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Original poster

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

219 replies

Napqueen1234 · 31/07/2020 22:00

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?!

OP posts:
Therarestone · 31/07/2020 23:48

You sound fun. Damn that woman making an effort with you.

TDMN · 31/07/2020 23:58

My MIL is like this albeit lovely. They are one of those families that will spend less than a minute talking about big things (new house, new job, getting married) but HOURS dissecting any medical aches and pains or dodgy driving.

RyanBergarasTeeth · 01/08/2020 00:02

@TDMN yes to medical things! My nan can talk for hours and hours about her medical problems as well as people she barely knows but she always seems to know every detail.

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applemousey · 01/08/2020 00:03

Ugh this is mine too. My favourite was the life story of the lovely 'Andy' who eventually (when asked who the fuck he was) turned out to be the guy who sold her insurance 🤦🏻‍♀️

HopeClearwater · 01/08/2020 00:07

@GlummyMcGlummerson brilliant

IdblowJonSnow · 01/08/2020 00:08

I've a friend who is a former colleague who can be dreadful for this. She cant be interrupted either. Its maddening. Shes lovely but I can only cope with her once a year for this reason. She does ask about me and my family too though at least.

Malin52 · 01/08/2020 02:50

My MIL is very very similar. Unfortunately one of my good friends is starting to do this. It seems as though for every topic of conversation she has a friend I've never met who has a tangential experience she needs to tell us about in detail.

Me: I've brought some bread for our lunch
Friend: oh great, my friend Jo at work made some bread recently, she brought it in for us to try, ooh it was really good shes just had her kitchen done they decided not to get an island after all they've decided to spend it on a holiday to Greece since their dog died did I tell you that.. no I don't think I did she's really sad....
Me: oh

Me: work has been a bit of nightmare recently, I had to work 10 hours a day last week
Friend: well I haven't seen Susan at the gym for ages sounds like her work is being awful she thinks she's putting in a greviance actually but after the divorce she thinks it would be too stressful for her she needs her yoga though so I'm really worried I think I'll ask her out for lunch actually
Me:oh right

Anordinarymum · 01/08/2020 02:54

Don't be so harsh on these older ladies. They have lived a life just like you are doing. Yes they repeat themselves, and yes they are annoying. My children tell me I am annoying. They tell me I repeat myself. So what?

linerforlife · 01/08/2020 03:03

God this is weird - my MIL is like this toooooo! It's so annoying. I'm 100% sure she has no idea what I do for work and she never asks me about how my week was, but will always tell me the ins and outs of someone's life I don't know. Usually she doesn't really know them anymore either but is friends on Facebook!!

managedmis · 01/08/2020 03:03

I'd find this quite soothing, I reckon

Anordinarymum · 01/08/2020 03:07

And... you will all end up just like it :)

teaflake · 01/08/2020 03:24

Horrifying.

RaisinGhost · 01/08/2020 03:29

My mum is like this! She does show an interest in us and the dcs and talks about them and keeps up with our lives. But apart from that it's all old gossip about people I don't know.

I try to bring up current affairs and she just brushes me off, with a bit of an eye roll like I'm saying something so boring that no one wants to talk about! No matter now big the news. For example, if I brought up the topic of brexit one day after the referendum, she would reply "yeah yeah we voted leave" like it's old, boring news. Then go on to blab about her ex colleague Mildred's rising damp problem from 1991.

RaisinGhost · 01/08/2020 03:40

Is it inevitable though? My dad and MIL aren't like this. Although our conversations aren't always sparkling, they always bring up news, politics and issues, as well as books and TV/movies.

WeEE · 01/08/2020 03:57

Haha my Mum does this as well! It makes it seem like she doesn't actually have any interest in my life, or the important things at all. She's a bit dippy and forgetful and never asks about anything going on in my/partners/kids lives.

I don't think people like this change. The only good thing is that she's not doing what a lot of MIL's do and commenting on your parenting constantly, telling you to do everything her way and turning up totally unannounced because she's so obsessed.

Some perks there 😂.

fallfallfall · 01/08/2020 04:01

i think it's a coping mechanism. not to discuss anything controversial. at least not with you. she may have very strong opinions that she shares with her friends. go with the flow. at least rest assured she will not be grilling you on the latest emerging world leaders and political coups.

cafenoirbiscuit · 01/08/2020 04:05

My MIL does a fine line in irrelevant shite. Notable was the 20 minute monologue about sandwich varieties available at Budgens. Sadly, this took place when she met her first grandchild for the first time. Was she interested in him? Not remotely.

Wasabiprawns · 01/08/2020 04:11

My mum and dad both do this. My SIL asked me why. They’re particularly bad when they get together (divorced). If I don’t pass this info to my husband, the story is that me and DH don’t talk to each other about anything.

