Anyone else's PIL tell the SAME stories all the time

[avocuddl]

Even when I say, oh yes you've told this one before, they'll continue to retell the bloody anecdote that wasn't witty, funny or interesting the first time.

I think I need to work on my fake interested face and fake laugh.

I'm sorry for your loss @wannabebetter

My MIL is the same, what’s worse is she cuts off my children (her only GC) when they occasionally get a word in edgeways to talk about something, to tell the same lengthy boring anecdotes about her profoundly amazing career (it really wasn’t). They usually just give up bothering to speak at all.

All she wants is an audience to her same few endless monologues.

downwenttheflag I’m interested in the one about the carbon monoxide alarm?!

Well aren’t you a lot of charming people. I hope that one day you don’t have a parent with dementia who at one point repeats themselves and eventually can’t speak at all.

@DownWentTheFlag @Thankssomuch I wanna know about the Asda cafe

My in-laws do, my MiL especially will tell the same story a couple of minutes later, but her short term memory is starting to fail and we listen because we love her.

Over and over and over.

FILs ones change, at this point there are variations of how I met DP, the plot is along the lines of FIL felt sorry for me and made DP date me - none of them are true.
(but what would I know, its not like I was there when we met or anything, right!?)

MILs stories are retold every time someone walks in the room/doesn't walk in the room, I think they're followed by a full page newspaper add and a emailed voice recording to make sure every living soul heard about the bacon and egg pie she got from the gas station.
Tune in next week for: "I found the remote under a cushion"

(neither of my PILS are suffering from age related memory loss etc, this is just the norm)

My parents don’t do this.

My PIL do. I don’t understand why they think it’s reasonable to tell the same repetitive stories over and over again. My FIL gets irritated when we say “yes, you’ve already told us that”.

It drives me absolutely bonkers. They’ve been this way in the 20 years I’ve known them so they were only in their 50s then.

Well I certainly hope I don't either TheFaerieQueene. I am sorry - it sounds as you are in that situation.

But the OP wasn't talking about people with dementia.

It’s my mum in my case. I feel your pain.

My grandad tells me the same few stories about his work (retired 35 years, local gov administration). It can feel unbearable to have to sit through the same repeated monologues week after week, however, I try not to judge too harshly seeing as though I may do the same when I get older.

avvocuddl downwenttheflag actually yes, there can’t be that many stories about an Asda cafe.

Oh yes. Sometimes they'll even tell it 3 or 4 times in a row, one after the other, although I've already heard it hundreds of times over the years.

They also have some seriously shit tea-based banter. Can't put the kettle on without at least 3 or 4 tea cliches, all said in a weird cockney accent. And they're Irish.

God you lot are ageist, I know plenty of people of all ages who do this, one of DS's friends (aged 30) is a prime example.

Thinking about it, I know a fair few younger people who do this, so maybe it's a personality trait.

@TheFaerieQueene my grandma had Alzheimers and it was very sad for the whole family. It sounds like you are going through the same with a relative. I hope you have good support (I don't mean that to sound patronising or false). I read the OP to mean people who are fit and well yet love the sound of their voice so much that they will repeat monologues, even when they know that the audience has heard it many times before.

Absolutely not talking about anyone with dementia and I'm sorry if I have offended anyone but it certainly was not my intention @TheFaerieQueene

@EstrellaDamn tea banter 😂😂 like what? I need an example. Hilarious

Bores are depressing, aren't they. People flee when they see some of my elderly male relations. Quite right too.

The work ego men are the worst. No one was put on the planet to be the rapturous audience to a show off. At some point it becomes rude, too.

If only the Asda cafe story was interesting enough to tell!!

@avocuddl this is how it goes:

MIL - anyone want a cup of tea? (Switch to cockney) A nice cuppa tea. Caaant beat a laaaaaavely cuppa tea. As long as it's hot and wet. Laaaaaavely cup a tea.

And on and on until the fucking tea is made. I don't even drink fucking tea.

My FIL does this much to my MIL’s chagrin. My parents are too active and well travelled to have got to that stage yet, but my DF occasionally says the same saying (such as ‘life’s rich tapestry’ and the like), which amuses me on occasion.

My parents are repeaters and have been for a couple of decades, so it's not age even though they are starting to get on a bit now.

My mother just likes hearing the sound of her own voice and in the absence of anything new to say, will crack out one of the old, well trodden tales. She will repeat new stories if she has them too. I often have to hear about the most recent drs trip 15 times during a visit.

For some people it's definitely personality based as opposed to neurological.

DP's Mum does this. She isn't elderly, just fucking boring and lives in a bubble.

It's always the same stories about how lazy and what a shit mum DP's ex and mother of his children was and about what a good dad DP has been. Last time she did it I told her that he can't have been that much of a good dad if his children were living such shit lives with their mum yet he only had them EOW. She hasn't told the stories again.

My late FIL did this. We miss him hugely, and now the dcs quite often re-tell his stories. I think they remember him by them.