I wonder if your X-FIL is having some feelings of failure on his part. He's caught somewhere in between feeling like he failed in some way with his daughter, and vowing to do everything that he can to be different with his grand-daughter.
I think a lot of that comes from the primal male instinct to be "fixers".
I would venture that a lot of his anger is coming from feeling the loss of 'control' from everything that has happened. Feeling the resentment and anxiety from the interactions.
No matter how much or how hard he tries, he can't change what has happened.
I would also think that he sees how good of a parent you are, and his loyalty should be with his Daughter, yet he feels torn between the loyalty to her and his loyalty to his grandchildren.
Loyalty to her is to not have contact with you...
Loyalty to them means forming a relationship with you also...
Blood is thicker than water....always. And he could quite possibly be having a hard time in finding that balance and separating the two things.
Either way....IMO you deal with it in two ways...
You let things stay as they are and YOU struggle....
Or you have a conversation with him...
Hey man, I'm not sure if you are trying to treat me with a lack of courtesy and respect, however, the parenting of our children isn't a negotiable event that all can attend. I keep you in the loop as a courtesy. However, if you feel that you want to continue to treat me with anger and disrespect, then all future correspondences will go through your daughter instead of me.
Either way, don't let it change your course, and certainly don't let it throw your balance off in any way.
Whatever the reason, they are his reasons and not yours.
I would assume that this is more about him than anything that you are doing or have done....
As for your Daughter....
Well, she is a 4 year old girl, and they do throw tantrums and they do have meltdowns...(sometimes that goes away with Women )
I'm not saying to not keep an eye on it, just don't overthink this for right now. Read and learn about normal behavior ( if there is such a thing) and if there isn't anything alarming, then address things as normally as possible. The last thing you need is for her to have self-esteem issues by making more of this than there is, or her allowing herself to think that there is something wrong with her....
Maybe have a risk/reward system in place for her to start understanding consequences.
Acceptable behavior as opposed to unacceptable behavior.
So what's Christmas look like to you and the kiddos ? Anything special ? New traditions ??
Keep going man, you are knocking this out of the park....
)
