Reddit Stories - The BETRAYAL_ ABANDONED Child Fights for Justice Against NEGLECTFUL Former Spouse and Partner_

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #abandoned #child #justice #neglectful  Summary: A child fights for justice against their neglectful former spouse and partner, highlighting themes of betrayal and abandonment.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, abandoned, child, justice, neglectful, spouse, partner, family, relationships, drama, legal, custody, emotions, support, therapyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Former spouse and his partner requested guardianship of my child following neglecting her for a period of eight moons. I, a 33-year-old female, was united in matrimony for eight cycles with my former spouse, Peter, aged 39, but we parted ways. Divorced a year ago because he confessed that he'd been having an extramarital affair with his ex-girlfriend from college for about three years. I hadn't seen that coming at all because Peter and I had a four-year-old daughter.

so for him to have an affair with his ex even after he had a daughter was unbelievable for me. But it was true and we ended up getting divorced and I decided to raise our daughter on my own. He got married to his ex-girlfriend, Mandy, 38F, a few months after our divorce was finalized. I got to know about his wedding from his friends because naturally, after the divorce we didn't bother to keep in touch. I also managed to get full custody of our daughter and he only visits her on the weekends under my supervision, but after his wedding, he just stopped visiting at all. I was fine with it because that just meant no more silence while he tried to play with our daughter

and I stayed in the room and tried my best not to kick him out. He'd visited a few weekends while we were getting divorced and I'd let him because our daughter seemed to like being with him but once he stopped, I didn't bother to reach back out again. It's been close to a year since our divorce was finalized and the last time I saw him was eight months ago, if I'm not mistaken. Since then, I've been focusing on work and raising my daughter because that's all there is to do for me.

But last weekend, Peter showed up at my door without warning and it was a really intense interaction. When I opened the door to find him there, I thought that he was there to meet our daughter, but he told me that he was there to talk to me. I found that kind of strange because we'd had nothing to talk about for almost a year now but nevertheless, I told him to continue. And he told me that his wife, Mandy, was planning on pressing charges against me if I didn't give them full custody of our daughter soon. She wanted me to hand over my daughter because she felt that as a single mother, I wouldn't be able to provide for her as well as they would, and in a way,

I'd be depriving her of a comfortable childhood on purpose, which is why she felt that those were grounds for her to press charges against me for neglecting my daughter. And so, Peter was at my door, asking me to hand over my daughter to them right away and soon they'd have the legal procedure completed as well because I was incapable of raising her on my own according to his wife. I totally flew off the handle when he said that to me and slammed the door shut in his face then told him to get lost unless he wanted me to call the cops on him. I couldn't believe that he'd even thought for a second that he could just come up to me and demand that I give my daughter up after he'd straight up ignored our existence for almost an entire year. I wasn't phased by whatever

Mandy was threatening to do, either, because it was literally baseless. She couldn't just press charges against me for neglecting my daughter only because I was a single mother because that's just ridiculous. I wasn't scared of that, but I was scared of Peter returning and reminding my daughter that he existed once more. It had been hard enough to get her to forget about her dad without telling her the truth and I just couldn't put her through that once more. I also just didn't like the idea of him having any access to me at all because whatever he'd said the other day was actually really creepy and the fact that he didn't think there was anything wrong about what he was suggesting was also concerning. So I decided to move in with

my parents for a while until I felt safe enough to go back to living on my own. It would also be convenient because then my nanny would also be able to take a break for a couple of days. And so, two days after Peter's reappearance, I moved back in with my parents and have been living with them since then. I didn't hear from Peter after that until two days back when he showed up at my parents' place as well. He knew that this was the only other place I was likely to be, but now that I had my mom and dad with me, I felt a lot more confident and ready to fight with him. My daughter was fast asleep at the time

and she was being looked after by my mother in the upstairs room, so no matter how loud I got, she wouldn't be able to hear me and I was free to say whatever the heck I wanted to. He looked really upset and told me that they weren't going to press charges. They couldn't even if they wanted to, but he still found it unfair

that I'd just taken away our daughter's custody forcefully only because he'd cheated. He told me that the real reason he'd come back the other day after so long was because both he and Mandy could feel the void that his daughter's absence had left in their lives even though she wasn't her bio-mom. Apparently, she'd met my daughter several times while they were still together and whenever he'd take our daughter out, they'd go and meet Mandy. So they'd begun to think of themselves as her parents, too and Mandy believed that she would have made a good stepmom had I given her the chance to

