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?!

Am sad to recognise elements of this in myself and certainly friends. I do the road sign comments thing. Often my own internal monologue spoken out loud - oh that interesting antique market next week or look a chimney sweep, don't see many of them. Must drive OP mental!
My best friend does the endless minute details of other people's lives though, particularly on the phone. I often end calls quickly for that reason or theres 45mins of my life gone on random natter.

Interesting to think that snippets of my life get repeated endlessly to others if she is listening though. Face to face it's not the same at all, so perhaps these stories are some sort of 'filler' when talking on the phone? Almost automatic pilot for her?

Lol! I have a friend just like this.

Sometimes I catch myself doing something similar. As a way to manage my anxiety I try to notice positive things around me. I've caught myself doing it out loud to others and it makes for very tedious conversation 'what a sunny day!' 'That dog is cute!' 'Oh look how happy that boy with the ice cream is'

I sound moronic.

This is a good reminder to stay on top of this!

I'm frightened I'm starting to do this. I need to go to finishing school and relearn the art of conversation.

My brain is turning into a sort of keyword Tombola. Someone saying Jam" clearly and distinctly presses a lever in my brain and something about jam comes out of my mouth.

I'm too young to have lost my higher functions.

My mum is just like your @hereshegoesagain! Been through the same journey. Used to make me sad, but I got over it. She sort of cares, but she's just not really interested in me or DCs. I love her anyway.
But my MIL is wonderful. Insightful, intelligent, curious and interested in DCs. Here is to the fab MILs, they exist and may we one day be like them.

My MIL is like this. I've known her since she was 60 -so 15 years. I've never known someone who gossips as much as she. I know everything about her neighbours and they know everything about me. Similarly within a week of knowing her she'd tell me about her sti and other personal details of her sex life.

She gossips about family members too. I've stopped telling her anything because even the mundane things will be a source of gossip for her.

My mum does this.

De could tell me more details about her friend’s grandson than she she knew about my son.

She never rings but will send long Facebook messages without punctuation of this stuff. As my sister says, if it just started “how are you?” Rather than launching into the anecdote of our betty’s (you know the single mum with the five children and it’s good because the husband was a rotter but it’s not easy for her and she’s lucky she’s got her dad because he helps her ever so much you know, mind you five children you’d think she’d know how to stop it wouldn’t you) Ingrown toenail.

I’m sure I will miss it when it’s gone but the lack of interest in me and my kids (and she can’t see my not huge Facebook feed because she used to leave the wittering comments on anything I posted) has massively contributed to our not very warm relationship.

I think I do this

I asked my old neighbour how her holiday in Cornwall had been and she talked for over an hour about the drive down. Which route was quicker, which breakdown recovery service she used, where she stopped for a pee and a pie. I know absolutely nothing about Cornwall still.

Mine comes over for a coffee 6 days a week and I kid you not all she talks about is bargain shopping and mainly sausages.

My Mum has done this for years.
Boring monologues about people I don't know. I even tell her, I don't know this person but she still carries on.

Oooh Diana has her air conditioning serviced.
Diana couldn't get her car parked on the drive.
Terry's gardener came today.
Jean is going back to UK.
John walked past the house earlier.
Jean doesn't get on with her DIL plus the whole story why.
Chris was sitting outside in her dressing gown smoking.

And she repeats herself all the time, not much in the way of repetitive stories from the past though we do have those occasionally, but more like the same details over and over in the same conversation.

Telling me the storylines of things she's watched on TV, Supervet, Escape to the Chateau. I don't watch these and have no interest.

Before my Mum moved to my country to be nearer to us, we used to have mega Skype calls. 3+ hours easily.

Afterwards my husband would ask 'what did your Mum have to say?' and I couldn't remember because I was overloaded.

I started to write bullet points and noticed how much she talked about herself, neighbours, people I didn't know and her many dramas them looped back to talk about the same things again.

She does ask about me, my husband and our lives but then always goes back to herself.

Through my work I've been to some amazing European cities and always when I get back, it is never 'did you have a good time', it's a virtual brain dump of what drama occurred or what the neighbours did while I was away.

We went out for tea with some friends one time and she looked at the menu chose fish and chips.
Before the waiter came to take the order it was like this to the group:

I'll have the fish and chips.
Yes fish and chips is great for me.
The fish and chips is good here, l'll have that.
What are you having? I'm having fish and chips.
No I don't like XXX I'll have fish and chips.

...Goes to toilet

Yes fish and chips is fine for me.
I'm having fish and chips.
Order fish and chips for me
Don't forget I want fish and chips

I lost my rag in the end as it was much worse than I have described it here.

She sees no irony in the fact that the neighbour John talks a lot. She calls him Yammer Man and tries to avoid him because he never shuts up and even follows her up the street to carry on talking.
She does exactly the same!

In brought my cat back from the vet, he's heavy. She stopped me on the drive and started banging on about some shite or other and he was crying.
I was trying to edge away, saying Mum I need to get in to let the cat out of the box, she just keep on and on.

