A Text Message from a Stranger Led Me to Cut Ties with My Mom, Who Was My Soulmate

• When a stranger sent Lane a text message, she never imagined it would change everything between her and her mother.
• Lane saw her mother as her closest friend. But after that message, she decided to cut ties with her.
• It was a heartbreaking choice, but sometimes we do what's best for ourselves, even if it means saying goodbye to someone we love.

A TikToker, Lane, who uses the handle @laneiscool14, took to the platform to share her story. One ordinary day, Lane received a mysterious text from an unknown number. The message urged her to visit Ancestry.com and undergo a DNA test, offering only good wishes without any explanation.

Puzzled by the cryptic request, Lane grappled with questions and uncertainty about the sender's intentions. She thought the message was spam and spoke to her friend, who advised her to respond. The friend's gut made her feel it was real.

So Lane responded by asking the person who they were, and the person wrote her back. She was shocked the person responded, but Lane let them know she took a sale opportunity and got the 23andMe test the year before. She had taken the test to discover if she had secretly exotic genes or was related to royalty.

However, the test did not reveal any secret and showed that she was English and Irish as she thought. Lane continued that the person behind the text messages even created a temporary Facebook account to contact her and her husband.

The person had insisted Lane use the Ancestry DNA testing route and revealed that she may have other family members she was unaware of. Seeing as the person would not provide her with any proof that what they were saying was real, she called her mother immediately and demanded answers.

Her mother's response made Lane realize she was not being pranked. Her mother revealed that she had an affair with someone ten years younger while she was in college. Her mother was 35, and her biological father was 25. Before this, her mother had divorced her father when she was nine and had always told Lane that Lane's father was a cheater.

Lane was shocked at her mother's revelation. Her mother told her it only happened once. While her mother was pregnant with Lane, the man asked her if the pregnancy was his, and her mother denied it. On hearing this, Lane immediately ordered the Ancestry test and waited six weeks to get her results.

When her results came, she found out the stranger was her father. So she immediately sent him a message. He is British but lives in California. He revealed that her mother had sent him a Christmas card when Lane was two.

Her mother had told him Lane's name in the card, and he constantly googled her name. When her name finally popped up online in 2007, and he saw her picture, he instantly knew she was his daughter.

He then emailed her mother, and her mother still denied it and even threatened him. Lane's mother told him to leave them alone and that Lane was mentally unwell and might harm herself if she knew the truth. Not being able to reach Lane, he did one thing to stay updated with her life.

He followed her on social media and watched her grow, from having a boyfriend, getting married, having babies, and all without being able to form a relationship with her.

She then posts a side-by-side photo of her and her biological father, saying the picture surprised her. In a follow-up video, Lane explains that she moved to California in 2008 and attended beauty school. Her biological father also lived in Southern California then and could see she was there from her social media details.

She said he drove past her place of work and even called her place of work once to hear her voice. He wanted to go in and get a haircut, but his wife was convinced Lane would recognize him, and she talked him out of the idea.

Although Lane voiced that she would not have recognized him. This is because she never suspected that the man she called dad was not her biological father. Growing up, her two older sisters from her mother's first marriage always said that their father loved Lane more than them because he believed she was his biological daughter.

Also, it was never weird that she did not look like anyone in her family. Her mother would either say Lane got it from her or bank on the fact that her father's relatives were all dead. So, she would say it must be from someone on his side of the family.

Lane also has two little sisters. She said one of them is two years older than her son. Lane and her biological father shared such a bond that his children and her children shared the same names.

Lane's biological father is a marine biologist. She revealed that before she settled for beauty school, she had tried to study marine biology. While her father watched her since 2007 without saying anything, her uncle's son reached out to her in January 2021.

He had found himself in a similar situation and wanted Lane to know the truth. In his situation, he was not misled. His mother broke up from her previous relationship and immediately entered another one. So, when she discovered she was pregnant, she assumed it was for her new partner.

Unfortunately, this truth significantly strained her relationship with her mother and severed her family. Lane knew a secret like this required a lot of lying, betrayal, and manipulation to sustain it for that long. However, she had to cut her mother off. She said it was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

Lane said she and her mother had a very close bond. Their relationship was so strong that she used to tell people that her mother was her soulmate. The TikToker said she later met up with her biological father and shared details of their meeting.

Lane called her mother a liar.

Lane and her biological father started communicating via email, and he asked her if she wanted to meet up. He initially wanted both families to meet up. But she suggested she and him meet up first before involving their families.

Since she came from a broken family, Lane stated that she had a hole and was hoping her biological father would fix her, but she had an open mind with low expectations. After imagining how she would greet her long-lost child affectionately, their first meeting was not like that, leaving her insecure.

They did not make eye contact, and she felt he did not want to hear what she had to say. Lane said their personalities were so different that she felt he did not like her, and their interactions left her confused and invalidated.

She was in his area for five days, and they would meet once or twice daily to hang out, eat, or do something. Every time they met, she felt like she had to pry information out of him. Everything was fine until the last day when she got very emotional.

When she went for dinner at his house on the last day, she saw pictures of him, and their resemblance was unmistakable. Also, his interactions with his other daughters were painful. It differed from his relationship with her.

After she returned to New York, Lane said she hopes their relationship improves. As of December 2022, she had not spoken to her biological dad's nephew but felt it would be an intriguing conversation.

When asked why she cut her mother off, Lane stated it was a hard decision because she and her mother were unhealthily close, as she had spent more time with her mother after the divorce. However, many things had happened in the past that caused her to stand by her decision.

Despite being her mother's primary caretaker when she was in high school, Lane called her mother a liar and no longer believes many things her mother says again. After her mother went to rehab for alcoholism in 1999, she picked up other vices to the point of abusing drugs.

Lane has also not spoken to the man who raised her about the situation. However, she revealed that he knew what had happened. After she got the text, she told her sisters and asked them not to say anything to him until she got her DNA results.

Sadly, one of her sisters, whom she was now estranged from, immediately told their father. Lane stated that she did not know what his reaction was, but she could imagine him having been as devastated as her. She noted that nothing has changed between them as she still sees him as her father.

Her son was named after him, and her father talks to him daily. Lane also has her father's signature on the back of her neck. However, she said she would have the conversation with him but was taking it at her own pace. On the bright side, she now has two dads.

While Lane found out the true story about her biological father when her parents were alive, another man was not so lucky. This sad husband got a letter from his dying wife, and he didn't read it until almost a year later.

In the letter, she said their four-year-old son might not be his because she had a one-night stand before they got married. He was shocked and felt hurt. The man felt he had no one to talk to, so he shared his story on Reddit.

His wife had passed away ten months before he read the letter, and it was difficult for him to read it because he was still sad about her being gone. When he finally read the letter, he was surprised because it wasn't what he expected. His wife apologized for something that happened four years ago.

She said their son might not be his because she had a one-night stand before their wedding. This made him feel even worse because he loved his son so much. He decided to do a test to see if his son was his, and when he found out he wasn't, he felt heartbroken. But even though he was sad, he still loved his son.

He felt betrayed by his wife and cried a lot. He didn't want his son to see him cry, so he was glad when his son wasn't home. He had been sober for eight months and didn't want to start drinking again, so he talked about his feelings online to help him feel better.

People on Reddit were nice to him and had kind words. They said he was brave for not drinking to deal with his sadness. This whole situation changed how he saw his wife forever. He wondered what other people would do if they were in his situation.