what would you do?

ellie

Some good advice shown on this thread.

Good luck once again.

Is there any chance that you could all sit down together and discuss what has happened so that your children can ask both of you anything they want to there and then. A united front by both parents might help ease the shock. Having said that, there was a series on the telly a few years back that discussed living with lies and, in all cases all the people involved felt so much relief when it was out in the open. A lie can eat away at you, even if it is not a bad lie and it has been done for the right reason.

crimson, you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence, yes it certainly did get harder as the years went by and i was reluctant to bring it out into the open as the children were trying to build a better relationship with their father after a long period of him not bothering with them. it took some effort and a lot of me biting my tongue!
ana, to clear up a point, you were right, my ex did not mention the other son in the will, it was just that i could envisage a situation arising in the future where it would all come out and as an heir he should be acknowledged.
now comes the difficult bit, the when and where, and how!! my son rang me this morning and as we were chatting all i could think of was how he would react to the news.
thanks again for all the wise words, i'm going to need a sackful of courage to start the ball rolling. 1st stop my ex

ellie; I was thinking about what you said and then forgot to write down what I'd thought. When my marriage broke up it hurt both of my children [well, they were @ 18 and 21 at the time]. At the time it seemed very important to me that, however much I was hurting, they understood that their father, in his own way, still loved them. Had I been in a situation where another child was involved I think I would have been inclined to not mention it as they might have felt that their father's love had been diverted to another child, which would have caused them even more pain. Children/young adults go through so many emotions when their parents split up and they need as much emotional protection as possible. Especially as [or so I've read] younger children can often feel that they are to blame in some way. Then, when years pass it becomes even harder to broach subjects.

What about the other son in all this, though? We don't know whether he's been told who his real father is either. In an ideal world there would be no 'secrets and lies', but real life is messy and there's no easy way of dealing with this situation. As I mentioned previously, we don't know whether the father has named his other son in his will - just that he rewrote it after the divorce.

ellie.

I think there have been some very valid points already raised, so I shall be brief. I feel very sorry for your circumstances but I would definately tell them.

I would think there maybe a point when it all comes out in the wash anyway. You may find your children will be upset and hurt but not as much as they would be finding out through a will. They may need some closure on your breakup too and they are now old enough to handle things. Will it not be a cathartic exercise for you too?. Surely you have been a good mum over the years and I am sure they will see your predicament and accept it was only because you were putting them first whilst growing up that has sadly put you in this dilemma. Good luck.

Haha, I reread what I wrote, teach me to write on my iPad while still in bed and it's early morning and still dark. I meant my father in law's mother was unmarried not unmarked.. Autocorrect does it again...

ellie that suggestion of doing a family tree would be a good opener for this sensitive discussion. I hope it works out well for you and your family x

gosh i have just come in to find all the replies. thankyou everyone for your comments,they really reinforce what i should have done a long time ago.
the background was that the girlfriend was also married and having fertility treatment. it was a very messy situation as they were supposedly friends who we socialised with. the husband was unaware of the goings on as was i at the time.
my husband only confessed when she was due to give birth and they were planning to move in together. needless to say it didn't work out and they went their separate ways, as did we.
the reason our children weren't told was, as i said earlier. on reflection though that decision was wrong. it was however made during a time of emotional turmoil and upset. i had to concentrate on bringing up the children on my own and holding down a fulltime job. life takes over and i guess i just buried the whole sorry business.
i have very little contact with my ex apart from the usual milestones of births, weddings etc. when we do meet its polite but cool. i can only guess why he hasn't said anything but i can be certain he hasn't because they would tell me. they have been fairly forthright in their comments about his previous affairs.
it all came to a head for me recently because i was at my daughters and we were watching the programme "who do you think you are". as i have now retired she asked if i could start doing our family tree!

Ellie I would tell them - they are mature adults now and have a right to know. Others have pointed out that if they find out after he has died and their reaction is negative, you will bear the brunt of it when it is not your fault. I agree. Give your ex a deadlined opportunity to tell them but say that if he does not, you will. I once kept something from my sons, being afraid to upset them and when they found out they were angry with me for keeping it to myself.

Ana no, it's not the same learning the truth about the makeup of one's family as an adult, but still important, and no-one has the right to deny these siblings this information.

Could it be that the children already know about their half brother but think that their Mum, Ellie doesn't and are saying nothing to protect her? Maybe their dad told them but said not to tell their Mum.

Yes, Bags, I think that's what I was getting at. Of course it's ellie's choice whether to tell her own children about their brother or not, and perhaps we don't know the whole story.
when I do agree of course with what you say about children needing to know their place in the scheme of things, but these young people are all in their 30s now so it's not quite the same.
Good luck, ellie, whatever you decide to do.

Still don't understand why they weren't told in the first place.

Ana children have a right to know where they fit within a family and who their relatives are, as part of the development of their identity, sense of security about their family, especially trust for their parents, and at its most basic, being sure who they should and shouldn't have intimate relationships with. A child is entitled to know who has fathered him, and this brother might innocently start researching his familly history and discover siblings that had been kept secret from him for no good reason. Why hurt these people unnecessarily? They can make an informed decision when this secret is out.

I understand what you're saying, nag, I think. And I think it's fine to question their 'right' to know about their sibling. However, their mother does have a right to tell them. She is under no obligation to tell them, but neither is she under any obligation not to tell them. My view is why be secret about something when there is no need for secrecy? Of course, there may be a need for secrecy, for all we know, but it doesn't seem so from the story so far, only that the father didn't want to talk about it. Well, tough luck for him. It's not only his secret. Other people were and are involved and can talk if they want to.

Sorry, he not it. Also my ex father in law was not told who his father was, his mother was unmarked. His older sister told him he didn't need to know, even though she knew. Why did she have the right to know something about his family and he didn't. Who was she to decide!

Because it is their brother, he is part of their family, whether they want to acknowledge him or not.

Why do they have a right to know? I'm not trying to be controversial here, but I'm not convinced, and I'd be interested in others' views.

ellie your children have a right to know and I would telly them. They may find out sooner if their brother contacts them first and you know what they will say, "why didn't you tell us?"

I would think that, if your children already know about the affairs your husband had, then the knowledge that they have a half brother would not come as too much of a shock to them.

If they have forgiven their father for his treatment of you, would the existence of a son from one of these affairs make him out to be any worse in their eyes?

Like Bags said, they might be pleased.

In your position, ellie, if I felt my offspring should know about a half-brother, I would just tell them. I would not worry about whether my ex-husband wanted them to know. If I thought it was the right thing to do, I'd do it, especially if I felt guilty about not doing it sooner. I'm sorry if that's not much help but my feeling is "get rid of the guilt which you shouldn't be feeling anyway." The affairs and the extra child were not your fault but did affect your life. You have every right to talk about them.

Any fallout should be with the father, not you, but after the first surprise, I don't see why there should be any. They might even be delighted to find they have a new relation.

All the best.

ellie
Have you thought it might be possible that they DO know, but think that YOU do not? So all are tiptoeing around one another?

Yes it is really his secret isn't it. You imply that he asked you not to discuss this with the children at the time. I think you could mention to him that it would be better if he told them, and then stop worrying about it.
Is it worrying you a lot - reading between the lines, you sound a bit more anxious about it than one might expect.

I don't think it's clear that the other son is named in the ex-husband's will - ellie50 just says that he rewrote it, which is natural after a divorce. If he is included, then I agree with what others have said, it's not fair to leave you to bear the brunt of whatever your children's feelings may be if they only discovery the existence of their half-brother after their father's death.