A father with Asperger’s syndrome was faced with a difficult decision when his girlfriend left him for his best friend — and shared his heartbreaking story online.

The father’s incredible story began with the birth of his daughter, Faith, who he said changed his life.

“I remember the pregnancy … it was a bump…. just a bump on my then girlfriend’s body…. no more…. no less…. “cold” you’re probably thinking….. but as the saying goes… “if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?” …. you haven’t heard the sound. .. I didn’t see a baby…. truth is, I was more concerned about the changes in my safe routine than I was the soon to be new addition to my life,” he wrote.

The dad explained that he tried to imagine what it’d be like to have a baby during the whole pregnancy, but he never truly could until the day came.

“14 hours. .. screaming… bright hospital lights… nurses speaking what sounded like a foreign language. … the smell of hospitals making me sick…. my ex in pain…. me stressed. .. there wasn’t a detail I couldn’t see or missed … my senses were about to explode and…silence,” he wrote. Time stopped for this father who spent his whole life struggling with his emotions, and his entire life changed.

“I couldn’t stop staring…. she was mine! I made her….. from that moment…. I was suddenly re-filled with excitement! !! Love!!! Hope!!!! I WAS A DADDY!!! I was the proudest man on earth!” he wrote.

Just a month later, however, things took a shocking turn. Faith’s mother left the dad for his best friend.

“It was hard….. what was I meant to do!!!!??? My princess Faith left with an idiot (Me) I hated who I was and what I had!.. my parents told me to give her up for adoption…. the kindest thing they said….. …. but thinking about it… laying there on the sofa alone holding Faith in my arms …she looked me in the eye and grabbed my little finger … barely able to grab the whole thing…. I’ll never let you go I said,” he wrote. 

Despit advice that he give his daughter up, the father quit his job, applied for benefits and started doing whatever it took to care for his child. Dealing with Asperger’s, however, proved to be difficult with a newborn baby around and nobody else to care for her.

“With Asperger’s we need a time out… I had no support… no safe haven … just as for a woman this baby was my job.. my purpose…. the only difference was I didn’t come home from working… she was there when I slept… and there when I woke up,” he wrote. “Even going to the loo was hard … but do you know what… I used logic… our biggest ally as an Aspie!… babies love routine!… so dinner bath and bed by six dead on time… she has slept perfectly through the night no arguments… just a bed time story, a good night daddy God bless I love you.”

Over time, he said, things got easier. As Faith got older, the two became best friends and he became her confidant. Their relationship grew stronger through their struggles.

“I may never be a perfect dad… but I try perfectly hard… and I love her truly with every fibre of my being and she loves me… Faith taught me of unconditional love,” he wrote.

In a similar story of single fathers going above and beyond for their kids, a dad made national headlines when he staged an amazing presentation to ask his daughter to go to a father-daughter dance with him.

“I had always planned on doing something like this for a woman, but I realized the most important female that deserves my attention is already right here beside me. – P.S. She said YES!” the father said of the moment he asked her daughter, Little Things reported. 

Sources: Inspire More, Little Things / Photo credit: Faithit