How do you convince someone that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?

I don’t know that you can. Control freaks have their own systems and it’s rare that any thing will change them. Approaching softly isn’t going to work any better than ranting and raving. Maybe a family intervention would help, if you have a professional person moderate it.

With honey, I imagine.

But the person who needs to understand that @Mariah, would have to SEE that the honey works and the vinegar doesn’t. They’d have to stop wanting to…. change it now! long enough to see that you can’t change it now.

I don’t know guys…I just get so frustrated. I spent several years grooming my daughter’s biological mother so that she’d give up my daughter without a fight…..I had to ignore her occasional power rants…“I’M her mother and I can take her and you’ll never see her again and there is NOTHING you can do about it!” ...and focus on the soothing, “I’m your friend. I understand. You can talk to me…” The next call would be “Can you guys watch her for this weekend?” Those weekends turned into weekdays, months, then years. I won. It took years, but I won. If she’d felt like I was her “enemy” or that we were in some sort of power struggle (which we were, but she didn’t realize it) or competition, she would have found someone else to watch my daughter over those weekends…weekdays, months….

I think it depends on the situation. I prefer with honey, I prefer to be nice, and I think many people respond to it. But some people won’t help without a push, and by push I mean I have to become a bitch. I hate it really.

As for your particular situation, it is probably something so a part of her, maybe she was stepped on her whole childhood, and finally she found some fight in her, and that worked, so she is always in a fighting mode. She may lack trust, feel people are always trying to take advantage of her or manipulate her. That is really really hard to change in people I find. They are hurt souls. She probably needs to work through unhappiness in her past, past before you, before she cam really deal with everyone in a calmer, more trusting manner.

All you can do, is do what you have done, try to be understanding, and be true to yourself and how you want to treat people.

I was trying to teach this concept to my son to stop the tantrums and get him to ask nice for things. One day, he didn’t ask nicely for something and I reminded him, ‘How do you catch more flies?’ and turned around with an angry look and said, ‘A FLYSWATTER!’

“those weekends turned into weekdays, months, then years. I won”

Do you know what effect that gentle mindfuck may have had upon your daughter when you were not around?
(is it possible your pressures towards the mum were released upon the child behind closed doors?)

You may feel like the champ but your “grooming” likely had an effect on your daughters home-life and experiences with her Mum.
Walk a mile. I was in a similar situation with my parents.

I have a step-son and sometimes doubt the mother’s commitment to his special needs, but I didn’t know it was a contest to win.

I am civil with her, even after all the shit she has put us through and the advantage she has taken, but, I’m his only other care giver, whether I’m given credit on paper or not. I certainly have NO rights when it comes to having a say in his care. I would never even THINK to use the word ‘manipulate’ when I describe how I treat her. She knows I’m here. She knows it’s me who looks after him when he’s with us. She also knows I feel awful that the boys father is such a screw up and that she and I are both victims of his neglect and mood swings. I feel that I shoulder the parenting responsibilities alone when the boy is with us. I also feel that the father has a responsibility to his boy to care for him, but the kid is between a rock and a hard place. A mother who resents the father and just ‘tosses’ the boy his way when it suits her, because of her career and extremely active social life…. and a father, who is emotionally stunted and immature, (apparently due to an ASD we are finding out) and who travels with little or no notice for about half the year. And here I sit. I wouldn’t say I’m honey or vinegar. I think I’m the cheese. And we know where the cheese stands.

I’m not sure I understand what this is about. Are you telling us what you did and how you were successful at winning your child away from the bio-mom? Are you demonstrating the “honey” technique? Or are you asking about some future problem? Or are you asking for other people’s experience with using honey instead of vinegar? Or do you just want a general conversation about honey and vinegar?

I’m a bit confused too, @wundayatta. I think she is a trying to prove that when dealing with child custody it is a war or a competition. She seems to be a proponent of an ancient saying by very famous manipulators, ‘Hold your friends close and hold your enemies closer.’

@Boogabooga1 I’d advise you to keep your opinions to yourself until you really understand a situation. You called it a “mind fuck.” Do you think it would have been better for my daughter to see me and her bio mother screaming like trailer trash at each other, and hurling disgusting insults? I was out to adopt that child, to keep her safe, and if I’d set up a war, it would have been impossible.

Let me give you just a snippet of further information so you can have a considered opinion.

Her mother was a druggie and a drunk. My future husband had no problem, what-so-ever getting full custody of her when she was 12 months old. Since this was in the late 70’s that says something. The woman abandoned “her” daughter several few months later. She was gone for almost two years with NO contact. If she’d had gone the full two years, I could have filed for adoption. It about killed me when she showed back up one month before the two years were up.
But, show up she did, and talk about a mind-fuck. The shit she did DEFINITELY hurt my daughter.
The first meeting between the two (Jen was 4 at the time) was scheduled to be at Di’s father’s house. It was just supposed to be her, her father, step mom and my daughter. Instead, there were about 10 people there, and all of them were yanging at this four year old that I was not her “real” mom, blah, blah, blah (I’d told Jen early on that I hadn’t given birth to her—long before Di even came back.) It hurt and confused Jen because…I was raising her! I was the one putting her to bed, and singing songs, and giving baths….
At one point Jen got a little testy, and her grandfather proceeded to show the mother how to take care of an “unruly child” and spanked her with a fucking BELT. This was at their first mother and child reunion. Touching. Lovely family.

Her bio mother was jumping from man to man (drunk to drunk.) One of her boyfriends slapped Jen when she was just 6.
There was never quite enough to prevent her from seeing Jen. This shit went on and on for 3 years, with Jen would come home all twisted up and confused after the occasional weekend visits Di would sometimes make. She would disappear for weeks and months at at time, then show up and demand her legal rights.
I lived, always, with the threat looming that I could lose my daughter. Di constantly reminded me of that fact.
So I worked like a slow drip…...I was non-judgmental and very neutral in my dealings with Di. I never criticized her, never berated her, listened to her and acted like a friend when she was being normal, but behind the scenes I was working madly with our lawyer, drafting motions and counter motions, building a case step by agonizing step.
She finally agreed to allow me to adopt, and it became legal on July 27, 1985.

So, @Boogabooga1, in all of your obvious wisdom, can you think of a better way for me to have dealt with it?