Ex has new baby - cultural issues - feeling hurt

[Sanpellegrino1]

reposting for traffic - is it weird to feel my pride / ego / whatever else is hurt by this?
Ex and I broke up during COVID he stated he could not marry me as I was a white British woman and he was from a muslim country and from a traditonal family. He was the love of my life. I spent years pining for him, eventually got over it and now I am married and expecting.
I have since found out he is ‘in a relationship’ on social media with a white British woman and they have had a baby unplanned out of wedlock.
I just feel he must have lied to me about the reasons for tbe breakup and it is has opened up all the scars again. I genuinely thought the next time I knew of him in a relationship would be an arranged marriage with someone from the same culture. I feel really weird about it?
Any advice please

He wanted to end the relationship and instead of being honest and saying he didn't want to see you any more, he lied. To be honest you sound very intense. You're stalking him on social media and giving him way too much head space after 6 whole years, especially as you are now married and pregnant. Maybe he thought lying was the only way out.

Are you sure you are over him, given this reaction?

I would assume he had sex with another white woman and an unplanned pregnancy is the result. He hasn’t married her and there are no suggestions he is even engaged to her. It’s possible his family has no idea.

I am very much over him and as he works in the same field as me I found out through colleagues that were joking he had to get a promotion as he had a baby now to look after!

I am happy in my current situation but find it unsettling that a guy who I went out with for so long - and told everyone the reason for the breakup was the cultural difference - is now with someone similar to me a bit embarressing in all honesty. I would have been fine if she was same culture. I guess he just did not like me that much and lied to me? I suppose thats what I am processing today

But in the grand scheme of things, @Sanpellegrino1 , who the heck cares IF he lied? Most likely did, but who knows, there are alternate scenraios that could have happened. Either way - why does it impact you that much that it would make you upset if you are in a happy place with a new husband and a baby on the way?
So what if he did not like you that much? Honestly? Entertain the possibility that he never left, and he doesn't love or respect you enough... Now that would be a sad way of living.
You have to admit that - regardless of how you found out (you did put social media in the original post) - the fact that you DO get upset about it does not scream "well-balanced and happy with my current relationship".

On social media she is ‘in a relationship’ with him - whereas his is blank which is how I know they are not married. He also referred to her as his partner. I found out she was white british through social media - there are no pictures of them together.

Understood, @Sanpellegrino1 . And completely irrelevant to your happiness with a new person and your baby together. If you don't believe that, ask your husband how he feels about it..

Stop looking at his social media for one.

Sometimes people crop up from our pasts and it can bring up a lot of weird feelings. But not everything has to be mulled over and worked through and questioned. Navel gazing about exes really doesn't benefit anyone.

I can't remember why most people in my circle broke up unless it was a huge blow up involving infidelity etc. I certainly, 6 years down the line, wouldn't be thinking badly of someone's ex because the reason they gave for breaking up is not congruent with the person they are dating. Who cares? Maybe he has had a change of heart. Maybe family pressure changed.

Frankly and kindly, you need to focus on your husband and child to be. Whilst it feels big, it is really justa big nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Both DH and I are single on Facebook. We’re not even friends. 8 years together and counting 😂

He won’t marry her and eventually he will leave her.

He hasn’t changed.

I had an ex who told me he didn’t want children with me. I thought there was something wrong with me. That I wasn’t enough - that he was the love of my life. Turns out- he absolutely wasn’t the love of my life.

He ended up having two children with his next girlfriend and then he left her. She lives near me and I can see he really destroyed her life.

Don’t compare your life now to what some other woman has with your ex. He won’t marry her and will give her the same excuse he gave you.

This is how I feel.

Surely he will have to marry her now though as he had a baby with her? I am probably just naive.

He sounds like a horrible person who isn't man enough to settle down with a woman from his own culture or a British woman.

It's all him.

Ignore the loser, he is probably just playing women in general x

you really wouldn't want someone to "have" to marry you, would you...that's a recipe for future misery, I would imagine (and it's a guess, having never met them!) that if you wanted to make a child legitimate, then the 9 ish months of pregnancy might give you time to even get the Nikah done if nothing else. But who really know

*no flaming please I am not saying kids born out of wedlock are illegitimate (it's not the 1800s and I am one for starters!) I am just saying where there's a culture or faith element it can be a desired aim sometimes to make the dc official

it can be pretty galling op when someone moves on, and it's someone seemingly like you but then if you were with that fella now then you wouldn't have married your DH or had this little bump <3

possibly preferable that he showed his cards and you split, rather than he future-faked your fertile years away and left you after a decade of empty promises?

