Reddit Stories - BETRAYED_ MOTHER's SECRET Plot to Give Away My Child_

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #secretbetrayal #familydrama #parentingadvice #betrayedtrust #motherhoodstrugglesSummary:A Reddit user seeks advice after discovering their mother's secret plan to give away their child. Feeling betrayed, they turn to the AITA community for guidance on how to handle this heartbreaking situation.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, secretbetrayal, familydrama, parentstruggles, betrayalissues, motherhoodchallenges, parentingdrama, familyrelationships, emotionalconflict, trustissues, moraladvice, supportcommunity, personalstruggle, heartbreakingrevelation, difficultdecisions, seekingguidanceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Mother covertly attempted to place my infant for adoption as she believed that my child would detract attention from my sister's nuptials. Consequently, I sought legal intervention and now, she's convicted. So my sister is getting married at the end of this year and I gave birth to my son about three weeks ago. Everybody was happy about this apart from my mother, and I was not even surprised because to her, nothing is more important than her darling baby, and that happens to be my little sister.

I obviously got pregnant about a while ago and my sister got engaged to her boyfriend of three years when I was six months pregnant, and anybody who understands math would know that by the time my sister got married, I would have given birth to the baby already. It would have been one thing if my sister was the kind of person who wanted a small wedding and would plan it quickly, but she wanted an elaborate and grand wedding, which would obviously take a lot of time and she and her fiancé had been quite clear about that right from the beginning. But even then, a couple of weeks after their engagement, my mom showed up at my house, looking all worried and stuff and she told me that she wanted me to do something about because she did not want me to upset my sister. My sister and I are not close in the slightest, she's a spoiled brat, and ever since my father passed away a couple of years ago, we have had no contact. The only reason I even stayed in touch with my mother after my dad's passing was because

I had promised him that I would look after her because he did not think my sister would be up to the task, she was just not responsible enough. And even though my sister had always been my mom's favorite, I had tried my best to maintain a relationship with her until recently. When she showed up at my house to tell me that my sister was engaged and was getting married, I thought that she had just come over to share the good news with me, but she then went on to tell me that since I was giving birth the same year as she was getting married. It would take away her limelight because obviously a pregnancy was a bigger milestone than a wedding. I don't even understand what that was about, and I told her that she was being paranoid, unnecessarily because first of all, it's not like

people would skip her wedding because I had a baby or whatever. And I wasn't even going to be invited to her wedding since she hadn't even been invited to mine because we're not friends. So there was no way that I could overshadow her, I wouldn't even be there and she or my mom had nothing to worry about. And I'm not some celebrity, so I was pretty sure that even at her wedding, nobody would be talking about me or my baby. I thought that these were all valid points, but my mother told me that I needed to hide my pregnancy and my baby from everyone in the family

and all our common friends as well because she did not want me to steal my sister's limelight. I thought that it was crazy and I got into a huge fight with her, after which I did not speak to her anymore. I felt bad about breaking my promise to my father, but there was no other option for me because she was obviously acting senile, and I was already pregnant and quite irritable, I just couldn't handle her idiotic statements.

So she hasn't been there for anything after that, it's just been me, my husband, and his family taking care of the baby ever since he was gone, and my mother wasn't even there for the birth of the child. My husband had called her that day, but she had refused to show up since she was out with my sister that day. I'm pretty sure that even if she hadn't been out with her, she still wouldn't have shown up because I'm just not a priority for her and that's the bitter truth. If she could have abandoned her own daughter and our relationship because she thought that I was stealing the limelight from my sister, just by giving birth, then I had nothing to say to her. So because of all of these things, we had absolutely no contact and I was fine with it.

