to seeing him the same way again. So I filled out the paperwork for the divorce and told the lawyer to file it on my behalf so I could get the proceeding started as soon as possible. I did that literally just three hours after I had given birth and was barely in any condition to even lift the pen, but one look at my daughter I wanted to be happy and be a good mother to her, I had to be good to myself first. And I couldn't do that if I continued to stay with

a man who had made it so clear to me that he cared more about his obligations to Valerie than to me. After I gave birth to our daughter, I didn't even call him, and my mother-in-law, my parents, and I were staying at home together. My parents are supposed to go back tomorrow, though, so after that it's just going to be me and my mother-in-law. I told all of them about my decision to leave him because he hadn't even tried to get back in touch with me, even. even though he had promised me that he would be back before the due date, and he just spent a week with Valerie anyway. Last night, he came back home pretty late. I opened the door to him, and he instantly hugged me, but I shook him off and I said I wanted nothing to do with him.

Then, on hearing the doorbell ring and the door being open, my mother-in-law walked into the room with the papers and literally threw them in her son's face and said that she wanted him to leave that very instant. She said that she didn't even care where he spent the night, but she just wanted him out of the house because right now I needed some peace and quiet because I had given birth a couple of days back and he wasn't even there for it. She also told him that I had already filled out the paperwork for the divorce, and she needed him to fill out the paperwork to terminate his parental rights over our daughter. He was shocked and couldn't even say anything for the first couple of minutes, and I decided to clear out the room as soon as possible because my mother-in-law was right,

I was still pretty weak and I needed time to recover physically. So I went to another room because I really did not want to speak to Jeremy, and seeing him had made my resolve weak insignificantly, I did not want this to get even more difficult for me. Then I heard the sound of yelling, and I realized that Jeremy had started fighting with his mother, but I decided not to intervene and stayed out of it with my daughter. After a few minutes, I started to hear Jeremy calling out my name, demanding that I speak to him and at least let him have a look at his daughter because I owe that to him. That rubbed me the wrong way, and I went back outside to see him after I placed my daughter in the crib, and I told him that after what he had done, I owed him absolutely nothing.

He had made a conscious choice to not be there for me, knowing that I was near my due date, and he had chosen not to be there for the birth of his child. He had left me all alone, and I was just lucky that my mother-in-law was there for me, so I owed him absolutely nothing. And I told him I didn't care, at the moment, our daughter was asleep, and I did not want to wake her up, so I wanted him to clear out, and we could discuss this later in the morning. Eventually he left, but I could see that he had tears in his eyes while leaving. He even tried to talk to me one last time, but I backed away from him and I told him that I wanted him to leave.

We were pretty tired, so we went to sleep, but this morning he showed up again, and I finally told him that it was over for me. It had been over the very second that he had left to be with Valerie, and there was no way that he could say anything to bring me back. My mother-in-law was in the same room, but I had told her that I wanted to have this discussion with him myself and clear it out once and for all. He then literally started crying and begging, and my mother-in-law had to leave the house with the baby

so that our daughter would not have to hear any of that since he was being pretty loud. He kept insisting that he had only gone because Valerie had been begging him too, and she had claimed that she was on her deathbed, and he had spent a week there because she had absolutely no family there and was really lonely. He had spent all of those days trying to comfort her and be there for her. It was all purely platonic, but I wasn't there, so who knows what was going on? So I told him it didn't matter anymore, and I wanted him to leave, but then he said that even if I had decided to divorce him, he thought it was too huge of a punishment to actually take

away his chance of being a father. So he wanted me to reconsider that, or else he would have to fight for custody. And even then, it would be very unlikely that he would even get custody of his daughter because, firstly, he had not even been there for the birth, so we could use that against him, and he was aware of that. And on top of that, she was literally just a newborn baby, so she needed me a lot more than she needed her father. So he was begging me for one chance because, in spite of everything, he really just wanted a family. Eventually, he did leave, but he told me to think about it, and now I'm not so sure about what to do. This is a huge deal, and it involves people's lives, so I just want to be sure of what I'm doing before I go through with it. So Ida for divorcing

