Just found out that cheating ex is having a baby with the other woman

Post date: 2018-04-26 13:26:47
Views: 61
Yet again I'm thrown for a loop and ask for your patience and advice. Having trouble dealing with a) the news, b) the way the news came to me and c) how to process this information so I don't end up acting like a dick around a blameless child. Would love to hear from people who've been through, and dealt elegantly with, situations like this. Flurry of snowflakes inside.

So Friday night, I head out to see a friend performing.

On arriving at the tiny venue, the first person I see is the woman, A, from this question (TL;DR, she repeatedly brought up my ex boyfriends apropos of nothing even though I asked her if we could talk about the million and one other things we have in common instead), who I have been studiously 'too busy' to catch up with since our issues last year. I'm in a good mood and feeling at one with the world so I greet A and chat fairly neutrally about what's been going on in our lives. She asks why she hasn't seen me, but I have genuinely been snowed under with work and house renovations so feel not too guilty about using those as an excuse as to why I haven't been in touch.

Then I notice my ex, B, from this old question, standing a little way away (TL;DR, together almost three years, found out a year after the break up that he'd been seeing someone else on the side during the last few months of the relationship and had basically taken up with her immediately after I broke up with him - been more than a year since that low point). Again, my initial reaction is heart-sinking but I decide to be positive and greet him, brief neutral chat, go about our separate business.

I remember feeling pleased that I was, finally, finally, over it, in a good place and able to navigate these social situations without too much awkwardness and generally set about having a lovely time with the other people I knew there.

So when A beckoned me over to the bar I didn't think much of it, thought she was going to offer me a drink and I planned to decline as I didn't want to feel beholden to her, but she just started asking me about some other subject. Then B walked past and she called out to him. He came over to us and she said something like, "Heard your big news!" I thought perhaps he'd got a record contract or, hopefully, was moving to another continent, but he said to me, "I'm having a baby."

Rest of the conversation was a blur as she asked him all the usual stuff and I just stood there, blank faced. Due in November, apparently, just had the 12-week scan. He didn't seem super happy, but perhaps that was the situation of being forced to tell your childless and single, 38-year-old ex-girlfriend who you had told that you wanted a child/ren with and then strung her along for a year or more, that you're now pregnant with your new partner who you cheated on her with. He said he "felt terrified" and "kept noticing evil children", which were sentiments he expressed towards the end of our relationship about the time he started pulling away from me. I couldn't pretend to be happy so just said to him, "I'm sure you'll be fine." A was babbling something I couldn't understand, so I said to her, "I have no idea what you're talking about" and B said, "No, me neither." Fortunately, the next band started up about that point so we three parted.

For a couple of minutes I thought I was going to have to leave, just run out somewhere and cry and scream, but I sat down to text a friend and during the texting I started mentally replaying some of his non-committal greatest hits. Suddenly I was completely dry eyed, even grinning. I ended up getting myself another drink, meeting a bunch of interesting new people and having a pretty good time.

Whoop-de-do for me, but the issues have come since that night. I've been drunk, properly drunk, most of the nights since. In the daytimes I've hardly been out of bed. I took a guy I'd seen for a couple of dates home, did a bunch of drugs and had terrible sex with the thought in my mind, "you're only doing this because B is having a baby", what's worse I think the guy was a good person, and keen, and I told him the next day that I wasn't in the right head space to see him so that's all ended. And when I haven't been doing those things I've been crying and imagining and replaying.

I'm not going to drink again until I feel settled and I know I don't want B back. I'm already no contact with him and have no intention of ever contacting A again either.

I guess my questions are,

a) How can I process this news without getting sucked into speculation, what ifs, etc? How to deal in public? People are already suggesting it must be an unplanned pregnancy as he's notorious for serially dating women in their mid-to-late thirties who want children and stringing them along for years until he gets caught for cheating or they get fed up with waiting.
b) That A. I feel she set up that conversation for the exquisite drama of getting to see me find out about the pregnancy. Yet at the same time, how could she - even if she was drunk? I mean, how cruel? How do I deal with that knowledge when I bump into her next?
c) There's going to be a baby. I'm super glad I found out now because I have months to get used to the idea, but ouch. How do I deal when I see them as a family? I don't want to end up obsessing over their lives or coveting or resenting a child or acting out in any way but I feel like it's going to be horribly painful.

FEELINGS! Elegant solutions all gratefully received. Thanks in advance.
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