Ex lives in a small flat which he is doing up specifically to make it better for our children to stay there.
The thing is - he's been 'doing it up' for 5 years. Every time they go he has them 'help' with some aspect of it. He goes on and on and on about how he's doing xyz to the flat for their sake but none of these things ever seem to actually happen. They were initially excited when he moved there because the flat had a big garden and he told them all about his plans for fruit trees and play equipment in the garden. These things haven't happened and now the garden is unusable because it's full of building stuff and rubbish.
The children don't like his flat, they say it's always dirty and he never does the washing up, crockery and cutlery is never properly clean, bathroom is not nice etc. He says it's because he's doing the flat up, but I went inside once (this Xmas) and it was just piles of crap, rubbish on the floor, also building stuff but mainly just junk and stuff that's fallen and not been picked up and then got covered in dust where it lies.
As the children have got older they've stopped wanting to go there and now only the youngest still visits him.
He now says he's 'doing it up' for the children's sake, to get them to feel they want to stay again, and he wants them (and me) to be grateful for this.
Should they be grateful? I don't think so - he's had 5 whole years and done FA. It's not clean and tidy aside from the building bits. He only sees them once a month and otherwise is completely child free. He used to be a builder so he has the skills to do the work himself, he has so much time to do it, he just doesn't seem to get it done.