Should I tell kids they have half siblings

[Uniqueusername2]

My ex husband had kids from a previous relationship he lost touch with when they became teens and the mother refused access. He recently had a health scare and reached out to them (now adults) but they didn’t respond.
We have 2 kids together who are now also teenagers. My ex doesn’t want to tell them
about their half siblings. I have told him he should as I don’t like keeping secrets from them, but I don’t feel it’s my place to tell them. But I worry about them finding out, at his funeral or some other way, and my kids being angry I didn’t tell them when he was alive so they could ask him about them.
aibu to want him to tell them, or do you think I should keep the secret as they may never find out ?
yabu - it’s not your place to tell them
yanbu - they have a right to know

I’m in a similar position op, except my children’s father has already recently died. He had a son who he has never seen, the son will be about 21 now. My children are teenagers and have no idea this boy exists. We had split up 10 years ago and I was always of the opinion that it was not my place to share. Now that he’s died and my eldest is approaching adulthood I have no idea what I’m meant to do.

You tell him. Obviously. Be prepared for him to be very angry though. I just don't understand why anybody thinks it's ok to airbrush a child out of their life.

They have a right to know.
Tell him he has to tell them by x date or you will.

Please tell them I was the child in a similar situation and I was so angry when I accidentally found out it was like everyone didn't care enough to tell me. It's so so traumatic when I found out accidentally that I didn't even want to talk to my parents to give them a chance to explain because I felt that they weren't even bothered to tell me

You have to tell them and to be honest it speaks volumes about your husband that he wants to keep it a secret from them. no surprises why they have cut him out tbh.

Amazing you believed his narrative that the mother refused access. She wouldn’t be able to. All he had to do was request access via court at the cost of about £200. Easy to blame a woman though. Shows what kind of man he is that he’s also prepared to lie to his children now.

This. What if they find out via Ancestry.com?

I found out I had several half siblings I knew nothing about when I was well into adulthood. Our shared parent had left me and my full siblings behind and went started a new family. The half siblings knew about us, but we didn't know about them. They were teenagers when they found out and the shared parent was forced into telling them, but their other parent. They were told very little about my siblings and I and had no way to find us.

Eventually a family friend helped them. By that point one of my full siblings had died, and never got to meet or learn about their half siblings. On top of that we missed weddings, graduations, big birthdays etc etc

If the half siblings had found us 5 years earlier I believe that it would have a made a huge difference. They would have been able to meet the sibling who died and we would have been able to build better relationships.

They deserve to know, and if it looks like he isn't going to tell them, you should

BTW kids, dad has 2 kids he's never mentioned or seen for years. Wtf..... he doesn't want them knowing as their opinion of him as a dad will change forever.

A brother turned up to my friend's Fil's funeral and that caused even more distress than finding out as kids.

They WILL find out eventually.

It's better to tell them now, under controlled conditions.

Also a mother refusing a dad access to 2 teenagers sounds like a pile of rubbish, do you not think?

My ex husband had kids from a previous relationship he lost touch with when they became teens and the mother refused access.

Then he should have gone to court and fought for access. What a poor excuse for a father walking away because the mother was being difficult. From children whose lives he had been present in for over a decade. Ugh.

It's not a decision I can take lightly, ds is almost 18 but also ASD and although most people cannot tell it definitely affects his understanding. He has taken the death of his father extremely hard and the last year has been awful, things are only just settling down with him. Tbh I'm furious that I've been put in this position as well as everything else.

Tell them. They are blood relatives and come before your ex husband. Theybhave a chance to build bonds with family.

He probably failed the first set of kids and doesnt want anyone to know.

It looks like a pattern. How long before he cant be bothered with your kids and tells a new woman that you wont let him see them?

I know of a family in this situation. I know there's an "eldest son" but the children don't know he exists. All us older people either in the family or older friends of said family know. Ultimately it's the father who needs to fess up, not me or any of the friends/relatives, so we have to keep the secret from the younger children. It's a shitty situation which is why I do my best not to socialise with the father too much, plus the fact I don't like him in general.

This is partly why I’ve been reluctant to go against his wishes and tell them. I don’t want to spoil the relationship they have that we’ve managed to maintain since we broke up and there have been plenty of other things we’ve had to navigate.
but it’s coming up to the deadline I gave myself to tell them if he hadn’t. I just hope they understand why it took so long to tell them.

You need to tell him he has to tell them or you will, and it would be better coming from him.

They should have grown up always knowing about them so it wasn’t a shock to find out.

As someone else alluded to, I’d be wondering who else he is coercing into keeping his secret-cousins, other aunts and uncles, old work colleagues.

It will come out, inevitably at a funeral or some family occasion. Just tell them.

It’s going to be infinitely better coming from him, op. But I appreciate you have no control over that.

I've heard some upsetting stories from people I know and have met finding out they have one or more half-siblings as adults.

In one case a guy I knew found out he had an older brother about 8 months before the brother died of cancer. The only good thing is that he was there at the end for his brother.

So please tell your children. It is then up to them whether they do anything with this information, and if they do when.

Tell them. I was not told about my late father previous marriage nor the two sons he had.

I'm not going to do the back story as it's too messy and complex.

I found out about my bro's when I was 36. The years of secrets, lies, etc. will destroy you all.

It is every bit their business. The train of destruction my dad left behind would fill a book.

It's what I'd known as "Family Secrets: what you don't know can hurt you"

Absoloutely.
My DC have a great relationship with their Dad. If we had separated while they were teenagers, there was no way they would have gone along with a ban on seeing their father, and it would have been impossible to enforce.
There is social media, mobile phones, other family members....if those teenagers wanted to see their dad, they would have done, even if it meant waiting till 18 to preserve the peace.
I do however know fathers who have flounced off, saying if their wife insists on a separation, they will never see her or the DC again. And stuck to it. I know fathers who have refused to compromise on dates and times, or travel, or money, who lost contact with their children because of their own stupid pride not allowing them to negotiate, the sort of guy who has to have things their way or not at all.
I know which I think is more likely.
OP, tell the children, sooner rather than later. No good will come from lies and hiding the truth.

I'm amazed he thinks they would care about his health situation if he abandoned them.