Running into an ex's new significant other isn't always easy — but sometimes it is. Ben Higgins can attest to that.
The Bachelor alum, 33, shared on The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever with Chris Harrison that he recently bumped into country singer Chris Lane, 38, who is married to his ex-fiancée Lauren Bushnell Lane at a celebrity golfing tournament.
He recalled that he spotted Lane sitting at a bar a few seats away from him on the first night of the tournament, and decided to go up and greet him.
"I walked up, and I said, 'Hey, Chris, good to see you,'" he recalled, noting that the conversation was "nothing but great" and that it was "nice to talk to him."
He also confessed that he hadn't seen Bushnell Lane, 32, since they called off their engagement following the series Ben & Lauren: Happily Ever After? in 2017, and he had been "anxious about the idea" of seeing his ex and her family again.
"You know, when you go through a breakup, there's always that moment when the Band-aid gets ripped off afterward, and you can start to heal," he explained, adding that he did feel "it would be good to see her… like, it would be nice to say, 'Okay we've done this, next chapter of our lives.'"
Bushnell Lane was not at that event, but Higgins said he did see her father there, and chatted with him as well. He noted that his almost father-in-law was the one who instigated the conversation, which he said "felt really good," and that they caught up with each other's lives.
Higgins tied the knot with Jessica Clarke in a November 2021 Nashville ceremony. He told PEOPLE following the wedding: "Here I had my best friend standing in front of me glowing with beauty. I am so lucky to commit my life to hers."
"I am overly joyful," he gushed, adding that he and Clarke hoped to have kids within a few years. "The best way to describe it is a feeling of acceptance and love."
As for Bushnell Lane, she married Lane in 2019, and the couple has since welcomed two baby boys: Baker and Dutton Walker.
She opened up to Page Six in May 2022 about calling off her engagement to Higgins after a year of dating: "I was really in a low place. I was kind of at that rock bottom place [after the split]."
"I needed to get there, though, in order to reflect and figure out who I was and what I wanted," she explained. "I think I needed to just be alone, refocus on myself and rebuild who I was without a camera in my face."