Reddit Stories - WHISPERS of a Mother's Love_ The HEARTFELT CONNECTION with a Young Girl on the Spectrum_

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #tifu #motherdaughter #autismawareness #unconditionallove #emotionalbondSummary:In the heartwarming tale of "WHISPERS of a Mother's Love: The HEARTFELT CONNECTION with a Young Girl on the Spectrum," a mother's unwavering love for her daughter shines through, showcasing the beautiful bond they share despite the challenges they face.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, motherdaughter, autismawareness, unconditionallove, emotionalbondBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. The young girl with autism requested to address me as mother, which brought me great joy, but her birth mother was enraged. Eventually, her elder sibling made contact, expressing a desire to rebuild connections with us both. Us. Okay, so I, 34F, married the man of my dreams last month, 44M, and he has a 16-year-old daughter from his prior marriage. I've been in her life and she's been in mine for four years.

years and I've done my best to be there for her as a friend and trustworthy adult and she's a really, really great kid. I felt closer to her than I did any of my sisters and I could see she looked up to me and trusted me. One more important thing, she's on the autism spectrum. I swear that's relevant. My husband and I went on our honeymoon for two weeks and then we came back on Friday, and my stepdaughter came up to me and asked if we could talk, and she told me no one had ever been as considerate as I was learning how to make foods in the exact way she looked. like them or as patient with her poor emotional regulation. Her words, I think she's doing great, and she told me I overall was her favorite person in her life, so she asked if it was okay to

call me mom. This really, really caught me off guard and I stopped for a moment to process it, and she got embarrassed and told me she was sorry and it was stupid, but I told her it wasn't stupid because I would love that. She got super excited and hugged me, and it was lovely. I was telling my husband about it later and it suddenly sunk in that I had become somebody's mom. I just stopped and I told him I'm someone's mom and he asked me if I felt like I was in the delivery room, ah. I laughed at that, but I got so emotionally overwhelmed I started crying. This morning she came downstairs and said, hey, mom to me and it's going to take some getting used to but holy shit, that was a great feeling. I still don't believe I've earned the titles, but I'll be damned

if I'm not going to try my damn best. So it seems last month I got a husband and a daughter too. Pretty good deal if you ask me smile. Comments, Bukishp Tree, Op was learning how to make her daughter's food the way she likes. That line jumped out at me. That she thinks the daughter is the bee's knees, even though the daughter feels insecure about her behavior. Imagine the confidence she will feel and how validated the daughter feels.

This brings me joy. Boop, the first time I made food for all of us. Within the first month or two I knew her, I made spaghetti and broke the spaghetti in half, and she said she couldn't eat with it broken in half. Then told me she was very sorry and would make herself a sandwich, but I told her it was okay and I could make another batch, which I did. I found out later on down the road she cried after I left because she thought she insulted me and ruined her dad's relationship with her specific food preferences.

Sure, it was a little strange at first, but hey, I'm sure we've all asked a waiter or waitress for something very specific at least once in our lives smile my husband's ex-wife was furious my stepdaughter called me mom, March 18, 2024. So I recently made a post talking about how my stepdaughter asked to call me mom and it made me really happy. My husband has two children from his previous marriage, a 16-year-old autistic daughter and a 26-year-old daughter. When they divorced, his ex-wife advocated for custody of the older daughter, sounds like it was because she was more independent and less work, and he got the youngest one.

As a result, his younger daughter always felt kind of unloved by her mom and doesn't go too far out of her way to talk to her. So the older daughter finally got a job in her field that she's been fighting for a few years and she wanted to have a dinner with the family. She seems like a nice girl from the times I've interacted with her, but her mom seems passive-aggressive and unkind. We all got to the restaurant and sat down and it was pretty nice and civil. I was sitting next to my step, daughter and she was a little overwhelmed because she hadn't been to the restaurant before and didn't know what to order, so we were looking at the menu and I pointed out a type of pasta that looks similar to something we make

at home that she likes. She said, thanks mom, I guess she said it loud enough that her biological mom heard because she literally stopped everything and asked what did you just say? My husband and I tried to diffuse the situation, but she was very agitated by it, and actually asked why she did it. Their older daughter stepped in and asked if she could tell her mom about her new job, and that got her to move on finally. My step, daughter didn't say much for the rest of the evening, but on the way home she tried to apologize for ruining the evening to which we told her she didn't. Then, if this wasn't bad enough, both she and my husband received a four-paragraph long message talking about how disrespectful and egregious it was that she called another woman mom and how she was

very disturbed by it. My husband is just in disbelief and feels horrible for our daughter. He went to talk to her and she didn't say much, but she clearly thinks this is all her fault. If anything, it's my fault for not discussing how she should refer to me at the dinner with my husband and then discussing it with her beforehand. I just fucking hate that this woman is upsetting her so much and I see why my husband divorced her. Thank you for reading. Comments, Remarkable underscore by our 4625. Info, does the ex spend time with her autistic daughter at all?

