MIL never talks about proper things- just gossip and rubbish. Is this a thing?!

[Napqueen1234]

I’ve never met anyone like my MIL for chatting rubbish. I’ve met gossipers, people who talk about themselves constantly. But she almost talks about nothing. Case in point- today met for a walk in the park. My DH has just taken on a few new big jobs, DC1 about to start preschool and finishing nursery, DC2 6 months and changing every day. This week we had to isolate due to covid risk and go to A&E (she vaguely knew about these things). She asked nothing about any of them- instead talked for 40 minutes about a random friends caravan (no idea who they are) and her partners daughter. She loves seeing the DC but never texts to ask about them etc (I end up sending updates and pics as I feel we ought to keep her in the loop). It’s not like she’s selfish as she doesn’t talk about her, for reference she doesn’t do much has had the same job 30 years, doesn’t really socialise or have hobbies.

Would you do or say something? Sometimes I feel like interrupting her stories with ‘who the hell are these people I have absolutely no interest in can we talk about something else?!’. If I try to start conversations she just doesn’t engage and changes the subject back to something incredibly boring and unimportant. Does anyone else know anyone that does this?!

I also invest my time in gossip. I talk to strangers . I talk about strangers .
Oh yes I am on MN😂😂😂😂😂😂

@MrsJackRackham I was just going to say that my mum does that! It's like avoiding silence without actually saying anything. She also reads signs out in her "ooh lovely" voice - best one ever was "ooh simply pleasure dot com, wonder what that is..." "Mum it's a sex shop!" 🤣

MIL and SIL are exactly the same. MIL tells us all what her work friends SIL is doing to her villa. Like weekly updates. We will never meet the work friend let alone her SIL. Yet we know what tiles she’s picking.

SIL talks constantly about her DSs friends parents who we don’t know. But because MIL has heard so much, she acts like she’s known them for years and joins in the gossip.

So today instead of asking how DS is getting on with his new insulin pump, which is a big thing having a computer plumbed into him, the conversation revolved around SIL showing us Facebook photos of an old school friends BBQ, she wasn’t even invited because they haven’t actually spoken in years.

My mum is identical. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I'll be the same one day and my dcs will be saying the same about me. It's coming to us all....

Oh @MaximumDose don’t say that the thought of becoming that tedious is hideous!
Glad it’s not just mine then. Has anyone called them out on it and what happens?? If she was old I’d just roll with it but she’s not even 50 (had DH v young) I could have 40 more years of this! Honestly I avoid spending time with her because of it!

My mum's like this. I think if someone asked her what I did for a living she wouldn't be able to answer.
She has phoned me 5 times in the past 6 years ( we don't live near her).
She forgot one of my DCs birthday last year, but knows every little detail about every one of her neighbours.
It used to make me very sad, but I got over it. I love her, but she's a rubbish mum.

@dubiousdecision might use your method!

[quote heidipi]@MrsJackRackham I was just going to say that my mum does that! It's like avoiding silence without actually saying anything. She also reads signs out in her "ooh lovely" voice - best one ever was "ooh simply pleasure dot com, wonder what that is..." "Mum it's a sex shop!" 🤣[/quote]
This is brilliant!

My Mum’s been doing this for 20 years at least!

MIL has always done this. I find it so difficult to be polite and listen. I really don’t know what is the best way to react. Why, just why do people exist like this? What is going through their mind?

My mum is just like this! I find it quite upsetting actually. She never used to be like this but the last few years she's gotten so bad! She I know loves my DC but she never asks about them or takes much interest in their lives. She texts me every single day but half the time doesn't e en ask me how we are, she just witter on about the same woman at work or updates their holiday home. If I say anything about our lives she just turns it back to be about herself somehow. It makes me sad really as we used to be very close, she probably thinks we still are as she just lives in cloud cuckoo land.

Love this thread! I'm feeling so much better knowing I'm not alone. Same problem here 🖐️ my MIL lives 6 hours away so visits are always about a week long. During this time silence only occurs when she is asleep. She will talk while I wear my best attentive listening face, for hours, then if you pick up a book and Start To Read It, just to try to get some respite from the non-stop verbal river, she just keeps on going. Comfortable silences are not a thing. If you try to talk about anything she will leap on the most tenuous connection to stop you dead in your tracks to talk about that similar thing happening to her (only it's 40 years ago, not last week and you've heard it x100 already). If I have to hear about the time she crossed the river and had to pour her wellies out on the other side (it ran right off her knees!) One more time... We never fail to gasp in amazement at how adventurous she is at the right points in the story. 😱😱

Please tell me this is not an inevitable feature of advanced years. I really don't want to become this way. 😳

Please tell me this is not an inevitable feature of advanced years. I really don't want to become this way. 😳

Course it is.

