I interrupt MIL selfish monologues with yes I know, you told me this before.

@nomas

I am nice actually. I don't treat family members with contempt because I find them tedious. I'm not catty or bitchy to my relatives, my colleagues or my friends. I treat people kindly. The OP doesn't.

You sound nice. Not.

YANBU. My mother is the same.

She was abroad at the time my twins were born. It was before the era of free calls on what’sapp, so I had to spend £20 on a phone card to ring her from the hospital bed.

i think the phone card gave me precisely 6 minutes to call her. In that time, she asked zero questions about her two new premature grandchildren. In stead she told me stories of her own c-sections. I wasn’t asked how I was doing, just all prehistoric information from 30 odd years previously.

She also managed to not listen to the correct spelling of one of my
daughters names (nothing quirky, just a name with various different spellings). The wrong spelling was then shared widely amongst extended family, so came home to a pile of cards all with the wrong name on.

Haha that's a no , would have been funny to find my sil on here .

Does she maybe have adhd?? I thought i was relating to what people were saying by adding a similar story (I do wait until they're finished though) and have recently been told you are not supposed to do this? I had no idea. I would be able to take the hint though of I was interrupted or told that id already told them. Mum also does it but interrupts on the middle of a story I'm telling but I believe she also has adhd so just finish after she's told hers 😆

She/ people like that must want to be part of the situation or conversation, but as their world is so small, they have nothing but old stories to regurgitate.

I don't understand all these posts saying 'poor MIL'. She sounds like an utter pain in the arse. My own mother can be a tiiinyyy bit like this. She isn't narcissistic and she means well, but she can talk over people. I don't let her get away with it. If we're in company and she starts talking over someone, I'll tell her 'let X finish, don't interrupt'. Some people might think I was being rude, but actually she has got better since I started speaking up.

As for all the 'maybe she's neurodivergent': I have two things to say. 1) You don't know whether she is or not. 2) It doesn't matter anyway, as being ND isn't an excuse for being rude and annoying. I am always astonished on here by how being ND is treated as a get out of jail free for all kinds of nonsense. If I were autistic or had ADHD, I would be utterly mortified to think that people were merely tolerating my presence out of kindness and charity and because they thought I didn't know any better and couldn't learn to behave appropriately in company. The expression 'the soft bigotry of low expectations' comes to mind.

I thought I was quite polite actually.

I always feel sorry for posters who go to the trouble of starting threads, then some people don't seem to read them properly.

Some of the suggestions here are lovely and well meaning but clearly show the posters have never met someone like this!
They don't care whatever you say they'll just carry on regardless!

Bulldozing over a group of people to dominate the conversation with pointless bullshit - and not stopping when it's clear nobody wants to hear it - is also a form of bullying.

First of all you excused OP's MIL's behaviour because, according to you, she was obviously old and frail. OP has confirmed that her MIL has been like this since she first met her when she was 52, so now you saying that OP hates her.

Constant monologues are normally a sign of a self-absorbed and self-centred person. OP probably dislikes her MIL because her MIL isn't likeable.

Ha! Yes he is actually called John. Is your husband a Mike 😬🤣

Well, obviously it’s a very dismissive and rude thing to do but it sounds like she’s quite challenging.

Was she only speaking to you, or to the rest of the table too? If she’s speaking to everyone and you keep interrupting to say you’ve already heard it, that’s also quite humiliating.

It's boring and tedious but is she actually horrible outside of it?

My FiL could have bored for Britain. I learned to cope with it by making sure that I had a book or magazine available, or at the very least some knitting or crochet. At times it must have been obvious that I was engrossed in my book and just saying "Mm" occasionally, but I don't think he really cared so long as he could carry on uninterrupted.

@GoldDuster

"OP hasn't anywhere indicated she's spoken to her MIL like shit on her shoe"

I think repeatedly interrupting someone to stop them talking because they're boring you is talking to them like 'they're shit on your shoe'.

Being boring, repetitive and a bit self obsessed (we only have the OP's word for this) makes someone a bit tedious. It doesn't make them intrinsically bad people or unworthy of kindness.

We all know people like this. My brother in law is profoundly like this - and my husband and I laugh about it when we get home from a family event. But when we see him we treat him with kindness and don't try to embarrass him or put him down.

It sounds to me like the OP hates her MIL and has demonstrated this by treating her with contempt at a family event.

I'm glad I don't have someone as bitchy as the OP in my family.

YANBU to be irritated but try to ignore it and don’t give it your energy.
My Mum is a bugger for doing this. I could tell her I’d had a heart attack and was on life support and she’d turn it back to her 🙄
Ignore and move on 💪🏻

Your husband isn't called John is he ? Maybe he's my husband's brother ! 😂

@Sabire9

Some people are really quite unbearable. Some of them are your partners family. It's not new news. This happens.

OP hasn't anywhere indicated she's spoken to her MIL like shit on her shoe, but she has said that she finds her diatrabe annoying and inappropriate, and it's been going on for years since MIL was around 50, so this is not an age related condition, she's possibly just a self centred pain in the arse. They walk amongst us.

Ewww this reminds me of DH's grandmother. She thinks her opinion and dialogue is the only thing anyone ever wants to listen to. It's awful and makes me hate spending time with her.

😂

I know your pain because I have at least 3 close relatives who behave like this.

They were never taught to listen. In their head, every conversation is other side giving them cues to go on about. If you say your knee hurts, they will give you an essay on knee. If you say lost weight, they will make a speech on their weight loss journey. Throw me a topic and I will speak for 5 minutes on that 🤣

Op did nothing wrong.

Your dh is quiet because growing up his mother did talking for him.

My sister is like that and my MI, they are bad listeners and prefer to talk.

You did great by telling her you’ve heard her stories before.

My mum does this. If i say that parking is tight up my street she will start a monologue about her neighbours. When i lost a bit of weight she droned on about her diet. When i hurt my knee my mum started rabbiting on about her cut finger. She also bleeted on about when she broke her leg when she was 4. She was shocked when my knee wasn't fully healed after 6 weeks. I got a monalogue about how her leg was healed in 6 weeks.