my husband and telling him to terminate his parental rights over our daughter because he had skipped the birth of our child to be with his ex who had claimed to be on her deathbed? Update one I have made up my mind, and I'm going through with a divorce, but I'm still thinking about whether I want full custody or not. For days have passed since I made the post, and Jeremy has shown up at the house every single day to apologize to me and literally beg for forgiveness, and every single day I have found it harder to turn him away. But I know that I have to do it. Thankfully, my mother-in-law has been with me every step of the way and is helping me take care of the baby as well. My parents had to fly back home two days after I gave birth, and she has been

kind enough to leave her own home and move in here with me on a more long-term basis because she knows that I'm going to need all the help that I can get. And I've told her that even if I decide not to give Jeremy full custody or even partial, she's still going to have every right to come see her granddaughter any time she wishes to. I have even asked her what she thinks I should do about the whole custody thing, but she has left that up to me and told me that she knows that I'm going to make the right decision for both of us, just like I made the right decision with the divorce. But I'm still struggling to come to a decision. It's not getting any easier for me because Jeremy keeps showing up every day,

and every time that he comes, I just feel like taking him back and forgiving him for everything. But I know I can't do that, especially not after what I have been through, because Valerie has always been a sore spot for me, and he didn't even care about that when I was pregnant with his baby. To be honest, I don't even know if they have been in touch with each other or if there was nothing brewing between them in the past couple of months, because I just can't bring myself to trust anything that he says anymore. So far, his apologies have all been the same. He just keeps repeating whatever he said to me the first time that he came back home after his

visit to Valerie. Nothing happened, it was all platonic, and he was just there to take care of her because she had claimed that she was on her deathbed, and as her friend, he just felt like he had to be there. Every single time, I have to say the same things back to him, it doesn't matter anymore because I have made up my mind, and I'm going to leave him. Now it's really sad, but that's just how it is. Update too high, so a few days back I had posted an update saying that I had decided to go through with a divorce, but I still couldn't make up my mind about whether I wanted to file for full custody of my daughter or not. But I think now I know what to do. For almost five days in a row, Jeremy had shown up every single day without fail to apologize for his actions and tried to get me to take him back,

but after that, he suddenly stopped showing up. I found it strange, but at least I was relieved because I thought that I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore, and I could think with a cool head. But I don't think that's going to be possible anymore because after he stopped showing up, other people started texting me and telling me that what I was doing was incredibly wrong and immoral, and they had never expected me to act like this. right afterwards, his friend started bombarding me with texts, and I'm not just talking about the group that he usually hangs out with, I'm talking about every single person who used to go to school or college with him. And I think he set up a template for them to send to me, like this is some petition or something, and he could just write emails and messages to the mayor and get them to cancel whatever is going on because he doesn't agree with it.

Anyway, at first I was blocking people left and right, but then they started making fake accounts to text me the same things over and over. again, and there are only so many people you can block. Besides, it's not just that I'm dealing with all this emotional trauma and processing what is happening to me, I'm also still exhausted from giving birth and I'm trying to be there for my newborn daughter as well. So it's all really tiring, and this is the last thing that I needed. And if he really cared about me, he wouldn't be putting me through all of this at such a delicate stage of my life. It's very obvious that he doesn't care about anybody apart from himself, and so I don't think I have to worry about what I'm going to do about my daughter's custody anymore. I'm going to file for full custody, and that's it.

