ExDH and I have been divorced nearly a year, separated for some time before then. We don't have a formal arrangement that sets out when he sees dcs (his choice, not mine). When we were living together he almost never spent time with dcs (hid out in his mancave day and night). When separated he made no/little effort to see them. When divorced I started getting emails about how things were going to change, that he would be taking kids for half of all their holidays, etc etc. Nothing changed. He found a girlfriend straightaway and spent all the past year with her. GF is now out of the picture and xDH is now back to the, well, now the kids are my priority etc etc. DCs are 15, 12, 7. Lots of whining and moaning about how the past year hasn't worked out with holidays and how he hasn't seen as much of the kids as he wanted to.
Anyway, sorry getting long here, don't have many (if any) IRL to talk to because we moved to the UK recently etc, the last two weeks were "his" time with the kids. I didn't schedule anything for the kids. FIL and MIL decided to come visit dh during these two weeks. Problem is that the older dcs refuse to do overnights with xDH. I can't/won't make them, especially not since xDH has made a few off-colour remarks to dds that make them uncomfortable. So I more or less made the dcs available to xDH whenever he wanted to take them out. DH didn't take them out much at all. No plans for the two weeks, everything at the last minute, whenever he took them out had MIL/FIL there too. Then yesterday the dcs got an earful about how the last two weeks have been so difficult for xDH because he couldn't take them away on holiday and because he hadn't seen them as much as he'd wanted etc and how things were going to change now that GF was no longer in the picture.
Last year the arrangement was that he would take elder dds out to dinner once a week. That was it. Younger ds does one overnight maybe once every two weeks, that started in May. Middle ds is at boarding school and xDH saw him once in May, not at all in June and once in July (ds is free every weekend afternoon).
Now xDH wants half of their half-term and half of their Christmas holiday. Etc. And I'm presumably going to have to not make any plans for those days and sit and wait if/until xDH decides to take them out. This holiday I insisted on one day's notice (so Monday evening eg if taking them out on Wednesday) and he was angry about that, so I'm a bit scared of setting boundaries. I just don't know what's normal here. What do people usually do with regard to contact? I know he should be seeing more of the dcs than he is, but he hasn't wanted to and dcs certainly haven't wanted to. Is it usual to split up half-terms or to say one gets one and the other the other? Suggestions please for making this better?? I've been trying so hard to be nice and accommodating and letting him do whatever he wants but it's not working. I can't really talk to xDH because he lies about things and revises the facts to fit his "poor me I'm the victim" mentality.