what would you do?

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 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.

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

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.

ellie

Some good advice shown on this thread.

Good luck once again.