My ex and I have been separated for years. We have two girls who are both in primary school. Ex works shift work and has became more and more unreliable in terms of when he can take them overnight.
I tried to speak with him about dropping it to one night a week as the girls are getting older, have friends at home and the eldest is doing her 11+ next year and they both act up about going to stay with him. This wasn't an attempt to get more money and I specifically stated that, it was just the kids are all over the place with nights away and they started resenting visiting him.
We normally have a decent coparenting relationship, however from day one it has been on his terms. There is zero regard to my working hours, it's just what suits him and his job. I own my own home (mortgaged) and pay childcare costs for times they are with me, with him etc because he leaves it until a few days before to tell me when he's "available" to take the children. But he'll happily avail of the paid childcare in his time with them.
He lives with his partner in her house and has done so for the past two years. It has just gotten worse since then, he continually drops nights at short notice, he says his "step daughter" needs a holiday so plans to take her away with her mum excluding my kids.
My kids get lots of holidays with me and my partner, but he just seems to treat them as disposables.
I had a lot of issues with contact as a child myself and I think it is very important they retain a good relationship with their dad but it's now at a stage where I am struggling to work to provide for them as he refuses to stick to originally laid out plans which he has made.
Basically I just feel like I'm being taken as a mug and he's continuing to control me from a distance. I just cannot live this way for the next 10 years. I have no idea what is happening from one week to the next, the kids are up the left with everything and I'm just in bloody turmoil.
Sorry just not sure if this is normal coparenting? And maybe I am being unreasonable thinking it should be easier?