She also points out random shit like, ooooh a Subaru- because she used to have one.
Or oooh he's fat.
Or oooh a JCB

Plus the usual bollocks about immigration in UK, Brexit, how asylum seekers get millions, how it is the fault of the Asian community that Covid is so bad in the north west.
We don't even live in UK!

It's not dementia related, she's always been this way.

She knows she does it and she knows that she repeats herself but caveats sometimes with, 'I know you don't know them but...' I told you didn't I?' Then tells me again!

She has no self awareness , doesn't know when to STOP TALKING, so she bores the arse of other people, sometimes random strangers.

@heidipi
Too funny 😂
‘ mum it’s a sex shop ‘

Sounds bloody awful my mother is fab and we have great conversations about people we know and world events etc like with a friend she’s great company - really hope that doesn’t change..

I am surrounded by people like this.

DM. MIL. DF. D uncle. All of them bang on for hours about the neighbours, their opinions on this that and the other, etc. None ask about me or how I am. A verbal river as someone said upthread.

Are there any 70 plus people who AREN’T like this? And what can I do to NOT become this?! I never want my kids to feel that visiting me is a chore because of the verbal river....

Op, somewhere on here your mil probably has her own aibu.

'My dil talks non stop about her family and all their boring doings.
Little jojo did two poos today etc. Doesn't she's realise she bores me senseless. If Tilly farts she has to announce it on Facebook. I love my grandchildren but spare me the mundane shit dil'
.
She probably thinks you need to get a life a thinks she is doing you a favour talking about her mates and all their lives!

@heidipi thank your lucky stars she didn't ask you what erotic asphyxiation was (I shit you not).

My mums the same, 81 and her world revolves around gossip featuring a selection of random and unpleasant views about anything and everything that doesn't concern her, judgemental comments, Daily Mailisms, hypochondria and the odd random inappropriate query (see above) for good measure.

Unfortunately my dad is very poorly at the moment so I'm having to spend a lot more time with her than usual and although I love her to bits it drives me up the wall.

We had the paramedics out for dad yesterday and they were regaled with tales of her recent ear infection.

The community nurses were then subjected to how problematic her knee had become through looking after dad and a load of tearful conspiracy theories about them trying to bump him off because they had to give him a morphine injection.

Thankfully she'd wound herself up so much by the time the carers arrived she just refused to speak to them.

I know I sound unsympathetic but it's very hard work when it's hours a day, most days.

I have found that most people who are like this have started it in old age. (I'm not trying to offend anyone, and I know there are plenty of older people who aren't like this)

Just tell her your news. Don't wait for her to ask. Even if you have to interrupt the caravan soap opera.

My MIL is a bit like this. Long stories about people we don’t know and stopping midway to correct herself on details of whose neighbour’s sister’s daughter-in-law’s milkman it was.

I often assume - perhaps wrongly- that people who do this spend the whole time when they are not with you gabbing about their GCs to everyone else. Just not to you.

I think it may be a coping mechanism as they age and their worlds shrink.

Haha, loving this thread - it's quite like MIL and FIL. They are lovely people. But something about the combination of not listening to vitally important stuff about our lives on the one hand, yet on the other retelling these same inane stories and expecting us to listen.

My DM is not like that, we talk about current affairs and novels and all sorts of stuff. Hoping I take after her (and that DH does not become like FIL!)

Sounds just like my mum. Never asks me or sibling how we are but bites the tits off us talking about Jeff and Deb's daughter's (who I've never met) new job or Linda's next holiday etc etc.

My sister has called her on it and for a couple of weeks she will show an interest before it's back to stuff about randoms.

I think it's an age thing- I just hope I never catch this!

Bores the tits not bites. That would be a step too far!

This is my mum 🙈

She likes to liven things up by watching the news and reading the Daily Mail without her hearing aid and her glasses. 75% of what she relates is utter crap.

‘Did you see that thing on the news Glinda? It was about Miami, no, not Miami, it was Texas’.

News item will have been about Mexico City 😭

Yes to the stories of random friends from my in-laws. Last week I had (my husband had conveniently invited them over on the day he was playing cricket from 12-8) all work done on someone or other's house since they bought it (decades ago). Also a hole by hole account of his last golf round (I don't play golf), together with detailed technical analysis of changes he's made to his swing recently (this has been a constant in the 25 years I've known him). Wildlife in their garden in depth (actually, that one's not too bad). Sports people from at least 40 years ago that my kids have no clue about.

But worse still are the 'briefings' on television programmes they've watched. Genuinely, we still laugh about a documentary on finding the remains of some king or other under a car park in the Midlands. The original programme was an hour but it took them over an hour and a half to recount it. How can it take longer than the actual programme?!

On that note, they're coming today...

I should add that any attempts to deflect, divert or shorten are never successful. The story will be told in full.

My father's equivalent is his hero worship of his heart consultant. I get a running commentary on all information he can extract from his appointments... did you know Dr X has now gone back to the NHS, did you know he's just bought a holiday home in X, did you know he allows himself one cream tea a year as a treat (yikes, that one made me slightly guilty...).

It's semi sweet but equally slightly odd. As much as I'm genuinely grateful for him keeping my dad with us for several decades longer than he could have been.