My ex found life with the children drudgery too. He longed to have a life that was more exciting, more money in his pocket, to be able to travel somewhere on a whim and to go out for fancy meals without needing the palava of babysitters blah blah.
He used to do bloody annoying things at the weekends - hoover the car out for three hours for example - leaving me to hold the baby. He would organise something that he insisted was going to be lovely for us...like a barbecue...then spend hours and hours preparing food, drinking wine, pinny on, listening to his music, getting the barbecue ready, positioning it right, all the while ignoring me and the baby. ie, he had a great time while we were ignored...
Then when I got frustrated and upset - so that by the time the food was ready to be eaten, say, I didn't WANT a flippin barbecue any more, or a curry that he had taken 7 hours to make, or to watch a film he had gone out to pick up and taken two hours to choose - well, then he would go into a huge angry huff and sulk. Eat in silence, watch the film on his own in silence (usually a violent action flick like Kill Bill bleurgh.)
It was horrible.
In the end he fucked off one day and never came back.
He went somewhere abroad and has no contact with the children at all and pays no maintenance.
He's on FB living his dream - pics of him in expensive clothes at fancy restaurants and visiting places with white sand and palm trees.
He's a knob of the highest order and I am glad he's not in our lives as it was crippling, exhausting and miserable being with such a selfish, crap father and husband.