If not, I'm not sure why she'd be surprised. Op, she sees her on holidays and family gatherings, that's really it. Apparently her mother is entitled to that respect just for existing. 101,010 Trees. I know it's not the same but I was called mom at work. L.O.L. I don't have children but apparently I exude mothership. Hopefully not in a bad way. The ex-wife is a real piece of work. It's nice that you took on taking care of special needs child. It is no small feat and you are deserving of the title of mom.

Op, definitely. I have no sympathy for a woman who demands to be called mom while putting in no effort to be mom, or a man who demands to be called dad. Also I just want to say, yes, she technically is a special needs child but she's very capable. She has been looking to apply for an after-school job and has started thinking about college, and while she does struggle with emotional regulation and has very specific preferences for things, she's no different from the rest of us smile adventurous travel one, that poor girl. If her mom acted like a mom, then it wouldn't have happened. Her actions or lack of consequences. I'm not sure if she has a therapist, but it might help explain things in a way she gets and from a professional. The

The biggest thing I would be worried about now if her mom keeps sending things to her or making her feel guilty about more things. Up, she does have a therapist who she meets with Weekly. I'm sure my husband's ex-wife is going to come up tomorrow. Emmeraz-L-Mach. Info, how long since the bio mother gave away her 16-year-old daughter's custody? How much time does she spend parenting her? How have they bonded?

She would have some nerve to be angry that a child she is not parented. as much as you calls you mom. You seem to be a very sweet parent to her. Keep it up up, since elementary school, on holidays and family gatherings, by awkwardly asking how they've been doing since last Thanksgiving. My husband got custody of the young autistic child and learned how to make foods exactly the way she needed them to be, learned how to speak her language, as he calls it, and sit and single-handedly raise a still-developing child.

Then his ex-wife got custody of the high schooler who could be left. alone at home and make her own food so she could work and do her own thing without having to worry about anyone or anything. Update, last week I made a post about how my husband and my autistic 16-year-old stepdaughter went to dinner with his ex-wife and their oldest daughter, 26, to celebrate her getting a job she's been chasing her whole adult life. Then my stepdaughter called me mom at one point and ex-wife got pissed and stopped the whole table to make a point, and the rest of the evening wasn't great and then when we got home,

both my husband and stepdaughter got a big text message from her talking about how disrespectful that was. So the day after the incident, my stepdaughter came over to me and told me her older sister texted her and asked if she could read the text out loud. I just nodded and said definitely, but on the inside my eyes rolled to the back of my head like Jesus Christ, here we go. However, her sister sent her a very, very lovely and thoughtful message saying she felt bad about what happened the night before and was sorry the two of them haven't been talking much lately and asked if she wanted to try to be sisters again. Then she said she asked her what movies she's seen lately,

and movies is her special interest so that meant a lot she asked. Not gonna lie, I was caught off guard by her sincerity and kindness. It was very sweet. Then later that day, I got a text message from her older sister, whom I assume got my number from younger stepdaughter, and said she wanted to get to know me better since I am legally her stepmom now and I'm the woman her baby sister is calling mom, so she definitely wanted to try to get to know each other.

She also mentioned that she didn't get to celebrate her sister's 16th birthday with her and felt that was a really big deal and asked if the three of US could get dinner and see a movie. Tonight the three of us went out and saw a movie and got dinner by ourselves. My younger stepdaughter picked the movie and she loved it, but my older stepdaughter and I didn't get it, but all that matters is that she liked it. Then we sat down and had dinner together and had a very nice time. time. Then on the way out, my younger stepdaughter asked if she could run into the store next to the restaurant to buy something really quick, in and out, so we said all right. While she was in the

store, my older stepdaughter told me she wanted me to know she misjudged me and watching the two of us interact both at the dinner the other night and tonight. Me going through the menu with her to find something she likes, me advocating for her when their mother got upset, and how she clearly feels comfortable talking around her, and that she completely understands why I'm now mom to her. All in all a pretty great night. After I got home I saw she sent me a text-related something we talked about, so looks like we're going to be talking now. Still got some stuff to work out with her biological mom, but we'll take this as a victory anyway, yeah. I just figured I'd share something positive since there's a lot of negativity on Reddit and with my current situation, so I figured