I haven’t lived in the town for 25 years and DH has never lived there so we have no idea who they’re talking about.

MitziK · 01/08/2020 04:21

DP veers into this territory from time to time. Once he starts talking about something that happened when he was a kid with x friend, the one that he did y with and he's kept in touch with occasionally, because he lives in z after he met a girl in b town when they were all drinking there after something else happened on one night of the Goose Fair but before that, he lived over f way on the farm where they had g dogs and a herd of Devon Reds where the bull was a right bastard and they ended up leaping the hedgerow to get away from it on more than one occasion.... I know that the only way to get through it quickest is to say

Yes
Yes
Oh
Yes
Right
OK

'Ideal. Now, what 'appened was...'

I believe the ability to string a nine word sentence out into a fifteen minute monologue is instilled in them as soon as they first taste moor water.

Mind you, talking to randoms aged about 86 in pubs round there gets you some cracking tales. Maybe he aspires to become one of them.

Allthebubbles · 01/08/2020 04:21

What I want to know is when do these people listen long enough to absorb all the stories? Obvs not the ones who are on a loop of a few repeat stories but the ones who know every irrelevant detail of someone else's life but show no interest in yours?

Do they actually listen on some level and then the details of your life get recycled to a different set of listeners?

mayormaynot · 01/08/2020 04:22

Yes, my mother. She will tell me soooo much detail about a top she saw shopping that she did not buy?!! "It was sky blue, maybe more turquoise, sort of Mediterranean turquoise, quite bright but not as bright as the blue my neighbours, sisters aunt in law wore to WI that time. A sort of blue with a bit for green in, you know? And the stitching, it was sort of round, with peaks, maybe more oval peaks..." WTF, why am I hearing this?! Also the medical and bowel details of anyone she ever met. Ugh...

NoSquirrels · 01/08/2020 04:29

I’m not sure it’s inevitable- or it’s in the delivery. My MIL is like this, has been for well over 20 years and unfortunately I think it contributed to her marriage breakdown. It’s extremely wearing - she is a good person and she helps us out greatly but it is so hard to deal with on a regular basis. My DGM, by contrast, 20 years older than her, would also tell me stories about the neighbours and discuss stuff off the telly etc but it was proper two-way conversation and interesting because she made it so and because she was genuinely interested in other people’s lives and happy to talk about different subjects and topics. And she rarely repeated an anecdote. Some people are good at talking, some are good at conversation and the two things are not remotely the same!

WhattheHhashappened · 01/08/2020 04:38

Do they actually listen on some level and then the details of your life get recycled to a different set of listeners?

I wonder this too!

1forAll74 · 01/08/2020 04:40

I don't know what age MIL you are referring to here, but if maybe 70 plus, like me. I often get told by my two 40 ish aged children, that I repeat myself when chatting to them, that I have old fashioned views on modern life etc, and basically, telling me to not waffle on about a crap neighbour, or any other mundane everyday issues that come my way. So I don't ever bang on about my smaller kind of life now, as opposed to their much busier, and so called more interesting lives ha ha.

I have been half told that I am an ok MIL. meaning to say great, but not allowed to say great about a MIL HA HA,

Scarby9 · 01/08/2020 04:52

@RyanBergarasTeeth I have a friend who does that!
She isn't old (mid 60s) but lives with her parents (90s) and they are similar. All with their buttons fully on, and really interested in life BUT tell long, convoluted stories about people we don't know with so many descriptive asides that it is really, really hard to keep track of the main narrative.

Sometimes I just let it happen, especially in lockdown when we have spoken every other day, but sometimes I engage.

I ask 'Is this bit in brackets?' 'Are we still on brackets?' 'Does that have anything at all to do with the main point of his story? I'm losing track' ' Is the Guinea pig essential to this story?'. She laughs, but it doesn't stop her.

During lockdown (and she has been truly locked down - has literally only left the front gate once apart from a few GP / hospital appointments), it has got a lot worse, as the only stories she has to offer are from other phone calls from people I don't know, or TV programmes I don't watch. I know everything there is to know about every single case on Supervet, for example.

The difference from OP's MIL is that she (as are her parents )s genuinely interested in anything I tell her about my life. I like to imagine how I am described when she retells my anecdotes on her subsequent phone calls.
'Scarby9 - you know, lives in X near to Y - the one who broke her leg badly on that skiing trip to Borovetz when he was on honeymoon? The one who has the tadpoles? The one with the pond that got choked with duck weed and her dad has an OBE. Got it on that really hot day at the palace in 2005. They took a photo with some beefeaters then had lunch in Claridges, but they managed to get the fixed price £30 menu, so that was a bargain. Well she...'
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