Hi Everyone, Thanks for all your help and support.

I'm just going to respond to DMarie at the moment, cause I'm in a rush to get to my parents' place.

DMarie, You are spot on with this observation:

"He really is circling the milky way!
I would try to speak to him as little as possible."

I no longer have expectations, and try not to get drawn in, but i need to journal the latest episode as an example of how strong the pursuit/distance cycle can be - and this is P/D within his own behaviour.

XH came over last week and out of the blue, offered to take us all out to dinner. This week, on Wed night, he offered to bring pizza and beer for a family dinner - first time in over 15 months.

On leaving, he said: "Is it OK if I come back tomorrow night or the next night and take you all out to dinner again?"

Then came the issue of the funeral. Huge argument between XH and S14.
XH's solution: he had to work anyway and so could not attend. I could take S14.

S14 saw this as a ploy and refused to be made to look, in front of XH's family, as if he had been the cause of his father's non-attendance at his grandfather's funeral.
(It seems as if XH had told the family that he was stepping aside because S14 was being 'difficult').

In the end, no-one went. Very sad and just so unnecessary.

Meantime, D17 had a party to attend on Sat night. Very far away in an obscure location, and a district that has a bad reputation for violence and theft (don't ask...).
She asked XH to drive her there and pick her up at midnight, as his car has sat-nav and is reliable, whereas ours does not and is not. It would also help me not having to leave S14 in the house on his own late at night while I went to pick her up.

XH agreed and we were all pleasantly surprised. He arrived on time to pick her up, but she was running late getting ready. He came in for about 1 minute. I was cooking dinner in kitchen and did not see what happened but I heard him turn and go out the front door.
Apparently S14 did not greet him enthusiastically enough and so he sat outside in the cold winter's night for over an hour, refusing to come inside while he waited for her.

Finally, she was ready and they left.

Within 2 mins, I heard a loud knocking on the door. It was D17.
She had asked him to wait in the driveway while she messaged a friend. She needed to be close to the house to connect to wifi as XH had not put any credit on her phone account (this is his agreed 'payment ' to the kids).

He blew up and said he would not wait any longer, as he had paid an employee to take his shift so that he could drive her to her party and was wasting his money.

He also said it was "Your mother's fault that you don't have any credit on your phone".

D17 demurred, and pointed out that he had promised to pay for the kids' phones - as he runs a phone company himself.

He then ordered her out of the car. She cried that she was already late for the party and that it was over an hour's drive away.

He said tough, and drove off.

I couldn't believe it, really.

And as he says, I have turned the kids against him....