But then, she called me up a couple of days ago and when I did not answer initially, she started texting me frantically and told me to answer the call because she had to talk to me about something very important that happened. It was clear that she had some bad news to share with me and I really did not want to talk to her, but then, I just kept thinking about the promise that I had made to my father and decided to answer her. And I'm really glad that I did

because that's how I found out that she is in legal trouble because she tried to put my baby up for adoption without our consent and the adoption agency found out about it. It was a case of fraud and misrepresentation because apparently, she had contacted an adoption agency and falsely claimed that she had the power of attorney since both my husband and deemed unfit to take care of our baby by the court. So now, as the custodial caretaker of the baby, she had decided to put him up for adoption but obviously, they easily found out that all the legal documentation

that she had provided had been fake and immediately stopped the process. Now, they were going to take this up legally, and basically, she was calling me because she was scared about what was about to happen next. She had been informed by them that they were going to take legal action against her and she would be served in a couple of days. But before they could find out how to contact me and inform me, she decided to tell me about it herself, so I would be able to help her out somehow. She had been... Hi, I'm Darren Marler, host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify.

But the real game changer for me was Spreaker's monetization. Preaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required. And with Spreaker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Spreaker also has a premium subscription model

where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreeker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out Spreaker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R.com. Crying on the phone and begging me to help her out, but I could hardly even understand how she could expect me to help her when she had done something so horrible. I could understand that

she wanted my sister to have all that limelight but going out of her way to put my baby up for adoption? That was just disgusting and I think it was pretty stupid as well because this way, it's just going to bring more attention to me because now, I plan on suing her too. After she explained the situation to me, I just disconnected the phone call because I had nothing to say to her anymore. I did not feel bad for her at all. In fact, I thought that she deserved this and even worse, of course, later that day, I was contacted by the adoption agency so they could let me know what was going on and I could do the needful. I had already spoken to my husband after my mother's phone call and after the adoption agency contacted us as well. The two of us decided

that we were going to pursue legal action against her as well because could do something like that and hope to get away with it. So we spoke to a lawyer a day after that and within a few days, we had filed the civil lawsuit against her. The proceedings against her are going to start soon but given the seriousness of the situation, criminal charges have been filed against her as well, so there is little to no scope for mediation. The best that she can hope for is an out-of-court settlement or maybe a plea bargain for the criminal charges,

but even then, she might be facing jail time anyway. She's under house arrest right now, but she can still contact me and that's why she has been sending me emails one after the other and begging me to help her out somehow at least. She's been apologizing and telling me that she just got away because she had been very upset with my decision not to hide my baby and my pregnancy for my sister's sake, but obviously, she knows that it was a messed up thing to do and she's really sorry for it. I had been able to ignore her so far, but then, she hit me when it hurt yesterday and reminded me

that I had promised my father that no matter what, I would always take care of her and this didn't seem like taking care of her right now. That kind of caught me off guard because I had had had that conversation with my father in private and I didn't even know that she knew about that promise that I had made. So now, I'd have for suing my mother for trying to put my baby up for adoption without my consent or knowledge? Update 1. I have decided not to drop the civil lawsuit against her. She deserves this. She brought this on to herself, and I'm not going to back down just because of the promise that I had made. I had taken it very seriously for the past couple of years, ever since my father passed away,

and I had tried my best to live up to the promise that I had made, but at this moment, it's just emotional manipulation. and its emotional manipulation at its finest, which is why I almost fell for it as well. But using my father to defend herself, that's just low. A lot of people have criticized me for even bothering to live up to the promise for so long when it was so evident that my mother couldn't care less about me, but I don't know if you guys have ever lost a parent, that stuff is heavy. And I lost my father to cancer, so this was literally a promise that I had made to him on his deathbed.

I don't know about everybody else. but that's not the kind of thing that I can take lightly and that's why I've been putting up with my mother for so long, but this is crossing a line. Anyway, now that I have made up my mind, nothing can make me back down, and even my husband thinks that I have made the right call. I'm not even asking for a lot of money, I just want her to pay whatever I have spent on her in the past couple of years because I have been taking care of her, since my sister wouldn't spend even a dollar on her. To be fair to her, though, she doesn't spend any money on anybody apart from herself, so it's not very surprising, and it's

probably the reason why my father had asked me to be there for my mom, but I don't think he could have seen something like this happening at any point in the future. I'm sure that he will forgive me for this. And even if he doesn't, I still have to do it for my own sake. I also thought it through, her having to pay back the money that she owes me is not going to cost her everything. I know for a fact that my father had not only left her the house, but a substantial sum of money as well. So she will be able to get by and even apart from that, she has her brother to take care of her after me. And even if she does lose everything because of this lawsuit, it's still not going to be any of my concern because I have tried my very best, and it's not been enough, and I don't think anything

