Too scared to ever tell my family of my sons fathers involvement on our lives, as they hate him nd I don't know what drastic measures they'll use

My son is 4 and a half years old. If you haven't already heard of my situation then basically me and my husband separated in 2016 due to his growing bad behaviour I didn't know what to do, I warned him nd told him to change his ways and he didn't so with no visa nd with my family threatening to deport me from the US to my home country the UK I had no option but to leave..

Fast forward to 2017 my older sister made me swear I'll never speak to my ex ever again I told her I can't promise that as he's my sons father. I had caved nd spoken to him 2 months after our son was born which the conversation was taken place on my ipad, she knew the password for.

While I was lured to get something from the other room I came back quickly to her saying " trina..... you've spoken to Rob, I had to snoop." I was horrified that she had yet again invaded in my privacy and read all of mine and my exes conversation on messenger on my ipad and thought it was the "right thing to do " like I said this is the second time in my life she has snooped. She told me she wanted to see what was on it as I was being protective of my ipad and flinching when she would go near it, I explained "yeah !! That's because you always look at all my stuff , you don't have the right !" She then said that I'm not allowed to speak to him again. ( all of this while I lived with her).

I continued talking to him but kept it a secret as even my sisters then husband didn't agree with her strict ways and said every father deserves to atleast see photos and videos of their child at the very least ( they ended up clashing over those differences alot ) but the guy spoke alot of sense !

Another of her scare tactics after I moved out was to threaten to kidnap my child if she found out that I was contacting my ex (baby father ) and was even considering making things work with him as a couple or to co parent. She said that she herself wouldn't have left but that makes me strong for leaving him, which pissed me off because my family literally forced me into leaving leaving guy.

She also said that every time in the future if I were to talk to him that I'm loading a gun nd shooting myself of any chances of having a good future.

All these scare tactics continued and she keeps in close contact with my parents whom I never really speak to. My parents are very dramatic and when my son was being born my family had to temporarily move me to my parents while my ex was in the country and didn't let him see our child.

I see and hear you all saying that I should have put my foot down and looking back I really wish I had !! But I can only focus on the future now

My ex has never seen our son in person only video calls nd pictures etc, we've sent eachother things and I've told him if he wants to visit he can do but covid then got in the way of that.

I don't know how dramatic my family would be if they were to find out of my exes involvement in my kids life. They make out he's this big threat which he isn't, he was emotionally abusive to me while we were together and he is a dick however I can't be the reason our son doesn't have a dad.

I'm trying so hard to just keep my business separate to my side of the family as in the nicest way its not their business but I'm worried of their reaction if they found out.

They imply I'm kind of stupid like I don't know what I'm doing when all I want is to be a family and I know damn well that if any of my family or sisters were in my position they wouldn't be keeping the baby daddy out so it makes my family hypocrites.

What do I do?