How do you be nice to the father of your kids? You have to grow up. You linked yourself to him for life.
Though if his house is that bad perhaps you should go for full custody and let him visit as much as he can, rather than the kids staying with him.

I find it much easier to be objective when you stop looking at them as someone you have to be friendly to. You know the boys deserve better, but you give them all of the love and care on your end and everything will come around. You don’t have to involve yourself in their life and try to fix it because it usually ends up making it worse – you just make the best life you can for you and the boys and he will step up and do the same (or miss out).

I think you could do with a mediator.

People say the wrong things in the heat of an argument.
I think maybe you need to get someone from the legal team sent out there if he doesn’t pick up his act, to assess his home situation and then they can make the OH&S call.
Before that though maybe just have a civil conversation, don’t stoop to the lower level, and say you are happy to have joint custody of both children as long as he is keeping everything clean and safe for the kids.

Basically the dad has a dirty house and not safe for the kids. Both children complain about sore throats. My opinion is the dad is not in a good place, maybe mental health issues. If it was me I would make an excuse and take pictures of the mess of house and stay with kids . I’m worried for ur children he needs help.

That’s tough but try and always think of your beautiful kids before you say anything. You won’t change his mind so just do what’s best for your kids.

We all have our moments where we just break or regret saying what we did. And maybe he did it out of anger or whatever other reason. But remember your relationship with him will be until the kids are adults so why make it harder for the two of you to disagree. Mediation or sometimes a few counselling sessions would help if he can agree. Or just sit down and all truce with each other.

You just have to be the bigger person and ignore his outburst. I’d just play it cool and see if he does end up wanting to have the 11-month-old over in the future – like I wouldn’t encourage it and see if he asks for him – I wouldn’t deny him either as it is good for a child to have a positive relationship with his Dad. Courts want parents to make decisions about the best interests of the child and it’s clear that an involved and caring Dad is a great thing for a child. However, if you do believe his living conditions aren’t up to scratch and possibly even harmful then you can’t really feel comfortable sending the boys to his house until he cleans his act up. Black mould is terrible for health! You shouldn’t be cleaning for him either. He’s a grown adult so he needs to do the right thing and provide a safe and healthy place for his boys. Maybe get a professional mediator invovled who will undoutably point this out so you aren’t being the bad guy!

If you manage to do so without causing a drama I would take some photos as evidence in case you need them. Your son may be having an allergic reaction to the mould which could cause a lot of serious medical problems including asthma or other constant infections. Will your son let you look in his mouth to see if there is any imflamation at all? or let a Dr. have a look?? I wonder what the condition of the bathroom and your little boy’s bedroom is like. The carpet could cause issues even if it is clean.

Please for the children’s sake keeps your fights between the pair of you and be civil. If there are no legal custody arrangements in place atm its something you will need to tread carefully because he does have just as much right to the boys as you do.if you still speak to his side of the family could tou talk to one of them about the father because who knows what he is going through.

You will need extremely good self control to get over this. As hard as it is, im a firm believes in keeping parental stresses away from the kids.

Be straight to the point, talk about only the care of your 2 children, nothing else. Speak to him about how you feel about and issues

Mediation and a custody agreement might hopefully save you some sanity. Then you can discuss the cleanliness factor also

This is someone you’ll need to communicate with until the kids are at least 18. I think getting on the same page is so important and sometimes going to counselling to help may be beneficial for everyone

Sounds like it’s time to get a legal custody agreement in place before this drags on and get worse as your youngest gets older.