From my not so d exh I.e. their dad. I am sick of trying to pick up the pieces of his parenting fails and feel like the children are being emotionally damaged. Here's the story.....I had 2 kids with exh. We divorced. We both remarried. He now has dw and new baby ds. He has always holidayed with girlfriends and dw without the dcs and they have then watched videos of dad swimming with dolphins, cuddling tigers etc and occasionally said it would be nice to go too. Half term is approaching and exh has just been made redundant and is having a year off to 'bond with new baby''. His wife is on maternity. Last time we discussed arrangements he said he may well have the dcs for half term as he's not at work. So I texted him this week to make plans. He replied that he can't have them as him dw and new baby are flying off on holiday that week!?!?! Wtf?? Why in half term? Last night the dcs were talking about it and how it was sad they weren't going. I tried to be breezy about it and said 'oh well I'm sure you'll be going next time' to which dc2 said 'we better had be!' I just feel so sad on their behalf. If he had chosen any other week in the sodding term he could have said 'we could only afford to go during term time and you can't get out of school' but now it's fucking obvious he just doesn't want them to go. How can I handle it? I don't want to apologise for his behaviour and I need to let the children know that it's okay to feel sad. I've typed a million messages to exh but deleted them all because I want to make my point well and not be full of protective rage for my dcs. Any wise words appreciated. 