Found the father of my children. Now what?

[bananarama79]

Hi, so basically I have not known the whereabouts of my children's father for 17 years, I tried to find him as both my kids are curious about where they came from.
The split was very nasty, he was very abusive and tried to strangle me when I was 20 was pregnant.
I slept on the floor in the spare room during my pregnancy as I kept disturbing his sleep with all my night weeing! He tried to take me away from my friends and friends and make me feel like I couldn't look after the kids on my own, I was unfit etc.
About 7 weeks after premature birth of my twins, he took one of the crying babies downstairs because they were both colicky and crying. He came back and threw him on the bed and told me the red mark on his face is where he bit him to stop him crying. And if I didn't stfu he would give him one on his other cheek.
The very next morning I left and called social services on him.
After a few months he got bored of social services and took himself out of the situation. But not before threats from his family and the police being involved.
Kids are nearly 18 and I told the kids snippets but never told them the whole story, i didn't want to make them feel bad about themselves in anyway (they were very difficult children lol) and didn't want them to think I was was trying to poison their minds about him.
So anyway, I gave up trying to find him ages ago, I rarely get the minimum about of child maintenance and only claimed that after about 8 years or so. So was shocked to stumble across his whereabouts totally out of the blue. He has a new family with a youngish child and have been married quite a number of years.

I'm really confused about what to do. I've always said the kids can do what they like with the info of his whereabouts, it's their choice and now they are old enough for me not to worry about them being stolen! I'm just worried about the impact it might have on his wife. On one hand it's been a long time and I do believe people can change. But on the other, what if this triggers him into a fit of rage and puts her or her and their children in danger.

I've known about this a few days now and haven't done anything yet. But I literally can't sleep with worry!

Any advice? Thankyou x

Your kids are old enough to know the whole truth now. They need to be forearmed with the truth first.

From your posts I can't work out if you've told them everything or not. If you haven't, you absolutely must. My friend's mother tried to paint a rosy picture of their dad, for 'their sake', and the kids tried to forge a relationship with him without knowing the full facts. He damaged them too, in the end, and my friend is properly unimpressed with her mother for lying/omitting.

So if you're saying you have told your children the whole truth, all the facts about all the abuse, they still want to meet him? That's absolutely crazy! I don't think you can stop them once they are 18 though, but I wouldn't help them do it. A man like that will hurt them too. Don't facilitate that. Warn them properly, and tell them if they want to find him they can do it themselves.

Jesus Christ. Tell your DC the absolute, unvarnished truth. That he hurt them, and tried to strangle you, and that they'd be far better off never having anything to do with him.

Obviously if they chose to go ahead with contacting him anyway that's their (extremely foolish) choice, but at least you'll have warmed them in advice.