will ever be enough for her. I am done trying to be a good daughter, I'm simply a mother now and that's my only priority. Update 2, so it has been a few weeks since my last update, and we are currently in the process of mediating since everybody wants to settle the civil lawsuit out of court. It hasn't been going well so far and we have had to terminate every session after a while because my mother would get too emotional and would start screaming and stuff. I don't know if that's her strategy or if she's actually losing it. Whatever the case is, it's just delaying the inevitable and I don't think she realizes that there is no way out of this for her.

My uncle has also reached... Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere, from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes.

No editing required. And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you. And you get paid for every... download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Spreaker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast

like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out spreeker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R dot com. ...out to me to try and convince me to back off, and he has told me that the amount that I'm demanding from her as a settlement is way too huge and unfair. He has also brought up the fact that she was the one who had raised me from when I was a baby,

and this is really ungrateful of me, not to forgive her for one stupid little mistake. But that's the thing. It was not a stupid little mistake. she had literally, with false documentation, and I don't think if it had been a heat of the moment session, she would have been able to come up with that. It was all premeditated and that's the scary part because by some fluke, if the adoption agency hadn't done its due diligence, she probably wouldn't even have been caught. And the more that I think about the situation, the less

forgiving I feel, and I feel like no amount of money is ever going to make up for what she did. At least, I'm being kind enough to only demand whatever I had spent on her so far and not a single dollar more. Obviously, that's not mentioned anywhere in the paperwork, so he wouldn't know that, but even when I mentioned that to him, he still told me that it was extremely unfair of me to do so. After a while, I started getting agitated, and I really did not want to fight with him because so far, my uncle and I have not had a bad relationship and I do not want to ruin that, but since he seemed to be bent on doing exactly that, I started fighting with him as well. I told him that if he cared so much about his sister, then maybe he should just bail her out

by offering to bear the cost of the settlement himself. And then we could be done with this a lot quicker. And that's when he started yelling at me and stuff, calling me all sorts of names, and I ended the phone call because clearly, there was no point in speaking to him anymore. I don't even understand how anybody can find themselves to defend her right now, given the circumstances. On one hand, I had my uncle, and on the other, I have my sister, who has been insufferable ever since she found out about the lawsuit against our mother. I don't know why, but she has been making me out to be the villain in this situation, claiming that I'm doing this

all because I want to get back at her and my mom for not paying me enough attention. At least my uncle had the guts to come speak to me directly, she has been speaking behind that we know, and that's how everybody in the family has been able to find out about the lawsuit and stuff. I really did not want that happening because I did not want to answer questions, since this is really personal and kind of disturbing and I didn't think that it was necessary for me to talk to people about this. But since she has been talking everybody's ears off about it, people have had a lot of questions and have been reaching out to me as well.

So even though I did not want to bring it up with anyone right now, I'm having to answer questions and the only reason I'm even doing it is because at some point, I might have to get them to testify if this goes to court so I'm just consoling myself by telling myself that this was bound to come out at some point at the other. So better now than later. But the bigger problem is the narrative that my sister has been setting, like I got vindictive and stuff and that's why I'm pursuing this legally. I don't even think she understands the gravity of what our mother has been trying to do and this is not some sort of sibling rivalry that is manifesting itself in the form of lawsuits and whatever. I don't even understand how somebody can be so stupid and self-involved,

but well, it's my sister, so it's not very surprising. After all, she is my mother's true daughter. Anyway, I've been speaking to the rest of my family and it's kind of funny that this whole thing had actually started because my mother wanted my sister's wedding to be the event of the year, and that's why she wanted me to hide my pregnancy and my baby and stuff. But now, because of her own actions, this is going to be the family highlight for a long time to come,

not just this year. I hate to acknowledge it, but it's pretty simple. scandalous from a gossip point of view and if I myself had not been involved in this directly, I probably would have found it pretty juicy as well. It sounds a bit trashy to say out loud, but it's really just poetic justice for my sister because now, not even her wedding can top something like this. Update 3, hi, so my mother has agreed to our terms and enough, we will be receiving our settlement money. But apart from that, she is still under trial for her criminal charges right now. She and her lawyer are doing their best to get her out of it without any jail time,

