Anyone else have self absorbed parents and PIL's?

There are some harsh comments here aimed at older people. I speak as someone in their sixties. My DM lived until her 90s and remained interested in the family, but found actually seeing them in her latter years hard work - hearing problems, mobility problems etc stressed her.
Even now I find life takes more effort than it did in 40s/50s, so a bit more of my energy is focused on my functioning. I am still very interested in my kids lives, am involved with them and know/ask what’s going on, but I can see how that diminishes with age and less energy. Face it vipers, it’s part of aging (at least for a large proportion of the population) and you’ll likely do it too. You’ll just be on gransnet complaining that your kids and grandkids are self absorbed and glaze over when you talk to them about your life………!

Absolutely 100% hear you on this.
My Mum never asks me anything about my life. If I tell her anything I’ve been up to she just doesn’t hear it and talks about herself 😵‍💫
Shes completely self absorbed 😏

FIL has definitely got much worse in retirement but it’s just exacerbated this side of him rather than it being a complete personality change.

He has to be absolutely right about everything too, so we don’t even bother correcting or arguing with him about anything now because it’s not a conversation or an exchange of information, it’s him getting louder, visibly angry and even verbally hostile until the other party gives up. Even when it’s proved he’s wrong he still somehow twists things so in his own mind he’s right.

It’s his world and we’re all just bit-part players in it.

If only there was a consensus of opinion on what 'normal' looks like, you might be on to something. Sadly, it tends to be subjective, variable and dicated by the preferences of the younger people in the situation. Which is kind of my point.

I wondered if it was this with Dmum - plus her social circle is very small. Though TBF she asks about the DGC - just not always interested in even very short answers.

IL have always been a bit this way - it's just getting slowly more and more as they age. Though also wonder if 6+ years into retirement- their social circle has slowly but steadily declined as people lose touch depite them making huge efforts to have social groups.

In both case there lots of information about people we just don't know - a few with Dmum I feel like I should do even though never met - with IL get heavily confused as does DH.

Or just behave like a normal adult and you'll be fine..?

I wonder if it's based in a fear of becoming irrelevant? I know I had a similar thing when I was coming to terms with living with disability. My life shrunk and changed quickly and unexpectedly, it knocked my confidence massively and I would 'prep' things to talk about and struggle if people changed the course of the conversation. I was very poor company and yes, quite self-obsessed for quite a while. Obviously aging is more easily anticipated but that doesn't mean that people are ready.

I'm not saying that this is the case for all of the people discussed above but I do feel the PP who got defensive at any suggestion that age may be a factor is doing other's a disservice in the same way that women who "didn't even notice it was going through the menopause" etc don't help women in general to be heard and supported.

Fortunately w8th my parents it's the opposite. They are less self-centered with age.
The PILs are nice enough when we see them but we have to initiate contact and conversation.

Very much yes to all of this. My parents are almost exactly as you describe OP. I don’t think my Dad has asked me a single question about my life in about 20 years. And now my Mum, who used to be more interested and chatty, has very much gone the same way 😞.

Yes my PIL but it's not age they've aways been like it.
Personally I find one sided conversations boring and stressful even if I'm the one talking. What's the point in communication if there's no input from the person you're talking to

It's sad that this seems fairly normal. It has happened to me, but my parents have been self-absorbed their whole lives, it's just got slightly worse. I don't have a lot of contact with them and when I do, it's almost as if I no longer exist. I notice it with elderly neighbours, quite a bit. They are the centre of their own little universe and we around them are expected to orbit their needs.

I know people whose parents are so loving and actually interested in their adult children, in including them in their lives in a lovely way. So it's not an inevitability. It's sad when it happens, though.

Yes my late DF was very much like this. He would never ask any questions about me or my life, my kids etc. If i offered up any info he would just go "hmmm" then turn the conversation back to himself. Definitely not an age thing, he was always like this and was only mid 60s when he passed away. I'm pretty sure he was ND in some way, not just because of this bit there were plenty other signs there.

It's a shame but my in-laws are like this too. Just used to talk about themselves and their holidays or their dance group etc. Very self-absorbed.
My mum is similar, but not as bad - at least she shows an interest in what her GCs are doing.
The one thing I found really sad is the lack of empathy. e.g. our DD (their only GD) had complex seizures as a baby - not even a call to check when she was in hospital. I got pneumonia after an emergency c-section - MIL was staying at the time and said 'it's just a little cold' shortly before I was taken to hospital. DS diagnosed with ASD - they really didn't seem interested.
At Christmas they would deliver the GCs stuff direct from Amazon and ask me to wrap their presents and also write the gift tags from them ... I wouldn't have minded so much but they retired at 50 and had all the time to organise fun grandparenty things compared to me, working full-time with 2 DCs under 5.
Minimal thought over nearly 40 years.
Maybe they were kinder people when they were younger.

I’ve a relative in her early 50s like this (so not old by any stretch!) but she’s always been self-absorbed to a mind boggling degree. The vast majority of the time spent with her is just her monologuing about the same 5 things she’s been talking about for years!

