So, I guess I'm at a WWYD moment. I have thrashed it out in my own head every which way I can and come up with nada, no solution. Zip. So I am turning to the collective wisdom of MN to help me out. I figure a quick straw poll of you lot will tell me pretty swiftly what my next step should be.
It all boils down to contact with my twunt STBXH for my boys, now aged 2 and a half, and nearly 6 months. This is the current set up: I drive them half an hour away to my MIL, EOW on both a Saturday and a Sunday morning. I sit in a hotel cafe for an hour and a half on both days to wait for our baby to be brought back. Usually DS2 is returned within the hour. I then drive home. Total time spent doing this, 3 hours on both days. I get zero child free time as a result, bar the forty five minutes or so in the cafe waiting with a cup of tea. DS1 is then played with by STBXH until around 4.30, MIL makes all their meals and then MIL ferries DS1 home to me.
STBXH does not pay for his Mum's travel costs, or contribute anything to the cost of putting him up with his girlfriend (who was the OW) every other weekend. He does travel about 3 hours by car to stay there. MIL did not want his gf to stay with them, because she was utterly devastated by their affair but twunt told his mum that unless she put up his gf as well as him, he would simply stop coming to see the boys. MIL has decided to do what he has told her to because she can't bear the thought of him giving up on the children altogether. I think she's mad, but I say nothing - their relationship is none of my business. I don't like being lied to (they have all maintained that OW didn't meet DS's until last weekend but she's been coming since DS2 was born) but realise I can't do anything about that.
Anyway that info is purely to avoid drip feeding, it may or may not be relevant. The place I'm at now is that (bar the drive to stay at MIL's) twunt STBXH does nothing to take responsibility for his time with the DS's. He does not arrange activities, pay for anything they do, cook or contribute to the cost or effort of bringing the boys to see him. Most of that is done by MIL or I. I can see what a strain it's putting MIL under. We have a good relationship and she is often in tears at my house. Her own DH is undergoing treatment for cancer while they play host to STBXH and his girlfriend and our kids EOW. I don't feel I can keep letting things carry on like this indefinitely because it's so unfair on them. They are in their late sixties, dealing with a possibly terminal illness, and all this cost/effort too. I know they do it because if they didn't, he would probably not bother to see our kids.
I'm reaching a point where I personally think that's not a bad thing. Contact was suspended for 5 weeks recently due to him bullying and intimidating me through contact, the kids didn't even notice he was gone. Everyone else did though - the opportunity to relax was amazing and I saw the benefit not just on me, but on MIL and her DH.
I am considering saying to him in the NY that the current arrangements do not work for me, so I will no longer be ferrying the kids to him or waiting around all morning. If he wishes to see them I'll facilitate a reasonable amount but I won't be taking them to MIL any more. If he wants to see them there he has to come get them at the very least. I suspect if I ask him to tell me exactly what contact he wants, he won't bother. So, after that epic post. WWYD? Carry on as we are so the boys have some pathetic relationship with him? Or stop it as I can see the arrangements are taking advantage of his mum and wearing people down, but risk him not seeing them at all?