prove it, which I didn't. Peter said that it was unfair of me to file for full custody knowing that it was unlikely that he'd be able to get joint custody since our daughter was still relatively young and also, he'd been cheating for three years before he finally confessed. One of the major reasons he didn't get full custody was because of his job which happened to be taxing and he had to work long hours and travel often, which wouldn't leave him with enough time to look after our daughter personally and I didn't even know Mandy that well. So she wasn't even in the running to get custody regardless of her relationship with Peter. The best arrangement his lawyer could manage for him legally was visitation.

rights, but I don't see how that was my fault exactly. He's the one who messed up his chances of getting joint custody by cheating because his infidelity did play a huge role in the custody battle. And after his divorce was finalized, he pretty much gave up and let me have full custody, so I honestly don't understand why he's blaming me for any of this. He told me that he just wanted to reconnect with his daughter and so did Mandy, which is why they were here asking me for another chance. He tried to persuade me to give them another shot at being parents by saying that it would be beneficial for my daughter in the long run and even said that I'd regret not letting them bond now when in the future, my daughter would demand an answer as to why

she was never allowed to be a part of her father's life. So to avoid being blamed in the future, Peter wanted me to let them build a proper relationship with my daughter because, despite the infidelity, he insisted that he'd always been a good father and Mandy was desperate to see her one more time. I didn't know what to say at the time, but I knew for a fact that I didn't feel comfortable letting them be around my daughter because I had zero trust or faith in them on a personal level. My husband had betrayed me and lied to me for three whole years. That's not something I've let go of just yet and Mandy had been with him in their lies all along. So for them to ask me to let them be a part of my daughter's life after all that they'd done seemed like a ridiculous idea.

I don't know if I did the right thing or not, but once more, I told Peter that it was too late to change the past now and he needed to come to terms with the fact that our daughter wasn't his anymore because he'd been totally M. I.A. for the last eight months of her life. It had been really difficult for me to explain his absence to her and I wasn't about to do it all over again just because he and his wife wanted to be with her right now. Then, I told him to go away again and shut the door and he did go away at the time, but since then, he's been texting me nonstop and trying to persuade me to let them have a shot. He keeps insisting that our daughter needs him just as much as she needs me and that I'll regret my decision in the future when my daughter

resents me for saying no to him in the present. It's gotten to a point where I genuinely don't understand if I'm doing the right thing here or not by keeping them apart. Ida for not letting my ex-husband be a part of our daughter's life after he cheated on me and cut us off for eight months? Update one, okay, so I decided against letting him back into our lives. I was crazy to even be considering it and I think it was because I was feeling over-emotional since I was seeing him after a really, really long time. But yeah, not gonna happen. I spoke to my parents about what I'd been feeling.

They were vehemently against even speaking to him again because he's just a horrible person who screwed me up and completely ruined any chance I had at happiness in future relationships by lying to me and cheating for three freaking years. Despite being in a relatively happy marriage, it probably wasn't happy enough for him, I suppose. It's been two days since I posted

and most of the comments on my original post have been ones that advised me never to let him into my life ever again and to try and get a restraining order against him. I think that's what I'll do if he shows up again because I don't think he's the kind of guy to give up easily. I've contacted my lawyer already and are trying to terminate any parental rights he has at all because he obviously doesn't deserve to be a dad. The kind of father who can just abandon their child for months at the end without an explanation and then come back when it suits them isn't someone who can be trusted at any cost and I know it better than anyone. Besides, I don't even know what he'd been up to during those eight months that

he didn't visit us at all, so it's really strange that he thinks I'll just welcome him back with open arms now that he's finally ready to bond with his daughter. Tough luck, buddy, but that's not how the world works and that's certainly not how my world works. I've even blocked him everywhere because the last couple of texts that he's sent to make me feel empathetic towards him rubbed me the wrong way because they're all phrased like I'm the villain here and he's the long-suffering victim who's been separated from his daughter because of my cruelty and selfishness. As if he never cheated and then pulled the disappearing act on me afterward. I can't believe I let myself get carried away at all because of his sudden reappearance.