Of course, he still has the papers and can sign his rights away. In case he doesn't decide to do that, I've spoken to my lawyer, and this is happening. The messages that I have been receiving so far are not nice, and I know for a fact that he has written the template message and told his friends to send it to me. It really reflects what he believes more than anything else, and if this is what he believes about me, I don't think we need to be together at all. The reason I'm so upset is because the messages had this line. We never expected you to be the kind of person who would use their child as a pawn to punish their partner and play mind games like this. Like, is he for real? Does he seriously think that I'm using our daughter to punish him for what he did? I don't think he understands how

marriages or children work, because if he did, he never would have said this. And that in particular really hurt me and helped me make up my mind. When I showed those messages to my mother-in-law, she was also pretty pissed and said that she was going to contact him and tell him off, but I asked her not to because it was just not worth it. If we tried to confront him about it, he would just deny having any part of it, even though it was very clear that all of his friends were sending me the same kind of messages, and he had to be the one behind it. If I'm being able to be. If I'm Speaking Frank, I don't even understand why he felt the need to involve his friends in all of this, because it's not like I'm going to see and read their messages and instantly stop what I'm doing.

Their opinions literally do not make a difference to me at all because they are not my friends. I have never been close to any of them, so they can think whatever they want about me, and I'm not going to care. I guess he just thought that if an overwhelming number of people started texting me about this, then I would just give in to the pressure or something. but then I'm afraid that he doesn't really know me at all, because I'm not the kind of person who's going to bend to pressure. I did not even change my mind when he himself was showing up every day and begging me for forgiveness, because I knew that letting him back into my life was not going to be

good for either of us and definitely not good for our daughter. I might have felt terrible about it, but I still went through with it because I don't bend easily, and after being with me for so long, I think he should have an idea what kind of a person I am, but it's very obvious that he doesn't. and it's becoming clearer and clearer to me every day that I am doing the right thing by choosing to leave him. So not just his friends, but even if every single person that he knows starts texting me about this, I'm still not going to change my mind. In fact, this thing that he has done has only helped me feel more strongly about what I'm doing, and I know that as long as the people that I love are on my side, I don't have to worry about any of this. Update 3, hey, so the legal proceedings for the divorce and the

custody agreement are going to commence in a couple of days, and Jeremy has decided not to contest the divorce, but he is demanding at least partial custody of his daughter. We're going to see how that works out since I'm open to the idea because I'm not an inherently evil person, but I don't think I want to implement sharing custody until our daughter is at least a couple of years old. So that's what we are going to negotiate, and I'm very happy I've made this decision for myself. Now that it's finally happening and it's hitting me how real all of this is, I thought that I would be scared, but I have never felt more sure of anything in my life. I think some of this might also be because of a message that I received from Valerie yesterday,

where she told me that she really didn't want to be a home wrecker, but she really needed somebody by her side. And since her parents wouldn't be there for her, Jeremy was the only other person that she could think of. She also told me that over the past couple of years, she had tried to contact him several times, and he had always turned her down, saying that I would not approve of it. But she knew that her oldest friend in the world would always be there for her, especially if she's sick, which is why she had contacted him. And she was sorry it had stirred up so much trouble in my marriage, but she thinks I should let him retain his individuality instead of being so controlling. So I was right about the fact that he hadn't blocked her at all,

and they had actually stayed in touch, maybe not in the way that I thought, but they did at least speak to each other. The worst part was that she also told me that they had shared a moment. when they were together, and they had ended up kissing for a couple of minutes, but after that, Jeremy had drawn away from her, saying that he couldn't do this, especially while his wife was with his child. She told me that he had not let the kiss last for more than a couple of minutes, and that's how loyal he was to me, as if that was supposed to do anything. It was ridiculous. But yes, I was right about everything. So now getting the divorce and custody on my terms should be a cakewalk, since I know these things. I have spoken to my lawyer, and we have also tweaked our

petition to demand slightly more of everything because now I feel like I deserve it, since I've been cheated on clearly. Anyway, I'm feeling very confident about what I'm doing, and I know that things are going to work out. I'll keep you guys posted on whatever is going on. Thank you so much for tuning in here.