If you do manage to get a word in, her eyes glaze over and you get the vacant stare others have mentioned upthread. Even if she does ask a question she’ll cut you off mid answer and move onto something else. It’s incredibly tiresome and downright bloody rude.

I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t like this and then suddenly changed when they hit 70 or 80, though.

I recognise all of this!

There are two things that I think contribute to it for my Dad… one is that he doesn’t feel valued or useful since he retired - he liked working as he felt he was of value, now I think he almost has to justify his importance by putting himself at the centre of his own world. (I’m not sure of that explanation makes any sense, but it occurred to me this might be what it is)

Secondly, and unrelated to the above he has been having counselling / therapy for the last few years and I think he has now become accustomed to someone just listening to him for an hour at a time, asking what do you feel about that and so on. Everything in those sessions is about him, and now it’s like he’s forgotten the art of two way conversation.

I try to be supportive and sympathetic to both of the things I’ve outlined above, as he’s obviously not coping well with it, and want him to be able to talk to me about things that are bothering him, but my word it is SO exhausting.

Yep, my dad is like this, pretty much all his life, I think he has main character syndrome. Never asks any of his adult children about their lives, totally self absorbed, disinterested until he has a health crisis, then has a mantrum when we don't jump to attention. He never rings me, but expects unquestioning care when he wants it. I'm too old for his nonsense now. I've gone minimal contact.

My FIL is very much like this.

The last time we saw him he hadn’t seen DS for months. He had barely said hello before he started talking about himself for a good 45 minutes. Then he asked DS something very specific about uni but then interrupted DS in the middle of the first sentence of his reply, to talk about how FIL did that same ‘thing’ when he was younger, and then monologued about it for at least half an hour.

I’ve realised that on the rare occasions he pretends to show any interest in any of us, it’s usually a very pointed question so that he can talk about himself.

We brace ourselves any time we know we’ll be seeing him. it’s exhausting. I take some consolation that it’s not just with us. He’s so loud and bombastic and simply doesn’t care as long as he’s the main character in the room.

Wow thanks so much for posting this… I absolutely can relate and thought it was just me!!!
My Dad in particular is now very much like this. I find it infuriating, so much so I dread catching up. We don’t live near each other so only meet up a few times a year, but any time we are in person or on the phone it’s like this for hours on end. I’ve had huge life changes, new jobs, redundancy, a friend passing away, a bit of illness, as well as all the usual nice events and holidays and he literally has not asked me about a single one.
If I do tell him something about my life he will immediately reply with “oh yes, such and such has just had that happen too / has been there too / lost their job too” and then the whole tale becomes about whatever it is that happened to that person I’ve never met or even heard of. Or himself if it’s happened to him.
So so frustrating and exhausting.

My MIL is like this. My DS has just finished his first year at uni, and last time we visited she told us lots of stories about when she was at uni which a) we've heard before and b) took place 65 years ago!

My parents aren't like this at all though. They want to hear all about what me and their DGC are up to.

I think this is a classic example of the term narcissistic being over used.

The opening post seems to imply some resentment at them enjoying their lives.

I think a lot depends on the personality. I replied earlier about MILs blank stare with no contributions to conversation but she was always very quiet and never had much to say anyhow, now her life has shrunk due to disability she sadly has nothing to say. She never had friends or hobbies either. My dads eternal monologues I've described above were always there, they are just worse now and painful to listen to. However my Gran who lived into her 90s was always utterly self absorbed, but quick witted and interesting and a great story teller. Even in her 90s with cognitive decline she repeated the same story 100 times and often forget where she was, but she remained interesting and funny and good company. I never minded listening.

I am another one who has noticed this with my parents and in laws. My MIL it happened a bit later, until mid 70s she was very interested in others. My parents, well mostly my Mum it was late 60s it started. A quick question to the DC and then relate it to something about themselves. They then wonder why my DC disappear off to their rooms when they visit.

Both Grannies used to have great conversations with the DC on how they were doing in sports etc. Now it's just a cursory how are you, only it seems because they feel they have to.

Oh yes, he thinks if he bins the pills or takes the whole days pills at once, someone will rush round there!

All that actually happens if he does that is he's in pain or if he takes them all, he falls asleep more. He tried to wind the carer up by saying he'd taken all his pills the other day, carer was nonchalant and not fussed so he called him a 'useless fuckmonkey' (the carer said that was a new one on him!)...

He's refused point blank to entertain CPAP, getting very dramatic and threatening to shoot himself (an empty threat he has been trying to emotionally blackmail us with for the better part of 40 years. He has no gun nor access to one!) - but moans that he NEVER sleeps properly. He has severe obstructive sleep apnea, I am sure he is very sleep deprived and will feel awful as a result but apparently its not that at all, according to HIM the truth is he has ME and no one cares nor will treat it.

To counter the “it’s age” point of view, my mother has always been exactly like this; I recognise all that from childhood.