I'd share a positive update smile comments. Lynn, though, ah, I read the last post when it happened. I'm so happy about this development. I'm so happy your daughter is being supported by her older sister, and your family feels like it grew a bit more. Congrats and thanks for the wholesome update. Up, yeah, it made me really happy to hear they were talking again. I left this out in the post,

but I remember a few months ago my younger stepdaughter was trying to tell her sister about a movie she saw that meant a lot to her and her older sister was being very sarcastic and snarky about it to get her goat, and she actually started crying. So I think it's great they're getting along. Fell injured bear, this is such a sweet story. My mom kind of dropped me off to my dad and stepmom when I was 12 to run off with a guy to Spain. My stepmom has been in my life since I was four, and I remember both of us trying not to cry when I approached her about calling her mom. Shout out to all the stepmoms out there going out of their way to make the kids feel loved.

It helps more than you know less than three Tink has an attitude. My dad is my mom's second husband and our stepdad. They divorced when my sister and I were in college. But we decided that our dad will always be our dad. He met us when we were six and four years old and we've lived with him since we were eight and six. We've had our dad in our lives longer than our bio father has been in active contact with us. We got the short end of the stick, unfortunately, with our bio-parents as they both have significant mental illness and like to use us as pawns in their weird hateful games.

But our dad chose to show up for us every day and loves us with no strings attached. Sometimes the universe gifts us with very special people. It's good to acknowledge them with the titles they have earned like mom and dad. Smile. Now on to the next story. Story 2. Joked about my long-distance GF secret husband, but she asked how long I'd known. Turns out she was married with a kid the whole time. So I helped her husband get divorced. I met my girlfriend on a dating app four years ago. Before we were together, I would swipe through apps like Tinder all the time mostly just to try and find someone for my phone.

I would talk to someone now and then, but it never really panned out to be much. As soon as I saw my girlfriend's profile, I thought she was stunning. Her bio caught my attention too. I knew right away that I wanted to talk to her. So, I swiped right and we matched. I took my shot and I messaged her, partially not even expecting her to respond. To my surprise, she messaged me back less than an hour later and both of us really jelled during our first conversations.

I was getting my hopes up a little, she was a beautiful girl and we seemed to get along. After chatting for a little while, she told me that she was only in town for a week on business. I was bummed because I thought she was really awesome and it sucked to hear that nothing would really come of our relationship. She told me that she wanted to meet me while she was there, so we got together at her hotel room and we hooked up. It was just as amazing as I thought it would be, so I gave her my number and told her that we should keep in touch. I didn't think at the time that we would be starting a long-distance relationship, but after she left that's what it blossomed into. Even though we didn't get to see each other often, I was extremely happy knowing that she was my girlfriend.

She had a very rigorous work schedule and our time off never seemed to coincide, admittedly. I was somewhat blinded by my attraction to her, so there were a lot of things that I overlooked in the beginning of our relationship. For example, the first time that I ever visited her house I noticed some weird things inside. There were two toothbrushes in the bathroom, which was a little strange considering she lived by herself. On top of that, there was a more masculine scented shaving cream under the sink as well. I asked her about the toothbrush and she just told me that it was an old one that she hadn't thrown away. I believed her, I didn't really have any reason to think much else about it.

I spent the rest of the weekend with her and ended up going back home, happier than ever. I genuinely liked her and I wanted to move in with her because I saw a future with us. Every time I would broach the subject, she would tell me that it was too soon in our relationship. The first time I asked it had been about a year. The second time we'd been together for three years. Personally, three years is not a short amount of time for me. It felt like it was the next step in our relationship to live together. We had been long distance that entire time because I was waiting to move in with her.

