Have NC for this one as theres quite a bit of identifiable information.
Dd, 7, sees her father eow. He lives 20 minutes away. He refuses to take her to any parties whatsoever. She doesn't want to go to every party she's invited to, just those of 5-6 best friends which obviously will sometimes fall on his weekends with her. I think he's being unreasonable by refusing to take her as he has no other children to consider and it'd be nice for him to meet dds friends.
Dsc are 6 and 8. Dh has a contact order which currently states he can have them once per month. They live an hour and a quarter away. Their mum insists they must go to every party they're invited to and that if it falls on dhs contact weekend that he either has to take them or forego contact while she does. She won't swap dates or separate the children if one has a party but the other doesn't. With class sizes of 30, there's a potential for many of the childrens weekends with dh to be disrupted by parties. We also have 2 yr old twins to consider as I sometimes work weekends and travelling back and forth to parties over such a distance with the dts isn't fair or feasible.
Dh has said he'd do his best for best friends parties, but other than that he'd make no promises. His exW says he must work around the children, not vice versa and though I'm on dhs side because of the distance and frequency of parties, I feel hypocritical because I want my ex to work around our dd regarding parties. But then, hers are closer and less frequent, plus he has more regular contact.
Usually we have the same rules for all dc but here dh and I want (and intend to act in order to have) different ones. Is this unreasonable? What do other separated parents do regarding parties?