OW is expecting a baby

[mountainlake]

So my still husband dropped a bomb on me... we have been separated for 3 years, got back together in the meantime, then he left for an 'open' relationship with 22 year old girl.
Now it comes out she is pregnant and wants to keep the baby.
Ex doesn't want it, she knew it. it is quite likely she basically trapped him as wanted commitment but he was always clear to her he wants no more kids, she was on the pill and still 'accidentally' got pregnant. He basically run away from family life to pursue his freedom and bachelor style living. I kind of diagnosed him as a narcissistic person and was slowly moving on. And now this...
My DD who is 9 doesn't know about OW. She was never an official gf, she met her in the past once or twice as a friend. She has never stayed with them.
Any practical advice how to deal with it...I have no understanding/sympathy for ex and OW after all they did to me and my girl. My only concern are these poor kids involblved in that mess... I know that the baby will be my DD sibling, so she will have to have relationship with her/him. But I cannot imagine any sort of relationship of my DD and OW. I just cannot do it...

You need to detach a lot more from your ex.

You can still be polite and civilised without having to know all the nitty gritty bits of his sex life with anyone else.

If your H decides to make a go of it with this woman then unless you have evidence your DD is at risk you will have no say in if she see/stays in the same place as her when she is with your ex. It is shitty but there is nothing you can do.

If there is a child the only person to blame is the one who didn't want a child but could not be bothered to ensure he didn't have another one. Especially when you have made it abundantly clear on here that she wanted further commitment with him.

Back off, leave them to their sordid little lives and just concentrate on your own life and protecting your DD as best as you can.

Btw, I hear you and I hear yoour anger and your pain.

Please know that you have every right to feel hurt by his actions. You have every right to be worried about your dd. and actually you also have every right to feel hurt by the OWs actions.

But the things is the more you stay angry at them, the more concentrate on them and the more you give them power over you.
Please use that anger and that energy to show them that you can he happy and you are worth much more than them. Be the one who is reasonable. Be the one who can step back and leave them to their shenanigans. Be the one who can hold your dd and reassure her. Be the one who is truly leaving them to get a new and better life.

You are very angry now and that is understandable. Get as much help and support for yourself as you can. You are shattered by this but in time you will see you are better off without him

I don't get this thread at all - op you can blame whoever you like. You were there and you lived it so you can be angry with ex and ow - personally I would hate them both.
The fact someone said it won't impact on you Wtf?
Anyway, op can you trust ex to tell dd? Then just let dd know you know and let her talk about it. Make sure she knows she can talk without it annoying you/upsetting you even if you have to aim for an Oscar here. Whether they should have a baby is for them to worry about so don't get hung up about it. If she's rough just feel good that you agree better and laugh at your ex. Concentrate on your life and what you want and let ex fuck his up on his own.

Wow, despite your protestations you really are not over this fuckwit. I am sorry he has treated you so poorly but you need to accept that you weren't rebuilding a relationship together. He was simply marking time until his next distraction came along and when she came, he dumped you when you rejected his generous offer to share him. It was always a risk (understatement) trying to rekindle a relationship with this feckless idiot and your gamble simply did not pay off.

Let go of the notion that this girl stole your husband or dashed your 'happy ever after'. If it wasn't her, it would definitely be someone else because your lying knob of a H is the common denominator and as long as he's part of equation, shit ain't far behind.

Detach, detach, detach and for goodness sake stop listening to his bullshit, this man is incapable of telling the truth.

