Please tell me we all don’t end up like this

[Queijo]

Just spent a few days with my parents who are now entering their 70s.

The FAFFING. It took 25 minutes(!) to serve up lunch because they couldn’t find the right teapot, and then, horrors of horrors, it wasn’t the right ham. So they had to have a very intense discussion about the properties of ham. Whilst I’m slowly dying in the corner from hunger and frustration.

Cups of tea take decades to make, is this the cup you want? Do you want decaf? No? Oh ok I’ll just get the special non-decaf pot down. Are you sure you don’t want decaf? Right. Sugar? No sugar?! Since when?

Can’t say no to cup though or there’s 3 days of fraught discussions.

Lunch at 12 noon dinner at 6pm. CANNOT under any circumstance deviate, and if anything is taking slightly too long to cook it’s the end of the world. God alive 😂

I’m exhausted. Please tell me I’m not going to end up this way.

LIGHTHEARTED before anyone starts! I love them dearly but they never were like this before.

My mom is like this and it drives me nuts. She is slow and focuses on stuff I don't even notice but she makes a huge drama out of. I just try to be patient but it's difficult. I didn't find this as annoying with my GP when I was little so I think it's a combo of our dynamic and busy life and their quiet life. And yes I suspect we will be like that as well lol

Same here! 😏

Oh God, TV guides in paper still exist?

Is there anything that can be done to reduce this behaviour? I worry about DH, he is only 40s but I could see him being like this when older. I honestly don't think I could live with it.

OK, OP.
Light-hearted comment, I get it. They actually sound a lot like my dear late Grandmother.
I get your starvation and frustration, but none of us know what we gonna be like.
Now, less light hearted. My narcissistic, abusive mother, still surviving in another country. She doesn't faff. She doesn't wash properly, is lazy as a pig and sees other people as inconvenient subjects. Nothing much wrong with her, either.
So, if you love your parents dearly, maybe forgive their faffing and enjoy the time with them! 🙂

"He snips coupons and writes letters of complaint"

"write letters to the council about wheelie bins and go through the Radio Times with a highlighter and check for TV/ radio programme clashes"

🤣 made my day!

OK, I confess.....I've been known to use a highlighter pen on the TV papers myself... You do realise you've spoilt my whole day, don't you? 😂😂 (From now on I'm making a conscious decision not to get any older....)

I agree with people who say if this age group are fit, healthy & retired with not much going on their life then the faffing begins. People nowadays often dont retire until much later if they're in good health so they've no time to faff.

My parents are highly controlling and have been but it got worse 20-30 years ago when they retired.

Breakfast at 9am. Coffee in this pot. Vitamins out. Same thing every day etc and they lay the table the night before.

Change at 11 am - tea and this pot and these mugs etc and cake.

lunch (unless in a pub) and ham, salad and chips and they have 4 chips each

and so on - everything ironed including tea towels 😂

and then they complained about how much work they did.

everything is washed by hand and then in the dishwasher and then rubbed with a tea towel and put away

It’s quite sobering reading this thread as I can see some of these traits in myself. Anxious about changes to routine, stressing about hosting, reluctant to fly anywhere because airports. I’m 61 and work part time and notice I spend more of my days off not doing much! I have to remind myself I was independent at 18, raised 2 well adjusted kids after my marriage split, did a demanding healthcare degree while raising kids, looking after dog and running a house all on my own. However, now remarried, my dh is constantly fussing over me, doesn’t like me carrying shopping, makes me tea in the morning and never wants me to worry about stuff. Absolutely adore him but am sure that treatment addles my brain.

I think faffers are born, not made. It does get worse with age though in my experience. I'm pretty sure I can plan and book a holiday in the same time it takes FIL to make a cheese sandwich.

My mum was all, you can´t even start to IMAGINE how BUSY I´ve been, when you actually get down to details, it was putting on the washing machine, hanging out the clothes once ready, cooking her lunch for 1, putting her crockery in the dishwasher, because all the cleaning and ironing is done by her home help (she hates me pointing this out). She actually used to retell it as if she had done it...
Now she has Alzheimers she no longer worries about how busy she has been and I actually miss those conversations.

Do yours do the thing of having to remember exactly when something happened before they can tell you about it?

Mum: “Ooh, I must tell you; Joan rang on Tuesday. Or was it Wednesday? No, Tuesday. Anyway, she said…
Dad (interrupting): Tuesday? I don’t think it was Tuesday. I didn’t get home until 6 on Tuesday and I was here when she rang.
Mum: Were you? I know I told you she rang; I don’t remember you actually being there when she rang…
Dad: I was, I was here!
Mum: Ohhh… maybe it was Monday then!
Dad: Monday?! We went for the early evening special at Antonio’s on Monday! How could it have been Monday?
Mum: So was it Wednesday?
Me: For Christ’s sake tell me what Joan said while I can still remember my own bloody name!!!

(Continues daily)

Retirement does something to people.

My dad was always pretty laid back and chilled out. Now everything is a drama and it’s exhausting.

FIL feels the need to micro manage every family member and tell them how to parent. He wants everything to be done his way and will call various family members to discuss any family situation (that has nothing to do with him, or great aunt Gertrude, or whoever else he chooses to try and involve).