Why would any of us be any different?

Bet all these twittering old women never thought they'd be such a monumental pain in the arse to their long suffering younger relatives.

My MIL does this too!! honestly you can walk away whilst she's on the phone for a shower go back and she is still talking! The worst thing is she uses whatever you do tell her as gossip with other people in Morrisons (daily visit) so I am now known as XXX daughter in law who is depriving her son of children, they know when i got married etc when I went in last week a worker stopped me and said how sorry there were to hear about my gone wrong operation. My Husband is the Hero with the nagging wife who forces him to make every decision. Obvs.

My DM! Drones for England about nothing. Pet subject : The number of cars in her road at any given time and their owners.

Solidarity.

At what age did your MILs/DMs start to behave like this? Asking for a friend.

To be honest its not age with my DM - she has been obsessed with "the cars in the road" for about 20 years.

This thread makes me sad. I wish my MIL was slighly annoying rather than spending every minute critical.

Oh my mum is like this! Worst is when I go visit on a Sunday and we go for a walk round the village after lunch and listen to the exact. same. monologue. every. time. All about what was going on in different houses / families 25 years ago when I still lived at home. "Ooh that's where Doris used to live, remember she had that dog? I used to do her shopping for her. She smoked like a chimney, her whole house smelled. And her neighbour was the lollipop lady, remember? Her daughter was in your year at school" (She wasn't. She was in my sister's. As I remind my mum every bloody time We walk past bloody Doris's house.) It was boring in 1995 when it was taking place, and it's boring and irrelevant now

My DM is like this and always has been (She is quite young) .
She makes a point about something in her stories, repeatedly.
Today she had to speak to someone regarding a missing parcel, she told me atleast 10x " I did'nt like her attitide at all".
My Dm also, always talks about random people who I don't know and what they've been up too! If I tell hwr I don't know them, she tries to tell me who they are and how I would know them via this persons" Great aunts, friends relative".
I've tried telling her nicely and not nicely ,that I don't care but ,she carries on anyway.
Drives me insane!!!

My MIL too! It's mostly embarrassing details about people we don't know. My DH's old school friend's sister had a boyfriend who had Crohn's disease. We heard every gory detail for over a year, it was a bit of a running joke what she would tell us next. Then we were invited to the old school friend's wedding. Could not look him in the eye, poor guy!

And then there was DH's cousin who was having IVF. How did she know so many details?! Life lesson: don't tell your MIL anything that you wouldn't put on Facebook!

Oh god OP, my mum is like this.

This is a typical conversation between us:

DM: "Ooh you know my friends John and Wendy?"
Me: "No"
DM: "Well, their daughter Julia has just got a job teaching in Thailand, which is great except she had so much bother with her landlady when she moved out her Balham flat, they refused to refund her deposit because she burnt the carpet with straighteners."
Me:
DM: "which has caused all sorts of problem as she can't mitigate when she's in Thailand, so many crooks landlords these days. Dave Stubbs, you remember Dave Stubbs?"
Me: "No"
DM: "Dave had a brief spell as a landlord but his tenants left water ring marks on the kitchen worktops, awful, some people. Look at that woman, isn't she fat! So many fat children about today too. Christine's child Emma, you know Christine and Emma?"
Me: "No"
DM: "Well Emma is ever so chubby, though I'm not surprised, Christine never says no to her and she breastfed her til she was 3 which doesn't help. Did you know breastfeeding causes obesity? I read it in the Daily Mail. I bet Julia's cowboy landlady is obese. Ooh did I tell you our neighbours just got a new patio set?"
Me: "Did they. I might be getting made redundant by the way."
DM: "Oh you'll be fine your work think you're brilliant. And anyway just go on the dole if you lose your job. Did you know illegal immigrants on the dole get seventy billion pounds a week plus £4000 Tesco vouchers? Disgusting."

Sadly the polite thing to do is smile and nod. And be glad you only see her now and then. There's no nice way of telling someone they talk shit

My nan does this. Talls for hours about people ive never heard of. Jesus christ she also cant just say "my friend june two streets away", no, she has to give full context every single time. So "my friend june, shes 81 now younger than me, well her parents moved to london from bradford in 1932 and her dad owned a shoe shine shop and she met a man named harold and they moved to manchester and they had 2 girls, one of them went to university and became a nurse, i think she works in singapore now and her other daughter has just had a baby so is at home, well harold and june have lived in the house shes in now two streets away for the last 20 years and she recently got a new fireplace, did you know she was born in basildon?..... Takes a breath.... Ten minutes later.... Well anyway i bumped into june at the shop earlier and she got some new shoes you should have seen them. ". Fuck me it goes on.