Stbexh deliberately arranging things for the children when they are with me

[exhaustedbyex]

My stbexh has a habit of arranging activities with his girlfriend's kids during my (court ordered) contact time. The children live with me and see their dad EOW, half the holidays and once a week after school so he has plenty of opportunities for activities during the time they are with them.
Every time he arranges something it's always something the children really want to do and have usually asked to do but it's for a time they are not with him and we are often away so they can't go. This causes the children to rage at me saying how unfair I am, how mean, dreadful mother, the works. If I arranged stuff in his time I'd be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms (long history of abuse) and there is no chance he'd ever change contact dates to accommodate something I'd arranged for the children no matter how much they wanted to do it, even if it was a one off opportunity happening only on that date.

I feel like I'm always the bad guy and if we aren't doing something I need to arrange something so I have a valid reason to say no.

Contact between us is limited to emergencies only as he is abusive in communication so he sends these requests via the children. I refuse to engage with them being used as messengers though.

For context he rarely does activities with them during the time they are with him as he is usually working, sleeping or too busy with his gf's kids.

How do I deal with this?

School issues? I’m not sure what you mean. If it’s reports etc then My Ex had no interest. Well he demanded to know about School reports etc however I realised that he did nothing about it at best, like discuss issues with me, and at worst used any of these to ‘attack’ me. He once made out that there was major bullying of DS that I was not aware of, it turned out he had heard a small thing from DS and as he was in a bad mood and thought my choice of School was terrible, he made it a major thing.

I talked with DS who was quite anxious and upset, he went along with the story at first and then broke down in tears saying that it wasn’t really anything. Believe me I did properly investigate it. DS the felt awful. I don’t thing Ex was making it up either really, it’s just these men once they have started manipulating our children, it becomes normal and they cannot separate their huge anger, bitterness and resentment.

So just send School report if he asks. That is it. Anything else I’d be wary of, it’s just another tactic.

Oh cross posted.

Why do you want to keep him in the loop? He’s bullying you and his kids himself. He will have nothing to offer and if it keeps the line of communication ope with you that is BAD. DO NOT do it!

Good point. No keeping in the loop from now on.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help

@fuzzywuzzy how were responsive were school when you explained your circumstances and communication with ex? My DC school told me that abusive was a very strong word to use. I replied to say that yes abuse was very tough to live through and that if they needed some basic understanding of what domestic abuse was about I could either help,the school stuff directly or recommend various organisations. But sadly they remain difficult to the end on this and other issues. Hoping to hear that a school really does get it.

School was very supportive. What happened was dd started exhibiting disturbing behaviour and school were very worried for her. The school SENCO stepped in and dd was given counselling and CBT.

They told me they wouldn’t withhold information from ex I said I didn’t expect them to but just to let them know the situation and that there may be additional requests for reports etc from ex.

He never did make any requests.

I never started sending him anything. When he bought it up in court I said he knew the school dc attended and could register for updates and reports. I didn’t say anything about what I had done or received.

My dc’s school was small and the teachers were brilliant at the time.

The head teacher at school has been very supportive and actually hid me from view of my stbexh yesterday when we were both in school at the same time. Happens very rarely that we are there at the same time thankfully. HT has been great and thinks he's a twat. There's risk of having to talk to him today but if he's wise he'll stay away from me.
We do the separate reports and parents evening thing. He takes his gf with him to all of them and let's her do the talking. Boils my piss.