Also exhausting!

I’d also say as a lawyer that some of the more challenging clients to deal with were the ones who were high fliers forced into early retirement, embroiled in nasty litigation. I’d get 10+ emails a day from them.

It’s like when they’ve lost their work, they need to find something to occupy themselves, and not always in the most positive way!

My parents aren't faffers thankfully ( both early nineties ) but my father is a droner.
Every Friday he gets the bus into town for a few bits for the weekend, bread etc.
He arrives home and tells you every minute of the journey, from how many people were at the bus stop, who he spoke to, the content of the conversation, which shops he went into, what he bought in them and how much for, including price comparison, who he spoke to and the content of the conversation, where he got on the bus home, how many were on the bus and how many times it stopped, plus who he spoke to on the return journey and of course, the content of the conversation.
Me and mum sat there rolling our eyes at each other while he drones on 😂

Hahaha I remember this with a great uncle. He actually had some interesting stories as he had been in the merchant navy and a ton of things had happened to him, but it was, yes March 1948 we sailed to x, and arrived on a Wednesday, no a Thursday and the weather was foul, or was that on our previous trip? In 1937, o yes, sorry that was 1937 in 1948 the weather was fine and on and on and on. Teens not being the most patient of people I used to switch off until he got to the interesting part and I switched on again, much to my brothers amusement who could see me do it, but uncle William was totally oblivious.

Old age creeps up on us without us ever realising.

A friend of ours - half of a couple - used to drive me mad - if we had to leave at 12.30 for a lunch booking, he’d only start all his faffing and dithering at 12.29 - finding his jacket, changing his shoes, finding his wallet (though he often conveniently ‘forgot’ it, so dh nearly always ended up paying for 4) one more wee, etc.

In his case, though, I’m sure part of it was down to enjoying making the rest of us wait - because he could.

He was very self-centred in other ways, too.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I've realised that you're talking about people my age.

DH and I are mid 70s, we have busy lives which includes childcare, no faffing here but I'll keep a careful watch for any signs.

The meals and tea at set times has always bemused me but I knew people like that when I was young, some middle aged parents of friends, I expect they took these habits into old age so I'm inclined to think it's a personality trait rather than a result of aging.

My MIL, and she is only 57. I don't think it's related to age, some people are like this all their life.
I remember her (then 40-42 years old) getting ready for work. She used to wake up 5am (work starts 8am, commute 10mins) - and she was late every single day. So 3 hours were not enough to have breakfast, get ready, etc. They fired her.
She got another job, she was not able to eat lunch in 30 mins (her lunch break) because she needs to "set up", boil the kettle in "her" way, etc etc. Got fired again. I can imagine it's very hard for people who have to work or even live with this kind of behaviour...
I can't stay with her more than few hours, it's bloody exhausting to concentrate on every single thing!

DP will sometimes shout Grandpa Simpson at me. There is no hope for me 😂
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLQFTTeeCvE

MIL and her husband were like this. Reminded me of the PiL in Motherland.
When they got much more incapacitated it actually got a bit better, but the wee still very rigid in their routine. If we arrived at, say, 2 o'clock (5 hour drive from us) there would be a big fuss because they had an afternoon cup of tea at 3 o'clock so we threw them off track if we asked for a cuppa when we arrived.

I remember visiting them once and making them a full roast dinner as they were living on ready meals. Thought it would be a treat as they were always saying how they missed a proper Sunday roast.

I have no idea if they enjoyed the roast as it turned out I'd served it up on the wrong plates. Apparently roast dinners should be served on the special Sunday crockery kept in the sideboard, not on the every day plates in the kitchen. MiL went on about it through the whole meal. I never made another roast for them.

Ikwym, OP. My own parents in their mid-70s took about three months to choose a roller blind for their kitchen. Got annoyed because some garden centre no longer sold some kind of striped peony or something. I just used to roll my eyes in secret and think wouldn't it be so fucking great to have nothing else to worry about. Although with hindsight I think they did have many worries, about ageing and mortality, and the faffing was just self-distraction, if you know what I mean.

My mum is in her mid 70’s.
She’s currently on a walking holiday in Europe, she has several holidays and breaks a year.
She still works part time and also very involved with a couple of local charities.
she goes out a few times each week - theatre, meals with friends.

no, she does not faff.
she has developed a fondness for purple fleeces though.

i think early retirement is a risk factor or maybe a cause for slowing.thefuck.down
my stepmom and my DP’s Dad both retired early and oh my god everything is slow, pedantic and gives them major anxiety.

I love it. I love that fuss. I love that they care and stress about teapots and ham, it means they still have standards, still give a shit about life and still want the very best for you. My parents are in their 80s and very much like this, but they can still entertain and pull off a good spread. I know I’ll be like this when I’m old as when people come round now I say to my DH ‘give them the nice mugs’, im in my early 40s. My in-laws gave up years ago, they don’t drink tea so when I go round I get a teabag from the box they bought 16 years ago when I met DH, they don’t want to please other people in the slightest. It’s better they’re like this. I love it, the teapot fuss, the chats about ham, you’ll remember it all fondly in 20 years.