Please, sis, leave the muslim men to the muslim women. Yes, it is cultural and no, we don't need that hassle

MN can be unnecessarily scathing. Some people just love to be shitty.

A similar thing to you but back in 2016. It hurt like hell not because he was the love of my life but the way he treated me and ended the relationship really affected me deeply.
i definitely don’t pine for him or care about him In anyway but he took zero responsibility and never even bothered to say sorry.

it really affected my confidence and trust.

In 2018 I met my now husband who is the absolute love of my life. We have a little girl and beyond happy. However it took me years to not be hurt by the actions of someone from my past to the extent I would have dreams that my husband would do the same as he did to me.

This was no reflection on me being in love with him!

Just give it time x

This seems the most likely explanation to me. Accidental pregnancy, refuses to marry her- she decides to have the baby regardless.

It doesn't matter though what the circumstances are. You're married and about to have your own child. I would try to put it behind you and focus on what you have now. How he treated you is a poor reflection on his character, not you. It's doubtful he is treating her any better

I know what you mean…

This one said to me ‘wheres your self esteem dating some one like me anyway (muslim)’ at the very end, highlighting the fact he would never marry me. Ironic how things have turned out.

Also not really accepting responsibility. He was not that young either when we broke up 36/37

I understand how you're feeling & I think it's fair enough, but try not to let it upset you. You're now married & have DC. From what you've said I'm not convinced their relationship will work out or he intended to have a baby with her. Your life might have been very unhappy had you stayed together.

when dinosaurs roamed the earth I split with my partner of 10 years (me 15-25 him a bit older) as he decided that despite having said he did, he reatly didn't want to have children (not his fault, he didn't intentionally mislead me, just grew up & realised children weren't compatible with his other life goals. (& I very much did!!)

I'm in my 50's now & he didn't have chiildren & he did really well in the life goals he had. So it was very hard at the time as we didn't want to split up, but it was the right thing to go for both of us.

but yeah. I'd have been sad & hurt if he'd married the next partner & they'd had kids. So I understand, but hopefully you can come to terms with it quickly.

for all we know she might be over on an AIBU thread any moment now "We had a baby together, why won't he marry me- LTB?"

...again, not wishing this on her, I am just saying, we have no idea 💐I don't think I want to know if my ex is happy/baby-trapped/utterly beside himself missing me. Sorry you work in overlapping fields though (from what I gathered from later updates?), that is not particularly ideal x

Usually muslim men only marry white women that become converts to islam first. If a woman rejects becoming a muslim they walk away. If a woman accepts they hold onto her.

I cannot see that this lady has converted or married him - she is just in a relationship and defo they have a small baby together!

As I said before if it was the case she was from culture or looked like she had converted it would not sting at all.

Your current husband’s in trouble if you’re feeling this 😂😂

It is very telling that you only respond to comments that to some extent feed into your curiosity with your ex, the ones that entertain that it's ok to feel this way about him, etc. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you have to respond to others, far from it. But it is very telling that you clearly are only interested in feeding your misguided feelings. I feel sorry for your husband, it is very demeaning.

Its because I feel no need to condone myself - I know how lucky I am to have met my partner, I know he is the love and my live and I am very happy with the life we are building. 🤣

You aren’t mourning him again. You are suffering a hurt from feeling lied to. Even if you are over someone, learning something that was presented as an impossible issue that impacted you so badly has now been put aside for someone else can still destabilise you as it can bring up pain of not being good enough or lied.

I can see you don’t miss him or want him back and are happy in your new relationship but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel the very human feelings of rejection from learning something like that.

you will never know the truth so don’t create a story to narcoses feel better or worse. It does not matter. More, sit with the tension feeling inside and ask yourself why you feel invalidated by this information. Your worth is not contingent on being chosen by another person. Your feeling are human but we can learn to stop valuing ourselves on others actins and feelings

Oh do leave off her. Her pride is hurt because he lied to her, its perfectly fine. It does not make her any less valuable in her marriage nor does it make her immoral. We all have pride and we have all been heartbroken, its normal human emotion. OP, ypu had a lucky escape, even if he had stayed with you, it would have been bloody tricky dealing with the cultural situation, especially if his family wouldnt have been on board x