Can I just butt in here. Last night an OW posted up a thread where she had given no consideration to the wife, the children and seemed to not realise at all the damage she's done. She was roundly lambasted by the good women of Mumsnet and rightly so. Tonight, a mother posts up, trying to sound completely reasonable in ensuring her child maintains a relationship with the father despite his behaviour, understandably upset that he has got somebody else pregnant and worrying about the impact on her child and the behaviour of the OW yet she is being told to essentially suck it up. I agree she needs to detach, I agree she is angry and upset (who wouldn't be?), but her pain, fear and anger is evident and justified. OP, I have been in your shoes, thankfully minus the baby, an OW that I simply don't want to be involved with my child because she's utterly evil and it's very very hard to come to terms with. Your ex is a total twat and you have to stop listening to the crap he is coming out with. I have every sympathy for you and your child because I know first hand what this is like. I would say though, you can see where this is going to go and it's unlikely to end well. You, however, have a chance to rebuild. If you feel your child is at risk with OW and ex, then you are going to have to go via the legal route...it's shit but it's the only way. I am so sorry you're going through this

How old are you?

Phrases such as "never an official gf" make you sound quite immature. In fact, you all seem quite childish to be honest.

While tricking him into having a child is despicable behaviour, why didn't your dh use a condom? I assume he had a choice who he slept with?

He had his fun & now wants no responsibility...nice.

I cannot imagine my child being taken care of by this deceitful, despicable woman with zero morals What about your deceitful, despicable ex with zero morals the way you talk about the OW is revolting. Your dh used her, doesn't want to stand up to his responsibilities, dropped her like a hot cake as soon as he was busted & you have the audacity to talk about her like this?

she was coming over to his flat seeing my things, clothes, toiletries all around... she knew he was not a free man, she knew we were spending most of the week as the family, even though we kept separate houses. She didn't care for months, and slept with him. I hate them both for lying that much, for that long. So is this right, he left because you busted their affair, you tried to make a go of it again, he still slept with her & it's what...all her fault? It doesn't matter what SHE knew of his circumstances, HE still cheated on you. HE could have said NO. He wasn't forced to sleep with her, she didn't hold a gun to his head!

I do see that you are blaming him, but all that reads as secondary to you blaming her, and taking any opportunity to be vile about her.

I do have sympathy with you, but I also have it for her, because she has been royally shafted by your dh & by you now too.

Your daughter will be fine, as long as you let go of your anger & try to remain as neutral as possible towards her father.

I am at some of the responses on this thread. Have I entered some kind of alternative universe? Support for the ow? talk of how a baby on the ex's side will have no impact on the op? What planet is it that people were on last night?

There is no doubt that the op needs to detach from her ex. There is no doubt that the ex is the one who ultimately caused the hurt to the op and that if it hadn't been this particular ow it would have been someone else. But let's not paint the ow as some kind of innocent victim here. She said that she didn't care about the op's dd, only about her own happiness, and who cares whether she's 22, she's an adult, capable of making her own decisions and mistakes and living by her own (lack of) moral code. She knew what she was doing, and let's face it if she had posted on here that the ex of her now partner was angry at her no-one would feel sympathy for her. In fact I've seen posts from women who were the ow twenty years ago be told they have no-one to blame but themselves for the position they're in twenty years on when actually parties should probably have moved on for their own health as much as anything. So wtf is this particular ow getting sympathy?

And for anyone who says that the baby is the ex's issue and his alone, that is a very naive stance to take. The dd is going to have a sibling on her dad's side, and as resident parent the op is the one who will be left to deal with the fallout of that. And because the op knows that this baby is on its way, she is now complicit in the knowledge that there is a sibling. So it is not as simple as expecting the ex to tell, or not to tell his dd there is going to be a baby, because if he chooses not to tell then this will be a family secret which the dd could well hold the op responsible for in years to come when she finds out she has a sibling no-one saw fit to tell her about. If he does tell her and she is unhappy then the op will be the one she goes to to talk about how she's feeling. And if she does end up with a relationship with the baby and thus the ow, then the op will be the one who has to hear about it in glorious detail.

Op first and foremost you do need to detach from your ex. His relationship with this woman is no longer your concern. The fact he is having a baby is only your concern as far as your dd is concerned iyswim, and I would make it very clear to him that he needs to tell her sooner rather than later because the later she finds out and the less time she has to prepare for the fact there will be a baby, the harder she is going to find it, and the more likely she will remain upset. I would also make it very clear that you are not prepared to lie for him, i.e. that you refuse to keep his secret about the baby. But I would leave it up to him exactly what he tells your dd about what kind of relationship he (and ultimately she) will have with the baby.