I don't think I'm coping with this as well as I thought I was and I really cannot afford to fall weak again, so I'm taking the advice that most people here seem to have for me and looking into therapists. I think that'll be a good way to move forward and try to put this episode behind me and it'll take up my time, but at least something productive will come out of it and maybe I'll be able to stop over-analizing and overthinking. Update 2, hello, it's been three days since my last update, and today, Peter sent me an email about why exactly he'd come back to us after so long.

And I'm not going to lie, it's messed up even by his standards. I don't know what kind of weird crap he and Mandy are up to, but I'm glad that I already spoke to my lawyer and are already ahead of him because a couple of things that he said were concerning, to say the least. In the email, he told me that after the divorce was finalized, Mandy told him that she didn't want him to be in touch with me anymore, so he gave up custody of his daughter and decided to focus on his married life now. The reason they'd broken up all those years back when they were in college was because she'd always been way too family-oriented and he wanted someone who had ambitions other than getting married and having kids but both of them

had changed over time and once they reconciled a couple of years ago at the reunion. They realized that they'd messed up by breaking things off and started an affair. She dumped her then boyfriend and Peter claimed that he'd wanted to tell me but by the time he'd mustered up the courage to confess, I was already pregnant and the longer he postponed telling me, the more difficult it became and with time. Even Mandy had started feeling attached to our daughter so it all got complicated for him and he just let it continue that way for three years until it finally dawned upon him that what he was doing was messed up and that he needed to clean up his act or else he'd end up living a lie for the rest of his life.

So he told me and then the divorce happened and he ended up giving up custody of his daughter because he wanted to devote all his time to being a good husband to Mandy. Unfortunately, over time, they realized that Mandy still did want a family but she was too old to conceive now without facing health complications during the pregnancy.

And so, they decided that instead of trying to have a baby of their own, they could just ask me to let them co-parent the child that Peter already did have. And that's why he'd visited me, that day but when he realized that I wasn't going to be intimidated into handing over my daughter, he tried to take a much less threatening and much more manipulative route which also didn't help much. So now, his last option was to tell me the truth and hope that I'd understand where they were coming from. He told me that Mandy already felt like she'd been a mother to our daughter at some points

when it was just the three of them and I wasn't at home and she just wanted a chance to live that life once more and I was the only person who could make it possible for them. And this was their plea to me, to let them have the family that they'd always wanted just for Mandy's sake. I mean, I've got to hand it to them. It really does take an insane amount of confidence and guts to send something like this to the woman whose life you messed up. They lied to me and cheated for three years, including a time when I was pregnant and yet they expect me to be kind to them and think of them.

And let them build a relationship with the child they discarded like a toy less than a year ago because now they'd suddenly realize that Mandy was too old to have babies but she still wanted a family. They could have done so many other things like they could have chosen to adopt or to opt for surrogacy, but instead, they chose to do the least sane thing and tried to intimidate me into giving up a child they hadn't even cared about for several months until it occurred to them that we could share the child and the experience of parenthood. Like, this is my daughter here that we're talking about and not an article of clothing or a toy that we can just pass around according to our convenience.

I knew that both of them were crazy but this is just way too much even for Peter and Mandy. I'm glad I've already spoken to my lawyer and I've also forwarded that email to her because this is seriously insane. To even think that I'd agree to this under any circumstances is so ridiculous that I'm struggling to even wrap my head around it. It really does take a special kind of delusion to approach the woman you screwed over together and then make an absurd demand like the one they made. I'm just relieved that my daughter isn't yet old enough to make sense of these things

because I don't think I would have been able to explain this to her. let alone her, I can barely make sense of any of this myself. Had this been happening to someone else, I really would have just loved to know what exactly went through my husbands and Mandy's head while they were formulating their plans and strategies because I'm sure that's how they were treating this. Like some military operation. It's positively absurd but my current priority is making sure my daughter and I are both safe and all right because there's just no telling what these people might do next.