I ended up just deciding to move closer to her regardless. If we couldn't live together, we could at least live in the same city. When I told her that I was moving, she acted like it was some surprise and told me that I shouldn't have done something like that for her. Her reaction kind of shocked me, I assumed she would be happy to have me closer to her. Even though I was living so close to her, I still only saw her occasionally. I understood that she was busy, but at the same time, I didn't quite get why we couldn't spend nights together at each other's apartments. After a few months of being closer, it started to

click with me that something else might have been going on. I had read crazy outlandish stories about people who lived double lives and carried on affairs, having families in different states, etc. I didn't want to believe that could be what was happening there, but my mind started to do its own thing. I learned the truth all because of a dumb joke that I made. My girlfriend and I were out to dinner and we were having a good time. I asked her if she wanted to go back to her house after we finished eating and she said no. Then I made a joke commenting on how she didn't want me to be there because of her husband and children. She got really silent for a moment and put her food down like she couldn't believe what I'd said. Then she said, how long have you known? I laughed for a moment,

thinking she was making some deadpan joke back at me. After a couple of moments, I realized she was being serious. I asked for some clarity and she explained everything. She wasn't happy to do it, but I was glad everything was finally in the open. She told me that she did in fact have a husband and a son. She didn't get along with her mother-in-law, so whenever her husband wanted to take their son to see her, she would reach out to me. That was the opportunity she had to be with me.

Everything made sense when she told me. That's why she didn't want me to move to her city, much less move in with her. It was why she was only sporadically available to see me. Right away, I told her that I wasn't okay with what she was doing and I told her that I was done with her. I also insinuated that I was going to tell her husband about everything. She wished me luck with that and we both left the restaurant. When I got back to my house to try and look into her life to find out who her husband was, I realized she gave me a fake name.

The entire time I was with her, she was pretending to be somebody that she wasn't. She carried on a full affair, using a fake name and everything and I never noticed. I eventually gave up trying to figure out who she really was. I hadn't even thought about it for a few months. My friend back home messaged me out of the blue one day with a screenshot of a Tinder profile. It was my ex-girlfriend. There was a different name associated with the account. and the age was different than what I knew her to be as well.

The pictures and bio were exactly the same. My friend recognized her from pictures that I had shown him and asked me if we were still together or if we'd broken up. He thought that she might have been trying to cheat on me so he wanted to make sure everything was good. I called him right away and explained everything to him. He was as shock to find out about it as I was. After that, we came up with a little bit of a plan to try and catch her.

He ended up matching with her and they started talking. It's kind of funny, but I ended up telling him a lot of the things to say that I knew would work on her. She pulled the same thing that she had with me, telling him that she was only in town for a certain amount of time and asked to meet up with him. All I needed my friend to do was send me the screenshots from her Tinder profile and possibly get a good look at her ID when she wasn't looking. The last part was going to be pretty difficult. I waited patiently for any news about what was happening. About two hours into the date that they were supposed to have, my friend texted me with a photo of her ID.

I know there is a huge privacy concern, but I wasn't going to do anything with it other than look up her husband. I had her name, her real address, and all the information I needed to find her. I searched for her online, and lo and behold found out that she had a real estate business with her husband. They were prominent members of their community. Both of them even served as chairs in the Homeowners Association. She had a lot to lose and I was about to take it all from her.

I knew I had a couple of days before she would be coming back to the city, so I reached out to her husband as quickly as I could to try and meet up with him. I didn't know what to say, so I sent him a message with all of the information. It was kind of unbelievable, and I didn't really even expect him to listen to everything I had to say. Thankfully, I had some evidence that I could attach in the form of our text message exchanges as well as the Tinder profile and some pictures she and I had swapped over the years. It took a few hours, but he eventually responded and agreed to meet up with me. We met at a coffee shop the following morning and he looked like he wanted to tear my head off

of my body. I swore to him that I knew nothing about him or his family. I think after a few minutes he believed me. He even confessed that there were some signs that she was having an affair that he overlooked for the sake of his own family. Given the extent of how far she went, I think she proved herself to be completely untrustworthy. That was probably what really opened his eyes. I told him that he deserved better than her. She was clearly a monster for what she'd done. I could hardly wrap my mind around how selfish her actions were. I gave him everything I could

to help him if he decided he wanted to pursue a divorce. I even told him that if he needed someone to talk to about it without judging him I was there. Surprisingly, he actually took me up on that offer and we chatted about it quite a bit while he was going through his divorce. Over everything they went through, it was clear that I wasn't even the first guy she had an affair with. It was some way for her to escape the responsibilities of motherhood and her business without consequence at the time.

Unfortunately for her, it all backfired. After their divorce, their joint business went under. However, the husband was able to continue representing a lot of people from their neighborhood. Everybody knew what happened and she was ostracized from most of the community. She ended up moving into a one-bedroom apartment and has an entry-level position at another firm in a different county.