but looking bleak from what I know. I have already been asked to testify by the prosecution and so have the people from the adoption agency, so let's see how that goes. Apart from that, even my sister and a couple of other people from the family who are close to us have also been contacted. It has been a couple of weeks since our last update and so far, things have been going well for our family. We even managed to sneak in a short weekend trip with our son so we could go see his great-grandparents. I don't mean my grandparents, they're not around anymore, but, thankfully, my husband's grandparents are still around and when we went to see them and spoke to them about whatever was going on in our family, they told me that I was doing the right thing by stepping

up for my child. I even shared the guilt that I was feeling because I had broken my promise to my father, but they told me that I had nothing to feel bad about because if my father had been around, he would have probably told me to go for it because this is just insane. Hi, I'm Darren Marler, host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreeker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required. And with Spreaker's programmatic ads,

they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Sprinker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Sprieker's powerful tools scale effortlessly, as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out spreeker.com. That's s p-r-e-a-k-e-r.com. So that made me feel considerably better about everything, and I guess I really needed a change of scenery because when I came back, I started feeling really

refreshed. And it had definitely been quite a distressing experience for me, so far, because even though my mother and I had had differences in the past, it had never gone to these levels. In the last couple of sessions with our lawyers, she had probably realized that screaming and terminating our sessions was not going to make anything better, and eventually, it would end up going to court and that would probably end even more badly for her. So probably at the advice of her lawyer, she decided to behave herself and let her lawyer do all the talking. She would hardly even look at me and even when she would, she would look very quickly. Like she couldn't bring herself to even glance at me and I think it's a good thing because she doesn't deserve to feel like

she has the right to even see me anymore. My uncle and my sister are still actively spreading hate against me in the family, but that hardly matters to me because anybody who wants to be on my side, they are going to be on my side, nevertheless, and people who just want to gossip, I'm sure that they are going to stick to the sidelines and not actively get involved. So they don't pose any threat to me. And as long as that's happening, I'm fine with whatever they're saying about me

because I'm secure enough to know that it won't make it the truth just because they're saying it. Update 4. So it's been a little over a month since my last update and my mother had agreed to my terms and a couple of weeks ago, our settlement money finally came through. We are setting that aside for our son's future because we can do without that money right now. We are quite happy with it because anyway, this was the money that we were owed since this is what I had been spending on my mother in the past couple of years after my father passed away. My sister knows that, but in spite of that, she showed up the other day and started accusing me

of ruining her wedding because apparently, our mother had promised her that she would pay for part of the wedding and now, since I had sued her and taken back all the money that she had, our mother won't be able to live up to that anymore. And it's all my fault, apparently. It was crazy because literally why she was yelling at me about it, she had mentioned it herself, that I had taken back all the money that she had. Taken back, which meant that it was originally mine, so it's not like she wasn't aware of the situation. And in spite of that, she still thought that it was appropriate to be yelling at me instead of questioning why any of this was happening at all. When she showed up, I hadn't even let her in, so I had been speaking to her at the door, and the second she started

yelling at me, I slammed the door shut because I really did not need this. I was already quite busy with work because even though I was on maternity leave, I was still trying to work from home so I wouldn't be overwhelmed when I rejoined. And on top of that, I had to look after my son as well, so I did not have time for this drama. But even when I shut the door, she did not take the hint and continue to stand outside and scream about how unfair everything had been for her. After a while, when she still did not leave, I started to get annoyed, and I decided to call the cops. Within a couple of minutes, they had shown up and while they were dragging her away, she started cursing at me so loudly that even the neighbors, who had probably

been peeking outside from behind the curtains until then, actually came out to watch what was going on. It was extremely embarrassing and while she was cursing at me, she also said a bunch of concerning things about me and my child, I don't want to repeat that, but they were pretty threatening and I didn't feel comfortable with it at all. I had already called my husband up and told him what was going on as soon as I had called the cops, so he came back home earlier than usual, and I told him whatever my sister had been saying or rather, threatening us with while the cops were dragging her away. One of the officers had even suggested that we file a restraining order because obviously, there was something very wrong going on with her. And we do think that it would