You cannot prevent your dd ultimately having a relationship with the ow, and as she is now nine she is not as vulnerable as say a three/four year old, and is capable of articulating her feelings. but you need to be there for her to listen while at the same time remaining nutral. As hard as it is, she may grow to develop a relationship with the ow and ultimately the baby. And you will need to be supportive of that, however hard that is. Because positive relationships are far more beneficial than negative ones in the long-run. This relationship may last, it may not, and as you're not at a stage yet where your dd is being introduced to the ow you may never have to face that possibility. but you need to be prepared for it while at the same time moving forward with your own life.

Pps did say he needs to tell dd, if he doesnt , op should. The relationship with OW and new baby of course changes ops life, but I think most posters just said it is not in her power to decide what sort of contact there will be, which in entirely at the mercy of the exh.

You can't blame the girl. It may have been a contraception failure and morally she may not be able to abort. Even if she got pregnant intentionally, your husband is to blame. He should have used protection if he didn't want to get her pegnant. He should have taken responsibility.

With your DD you act positively. She's getting a new sister or brother which could be quite exciting for her

Nope, sorry you lost most of my sympathy when you called her 'as rough as fuck' and suggested that she's using the baby for benefits and to get part of your husbands nice flat and job.

What little I have left says you really need to let this man go and work towards getting over him.

I understand your hurt and anger and feelings towards the OW. I have lots of sympathy for you but unfortunately no advice.

What you can do is reassure your dd that none of this is her fault and that she is not being replaced by a younger child or a different family, children can sometimes blame themselves.

So much symapthy for you OP.
Similar situation with my DSis
There a few years before the sibling will actually meet - if indeed they ever do.
Looks after yourself and your DD - forget the ExH and let him deal with the sibling situation if it arises.

Not sure if anyone not facing this situation can pontificate empathise.
DSis said she has never wanted to murder anyone, but she does want to kill that smug bitch who can casually destroy her DC confidence and security.

I can understand your pain and anger but the reality is this OW is part of his life now and they will have a child together who will be half-sister or half-brother to your DD. You just have to accept it as many other women on this board accepted that OW becomes step-mum to their DC.

In my opinion any woman sleeping with a married man has low morals so background of this OW is not really relevant.

Sorry to be harsh but it is true

I am so fed up with the myth that a man can be "trapped" into having a child. It is everyone's individual responsibility to know that if you have sex, a potential consequence will be pregnancy, even when contraception is used (except for sterilisation of course). If a man wants to enjoy sex with young, fertile women without worrying about pregnancy he should bloody well wear a condom or better yet, get a vasectomy.

OP.

You have every right to feel upset and vent. I'm going to reiterate what Many others have posted.

Detach from your ex. Communicate only on vital issues. keep dialogue minimal and polite. I personally don't believe you are getting the truth.

Your DD is going to take the cue from you on how she views this change. You need to give her lots of reassurance and let her know she is very much loved.

Focus on the future and on what you can control. You cannot control the Ow, the baby, your ex or what they say.

This is a process and will take time. Focus on you and your DD. stop listening to your ex. He's full of shit.

I'm going to put myself out there and say I don't feel a shred of sympathy for the OW...at all. She knew what she was doing (as they often do) and she is going to face the consequences. So many times they are like the cat that got the cream, but it blows up in their faces when the man dumps them just like he did with his wife.

Op your ex is a fucking idiot..but you already knew that. make it clear to him that you don't want this woman around your dd because you don't know each other properly and don't trust her.

My dad knocked up an OW, tried to play happy families, it broke my sister's heart that he would start a family with another woman, their relationship was ruined, and we never see the siblings.

I feel for you op

I just love it when men decide that they don't want anymore children but do absolutely nothing about it. He could've and should've been wearing a condom or gone and got the snip before "getting trapped" (