Short answer : Be honest.
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Longer answer:
Because here's something to consider.Without knowing if you have CSA or not, or in fact anything about your history or your family whatsoever... The next person who dupes me into bringing my child around a pedophile? Deliberately with holding vital information necessary to keeping my child safe? Is going to get shot.
So...instead of worrying about scaring them off...Does that scare you off? Or are you completely on board with that entire ethos? Because there are as many people out there who would hold you directly responsible for any harm that befell their child, as there are who are "close your eyes and pretend nothing bad ever happens", and everything in between.
It's a perspective shift, for sure. Instead of worrying about other people liking you, consider that your worry might more rightly be do you like them?
...
Something else to consider.
What are the consequences of not telling them about your family? // AKA When to be honest?
If it's someone you're casually dating? There's no interaction with your family whatsoever? None whatsoever. For either of you. What are the consequences of not explaining that Gramma sells children to pedophiles? If you're dating me, and I'm bringing my kids around your family? Or having children with you? The consequences are nuclear. I hold any adult who hands my child over to an abuser, as guilty as the abuser themselves. Period.
There's clearly a very huge gulf between going out for a coffee with someone and having children with them. Where's the right time to tell someone? Before your silence puts them or anyone they love at risk. How long before? First date or considering marriage? That's entirely up to you and your own comfort levels, IMO, because your silence? Doesn't hurt anyone. The moment your silence hurts someone? (including : Robs them of their agency / the right to make decisions for themselves). That's "You need to have told them yesterday."
How much to tell them? Bare minimum, as much as they need to know for their own safety & the safety of those they love. This doesn't mean you have to give them a complete trauma history. To the contrary, it could be 2 sentences: "They're abusive and I'm in the process of severing all connection with them. There is no possibility of anyone coming after me or anyone I'm with." (If that's true. If not, substitute as necessary to give the bare minimum of what they need to know for their own and their loved one's safety).
...
Last thing to consider, from my corner.
How important is family to you? & What does that mean to you?
Your family of origin doesn't really matter in most versions of this question. Family can be the single most important priority in an orphan's life, who has no family -good, indifferent, bad- and never has. Some of my dearest friends over the years both prioritize family above all else, and come from horrific abuse. They aren't talking about their family of origin. They're talking about their family. Their wives. Their kids. Their wife's family (maybe, or maybe they and their wives are each other's only family). Not everyone for whom family is important even has a family, yet (and I knew these blokes when they were all single, dated a few of them), but their idea of family? Their ethos of what family means to them and the lives they were determined to live given half a chance? Most had it while single, and was their bottom line when dating, others grew into -or were introduced- to the mindset and took it on as their own.
While I'm asking how important it is to you, & what it means to you... That's also something to keep on mind... That these people for whom "family is important"? Don't all come from good families, themselves. NOR does their idea of family necessarily mesh with yours. Family can be hugely important to abusers (status, control, easy access, etc.), too. And family can be hugely important to people who are being abused (and no way in hell will they ever distance -much less leave- their abusers, but will also willingly hand over their own kids -and yours- to be raped by their own rapist). So not only ask/answer these questions of yourself, but also of everyone you date. Because some will come from amazing families, some won't. Some will have ethos that lines up with yours, and some not only won't but will be polar opposite of yours. This toes right back into the first thing to consider when dating... Not if they like you... But if you like them.
My 2.o2