be a good idea to go ahead with the rest of the restraining order because I really don't feel safe anymore. Now that I think about it, she not only knows where I live, she knows every other way how to contact me and if she took it upon herself to try and make me feel uncomfortable, she would easily succeed in doing so. I'm not saying that she's going to go ahead and do whatever she had threatened me with, but even apart from that, there are other ways to intimidate a person and I'm just scared because I'm a mother now and I don't want episodes like this repeating again. So after a really long discussion with my husband, we decided that we were going to move. I had already been planning to change my phone number and other contact info so that people

wouldn't be able to contact me without having a good relationship with me, first. It's not even just about my sister. I have had a lot of messages and phone calls from people who only wanted gossip, and it's getting really annoying at this point. So that was another reason for me to change everything because the last thing that I need is visitors who only want to talk about this situation and gossip about it. My husband has been doing well for himself and if we need to, we can just ask my in-laws,

but we will definitely be moving. And we will also definitely be filing for a restraining order against my sister because she's clearly unhinged, and I don't want her coming around anymore. Everything has been pretty expensive for us so far because we have had to pay for our lawyer, and of course, we have a newborn with us, so even that's pretty expensive. The finances have been a bit tight recently, and with the move and

everything, it's probably going to get even more expensive for us. But when I think about my son, it seems worth the trouble. I'm honestly just really tired of everything, but my husband and my son are the only people who keep me going and motivated to do better. Hi, I'm Darren Marler, host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important two of the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreker's monetization.

Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required. And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Spreaker also has a premium subscription model where you're, your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream

to what you're already doing. And the best part, Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Sprieker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out spreeker.com. That's S-P-R-E-K-E-R.com. I don't think I said enough, but I'm really happy and lucky to have found a partner who understands me so well, and I would say that I'm pretty lucky that even his family has been standing by me throughout all of this. To be frank, after my dad had passed away, it was mostly my in-laws, who had been there for me, even more than my own mother. And I know for a fact that not

everybody is lucky enough to have such wonderful in-laws, so I'm very thankful for them as well. It has been a really messy and exhausting past couple of months and I'm just really hoping that it comes to an end soon. Update 5, hey, so last week, the verdict of my mother's trial finally came through, and she has been convicted on all charges. Since she is a first-time offender, she's going to have to pay a huge fine as restitution to both the adoption agency and me along with several hours of community service. She has been able to dodge incarceration, but she does have to attend court-mandated mental

health treatment in a rehabilitation facility since her lawyer made it seem like she had been going through some psychological stuff. I'm not in touch with her anymore and haven't been ever since she agreed to the terms of our civil lawsuit and we came to a settlement. I found out about it from a couple of family members and, well, I guess it's fair enough. I also managed to get a restraining order against my sister soon after my last update, so that's another win for me. We are currently in the process of moving houses and it's a bit stressful, but well, we can handle it. And especially with the money that's about to come in, it's been a huge relief for us. So we might not need to ask our in-laws for help at all,

and we won't even need to dip into the settlement money that we had decided to put aside for our son, so it's all worked out in our favor. And even though my mother got lucky legally, she hadn't been so lucky in her personal life. I've been hearing a lot of gossips and have even been sent screenshots of my sister's recent post on social media and she has denounced anything that her mother has done so far, going so far as to claim that she had no knowledge of any of this until recently and that she behavior at all, and things that she deserves to get convicted. Even though that's not what she had been saying to me before everything went wrong,

before that she had been strongly on our mother's side. From what I know, she did this because her fiancé and her in-laws had not been comfortable with the idea of him marrying into a family like this, which is quite understandable, actually, and they had been considering postponing the wedding. which is why she decided to cut off our mother in such a public way. It sucks for our mom because all her life, she had been dedicated to my sister and now, this is what she gets. It's pretty sad but well-deserved, and I don't feel bad for her at all.

Now that I'm moving, I'm going to have nothing to do with these people, and I really can't wait.