I don't trust them one bit and after this email, they've pretty much proven for sure that they don't even deserve to be trusted either. Update 3, my lawyer contacted Peter yesterday and told him that the petition to terminate his parental rights had already been filed and he needed to sign it soon or else it would lead to another custody battle and that would be unnecessary for everyone involved. Naturally, he didn't take that kindly and today, a couple of hours back, both Peter and Mandy showed up at my parents' place while I was about to leave for work. I told them that they needed to stay off our property or else I'd call the police so they did take several steps back out onto the street, but they were really stubborn and Mandy said to me that what I was doing was going to destroy my daughter's future because everyone knew I wasn't capable of raising her by myself and by being egoistic. I was depriving her of her only chance to have a real family. I can't even put into words how wrong that was on so many levels and how offensive it was to me personally because what was that even supposed to mean. I flared up at her and ended up screaming at her at the top of my lungs in retaliation because the thing she was saying had gotten under my skin in the worst possible way. This woman was literally a homewrecker so she, of all people, had no right to lecture me on

what my daughter needed or what a family was. She was the one who'd ruined a perfectly happy family and my husband had happily gone along with her but now they were back to try and let them play happy family with my daughter. Even someone in an insane asylum would know how ridiculous that sounds. And I'm also fully capable of raising my daughter on my own because I have a job and make a decent amount of money, enough to live nicely and give my daughter the life that she deserves to have. So I'm not too worried about the financial part of it. As for my daughter's family, I think I'm enough for her at the moment, and in the future,

I might get married again and she'll have a father but right now, I'm literally all that she needs. and once again, they had cut this very same daughter off for almost a year because then they didn't think they wanted her and now that they want her, I'm not good enough of a mother for her all of a sudden. I swear both of these people are so stupid and delusional that it's painful for me to even think about it. I told them to leave because I was getting late for work but Mandy decided to throw a temper tantrum right there on the street. And I'm not even kidding, she actually just sat down on the street and told me that I couldn't leave unless I let her see my daughter once and said that she wasn't going to move until I gave into her demands. It was ridiculous and I asked Peter to move her, but that fool sat down right beside her. Had I not been in such a foul mood, I probably would have cracked up, but, thankfully, when my dad realized how exasperated I was, he decided to finally call the cops and have them removed forcefully. There was not much to do but wait while the cops drove down to our place and even then, they kept arguing with us and threatened to protest against me because I was depriving my daughter of a happy life on purpose.

It was that word deprive that kept triggering me because as far as I'm concerned, I'm doing my best for my daughter and I'm sure when she grows up, she'll appreciate the fact that I didn't let her psycho dad take over her upbringing. And who's to say she'll be safe with him anyway? For all I know, they could literally abduct her and be off with her if they felt like it because I think they've proven that they have no concern for anyone else whatsoever. And I told him what I thought of them but they were still adamant and told him, told me that I was just keeping them apart because I had a personal vendetta against them,

which, again, if someone had been in my place then they probably would have felt the same way. They're the ones who ruined my personal life, so I think it's really fair and reasonable for me to have a personal vendetta against them. The arguing went on for a while until the police showed up and had them taken away and even then. They refused to even act like they regretted their psychotic behavior and continued to threaten me saying that they'd be back and that they wouldn't let me keep them away from their daughter anymore which is just disturbing on another level. Altogether. But I did choose to stay home since I was feeling extra paranoid because of their behavior and also decided to file for

a restraining order today itself. I think that had been overdue because today, they showed me just how crazy they could be when it came down to it. I was amused by their ridiculous behavior, but I won't lie, it was kind of scary as well. So I'm trying my best to get rid of them altogether and also I'm going to move to a new apartment soon enough because clearly, none of my addresses that my husband knew of are going to feel safe anymore. Update 4, I've moved into a new apartment and Peter, thankfully, has no idea where I live now. I've also managed to get a restraining order against him and I now have full custody of my daughter. I have managed to keep my sanity intact during the past few weeks and thankfully,

I'm out of this nonsensical crap now. I don't know what Peter or Mandy are up to now and I've also told you. my friends that I don't ever want to hear about them from them ever again and neither do I want them to tell them anything about me. The past few weeks have been very tense for me because my ex-husband kept texting me and harassing me from multiple phone numbers on and off. And Mandy spread some nasty rumors about me so I'm sure that the power couple was doing their best to bring me down. It didn't work though, unfortunately. But whatever, I'm just done. My daughter is okay, I'm okay, and that's all that matters to me. I'm all the family she needs and the same goes for me.