Ideas for what to say to people who repeat themselves

[MrsGatsby99]

I am a bit fed up with this right now so please give me a bit of leeway here…
I have some family members (PIL) who often repeat the same story or phrase and by often I mean we have heard the stories 30+ times over the years and they say the same phrases several times each day. It’s always the same set of phrases applied to a situation that in the end, it means very little. They are very kind but it is so grating. Most of the time this is ok as we only see them a few times a year but as this is for a few weeks at a time, it is hard to stay patient. Any ideas why people do this and how to deal with it, either with words, actions or just internally dealing with it (which is the way I have coped up to now, ie smiling as if it is the first time I have heard it, making an inane comment or sometimes saying, ‘ oh yes, you already told me that’.

I realise there might not be an answer here, they are fully set in their ways now.

Oh Lord- I feel your pain! My DF does this endlessly. He calls me to tell me about something ( usually his most recent hospital appt) and then when I go round and see him he tells me again and again and again.

If I tell him he has already told me he acknowledges this and then carries on!

Most of his sentences start with "funnily enough"
" you will find this interesting"
followed by a diatribe that is not remotely funny or interesting mostly because I have heard it all before!

I used to work with someone who did this but the worst thing was she'd get almost to the end of her story and then go back to the beginning. Almost as if someone had clicked "restart".

It drove me bonkers!

Oh, you just beat me to this!
I have a family member who does this. I know for a fact that they already know they have told me this same story hundreds of times, but they enjoy 'capturing my attention' so much, they rinse and repeat..Sometimes within one phone call they go back to the same story two or three times, picking up at different points each time.
They are not elderly and have done this forever 😁

Bite my tongue and just say “Mmmmhmmm” while zoning out as much as possible. My tolerance level is low for stuff like that.