No, you don't press charges . . . not if your goal is to someday have a relationship with your son. I would not have gone to file a report at the police station, if I had been you. Neither would I have tried to collect from my insurance company, had I been in your shoes.

Your son has feelings for you, which is why he got so emotional. If his heart was totally cold toward you, he just wouldn't bother with you at all. Deciding to just eat the thousand bucks worth of auto body damage is what you do in a situation like this. In the grand scheme of things, it's not serious money. He didn't get up that morning with a plan or intention to assault you or damage your car. It's you that drove over there in a gesture that I think was kind of passive-aggressive. "My wife and I were good enough to get these presents for the kids. We'll just humbly leave them at the foot of the stairs, so as not to trouble you, Son." That was kind of a way of needling him and acting like a martyr. And he blew up just like people do when they have been needled.

I'm not posting to put you down. You started this thread to get support. I believe you that you do love your son and grandchildren. But in the hostile back and forths, you are losing sight of your main goal. I don't think you even care that much about the money. But if you can get the police and the insurance company to see that you were the victim in the altercation, then that may be evidence - in your mind - that you did nothing wrong. That will help you feel vindicated. You kind of hope that will make your son take responsibility for not acting right.

Even if you could round up 50 eye-witnessess to say that your son was the aggressor, that won't fix anything between you and your son. You took the initiative in phoning him and in driving over to his house, when you had reason to suspect that he kind of wanted to be left alone. Try doing that. Leave the ball in his court. Be available, but hang back and be patient. Let him come around in his own good time.

Take your focus off the grandchildren. The person who should be most important to you is your son. When a marriage fails and a child is left to navigate in the context of a fractured family, then, yes, the parents do owe that child something extra - kind of like a debt that can never be fully paid. Kids shouldn't have to grow up in broken families. But adults screw up, and kids get penalized by that, and, yes, they get mad and stay mad. They can get over it, but, yes, you do have to work harder to form a bond than if you'ld never divorced his mother.

Stop fantasizing that his wife will leave him, and then you'll be able to relate to him better. Don't wish that on your grandchildren. Be glad he has a marriage that is working out. His wife doesn't trust you and that's okay becase she doesn't really know you.

Get together with him on his terms for now. If he wants that to be at his house, then fine. If he wants to stop by your house after 8 p.m., that doesn't have to be viewed as a huge inconvenience to you and your wife. 8 p.m. is not 3 a.m. Be willing to be the bigger person.

Maybe, now - for a while - he won't want much to do with you. Let the dust die down from this altercation. Not pressing charges will help that to happen. Bear in mind that you have no claim on those grandkids, independent of your relationship with him. He, the wife and kids are a package deal.