We know that the way you communicate, your leadership-communication skills, your relationship support-skills, are inconsistent with how you see yourself. Your innocent act and denial is unbecoming. I don't sense any awareness of your cause in the matter. Once you are clear about responsibility others around you will have a choice, to communicate responsibly, or not; they will know that you don't support blaming. With this situation, you have been the enabling leader.

If reading this so far has triggered disagreement, confusion, upset, or anger then we're on the right track (please continue reading no matter how uncomfortable). Once these thoughts have entered your mind you will find yourself causing new, more-easily-disappearable, problems.

All problems are created and completed through to mutual satisfaction via communication, all persistent problems are caused via talking. You and yours have mastered talking.

When a problem persists, as this one has for "several years," it reveals that the problem is not being described accurately; there is a lie (an incomplete begging to be acknowledged) somewhere.

[ top ]

I'll begin with the obvious; you haven't acknowledged responsibility (cause) for the condition of their relationship. The clue is your use of the words "we" and "us." A responsible person automatically uses the pronoun "I." You would have asked, "How did I cause my daughter to . . .?"  The problem isn't that they ended up divorced, it's also that you continue to support your daughter in dramatizing who's to blame and in making him wrong, and in treating him abusively (shunning); you support her in lying. Like yourself, she's still in denial as to how she masterminded the outcome, how she (albeit unconsciously) intended the divorce (read Wedding Guest Vow).

For example: What I do when two are arguing is—I first ask each if they'd like support in cleaning up/completing the incident. If one says no, then I recess myself from interacting with that person, and let him/her know I'm available whenever he/she is ready/willing to clean things up. The person who declines support is most always stuck in irresponsible angry blame; for me to continue interacting with him/her is me enabling abuse and me setting it up to be blamed (just as your daughter is blaming you, making you wrong for interacting with him). I find it doesn't work to interact with someone unwilling to communicate responsibly (from cause) through to mutual satisfaction. If both say yes to my invitation, I get into communication with them and together we locate the source of the friction, the original upset.

Virtually all divorces began on or before the very first date when both brought their addictions to deception (withholding) and to blaming into the relationship, when both consciously/unconsciously, simultaneously, chose to withhold a deal-breaking thought from the other. The source of a persistent angry argument is never ever what either believes it to be; it's always about something similar but earlier. I.e. What each now give as the reason they divorced is not the truth. Those lies (those reasons) contribute to the persistence of the friction (read Creating a marriage vow that precludes cheating, etc.).

Notice that Jenny doesn't like you to be in-communication with him; she correctly intuits that if you keep hanging out with him the truth will come out (that she unconsciously seduced him into seducing her and that she learned that way of relating from you, and that you're doing the same with him) and, that you'll end up loving him (because he's loveable) as did she at the beginning (that's what happens when communication takes place). The truth being—she is 100% responsible for destroying her marriage. Now you and I know that he also is 100% responsible for destroying his marriage. And, we are presently looking to see if you'd be willing to acknowledge that you are 100% responsible for thwarting their marriage and now their relationship. And yes, "100%" is redundant—it's used here to ensure clarity.

For you to continue interacting with him invalidates her and her decision to not interact with him, "Mom, can't you see why I divorced him?" What's also missing from her is, "Mom, you're supposed to know, I started a fight and it ended in a divorce. Why the hell do you let me try to con you into not spending time with him? If truth be told, you should stay away from me until I've completed my addiction to spiteful divisive blaming." 

What we're looking for here is an incident between you and your daughter.  Most likely it's a childhood incident. A communicologist refers to it as an incomplete. It was an interaction between you and her that did not end with warm affectionate hugging; it was not mutually satisfying. We know some of the things to look for; it's an incident in which there was abuse, blame, grudge-holding, manipulation, and take-away (hostage-type tactics). Because you didn't resolve that incident, with and for your daughter, she has had no choice other than to keep dramatizing it—so as to get caught for it. She's waiting for you to teach her how to communicate responsibly.  It could be said that she's set up life to get acknowledged (caught) for a time when she treated you or another abusively and has yet to acknowledge (say/admit) that she did so. Although dozens of such interactions might come to mind, we're looking for the very first one—from which all other abuses were generated. Sometimes a child will unconsciously be driven to fail in life and relationships to punish parents who failed to teach the child how to be successful and happy.

Notice also that she operates from the point of view that she never can, nor does she ever want to, have a loving supportive relationship with him again. She intuitively knows that if she cleaned it all up, (read—accept responsibility for having caused the very first, and still unresolved, breakdown in communication and, for masterminding the divorce) she'd experience love with him (which is true, communication always produces love without attachment or need). She would have the realization that she used him; that she snagged and dragged him through her growth process enroute to relationship/life mastery. And, she thinks it would mean that she'd have to re-marry him—which of course is not true. Someone taught her to create and destroy relationships and to turn others against others. That's you. You did that. Who in your life would say you are treating them as she is treating you and her ex?

Re: "mastermind" If, back when you conceived her, I had given you the task of getting her to relate as she is now, you'd have to do it all over again only this time, you'd do it consciously. Just because you don't know how you produced a result doesn't mean that it was not your intention, however unconscious you may have been. Another woman would have produced a different result--yes?

Could part of this friction be a consequence (the karma) of one or more withholds you have with your ex-son-in-law? Is it possible you had considerations about your daughter, which if you had "mentioned," at the very beginning, he might not have married her? In other words, had you been open and honest with him you would have sat him down, in front of her, and told him that you have considerations about her readiness for marriage. You would have told him, "She is immature. She tends to be spiteful. She holds grudges; she mirrors my addiction to blaming and she doesn't do her fair share of housework without being reminded. I failed to teach her many things." Could part of it be that you are paying yourself back for dumping her on him—specifically, that you haven't completed educating-training your daughter? Has she demonstrated to you how to clean a window?

Now, let's look at what's upsetting her so much that she doesn't want you to even talk with him: Because you weren't driven to use the words "physical abuse," "criminal," "perversions," "drugs," or "cheating" in describing her reasons for divorcing him I'm assuming it's something else and that she's been withholding it from you—for possibly embarrassing reasons (I.e. He could only have sex with his clown hat on, or some unacceptable behavior). Your job is to find out what she's hiding from you. It must be something important because she's been holding this position for several years. It's important to know if she has a valid (moral, ethical, or legal) reason, or, if she is immaturely stuck dramatizing an upset she caused. You could invite him for a sit-down, "I have question for you, is this a good time?  What do you think is behind Jenny's upset about me interacting with you?" And, after that answer, ask, "What did you do (or not do) to manipulate her into initiating the divorce?" Keep asking; at some level he knows. Remember, he's stuck in victim. He also intended the divorce. He covertly (consciously or unconsciously) manipulated her into initiating the divorce. He gets to look like the nice guy (the one who wants to make things work) while she looks like the ogre, the dissatisfied one—this manipulation verges on evil. Do look for yourself here somewhere; both are mirroring you.