Kate & Emily

I think you need to ask professesionals who have experience of helping families where there's violence.  Have a look at Relate's site as they have a family's / youung people section, also the national associaton of contact centres may have advice for you -  we've got links to both of these sites in our links, products and services section.  Kate and I are very keen on both mum and dad being in a child's life, but NOT if they're at risk, and this sounds like one of those situations. 

However that doesn't stop you being able to tell him more about daddy and filling the gaps for him.  I'm no child psychiatrist but I'd have a think about why your son is getting so upset about it - how many letters is he getting, what are they saying? he's only 3 or 4...  Can several letters over the course of a year cause this much upset?  Is it that he's picking up things from other people, or realising that his friends have daddy's, or that your boyfriend isn't his daddy and making him wish for one?  You're his Mum and know him inside out (and he'll know you inside out too!) so start to think about the best time and place and way to talk to him about it all - is it bedtime, morning, weekends, on a walk, on the sofa etc...?  It always has to be age appropriate, but it has to be true and sometimes you just can't make the truth nice. 

Think of the things your son is lucky to have - i wrote a list for my son once when he was really fed up and couldn't cheer up, just to show him that it's not all bad.    Boys struggle to articulate their feelings so ask questions like 'some children feel sad about not seeing their daddy  - is that how you feel?'  Get him to talk about what is clearly upsetting him, give him time to talk and listen,  and tell him all you can about his dad so you bring him to life  (good as well as not os good - see our section on absent dads in the ex-factor section), and then look forward together to things you can do and how nice it is having your boyfriend, uncles, grand-dads any other close male people in his life.  But YOU have to feel calm and OK about your ex too to have these conversations as they're hard to have even if you've had a 'nice divorce' and your child sees their dad - i find them hard and it's not as painful a story for me and my children, but whatever the history both of you will feel sad and I suppose that's OK to teach children that sad is OK and this is what we do, and feel, when we're sad, and this is how we cheer ourselves up and look forward... 

Talk to your boyfriend, share stuff with him, let him in and don't let your ex damage this relationship too.  So that's how I'd talk to your son and help to centre him and reasure him, and then I'd get a professional's help with the contact between dad and son,  and they may well advise not to.  I wish you all the luck in the world Emily