to say i dont want to hear about it?

[ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo]

when my mum starts talking about her family?

something happened on friday that has meant lots of toing and froing between my mum and her siblings. actually, it is a pretty fucking tragic thing that has happened and it makes me angry that in the midst of it they still find time to bitch about each other. anyway, mum was talking about it at dinner tonight and started bitching and i tried to explain to her how immature it all sounded but i have realised tehre is no point, that is how tehy are as a family and they always will be. would i be being UR to tell her in future that i don't want to hear any bitching about her family or any "he said she said" or should i just shut my mouth and let her carry on as it is her family so she can bitch all she wants?

My mother had become like this too, to the extent that she has been known to bitch about her only sister's only grandchild He's two. I am going to have to say something because it is deeply unpleasant. My MIL has also been know to be very unpleasant about relatives' children, in front of my children. I can't understand it. They actually seem to positively enjoy it and to particularly enjoy being outraged by some minor preceived slight. My sister is going in the same direction. I think they do it to piss me off because they love my reaction (which is usually silence) but they know I don't like it.

"...follow the yellow brick road dorothy"

yes i do kirk. i don't like the dcs hearing it so i often distract them, encouraging them to sit still or eat up or just asking them random questions that will change the mood of the room.

oh cornflower yes, you have just reminded me of something.

i went to a family funday with my dcs and while we were standing in the queue for the slide the little boy infront hadn't really gotten the hang of moving with the queue. his dad kept having to remind him to move along and close the gap, it was very cute. the dad and i had a little chuckle about how "he knows how to move when he is queueing up for his turn at the sweetie shop." the boy was about 3.

so when i relayed this story to my mum later on i told her it pretty much as i have said here, i was laughing as i said it and even ata the end i said "isn't that so cute". she replied "huh, thick or what?" i really disliked her at that point and i just walked out of the room. how on earth can you be so bitter that your first thought on hearing that story is to call a child thick??

i have also noticed it when i tell her other things that are funny or good (as in there is nothing there to criticise) she will just turn away and not respond. ratehr than saying "that's lovely" she would rather appear rude and say nothing because she can't find anything negative to say.

Play the "glad game"?

"huh, how thick" - aren't you glad your family are all intelligent?

"she's a jumped up little madam" - aren't you glad we all know our place?

etc etc. The relentless positivity is very wearing for negative people but sometimes it's worked for me to show that any kind of relentless "broken record" talk is a nonsense.

good idea. i might try it.

Bitter is exactly the word I would use. I feel like saying to her that she is going to ruin the last years of her life with her anger. But, I think the problem is that she is still very angry about events in her childhood, specifically that she was sent to boarding school at a very young age. I really think she needs to go into therapy but at pushing 70 is she going to able to change? It is almost like that there is a deep well of anger inside her, and she doesn't know what has caused it, but when she finds something else to be angry or outrage about then she can let it out, but her anger is really about something else (her parents). And she is so self-congratultory too - she and my sister have this great (unintentional) double act where they bang on about how marvellous they are about things that other people would thing were normal (like helping someone out) and how 'appreciative' that person was of their patronage. Narcissistic egomaniacs the pair of them. But going back to your family I think it is how some people bond - over a common enemy. If they're not bitching about someone then they have nothing else to say to each other. I'm convinved that my sister and her husband spend their whole time complaining about his family and ours and once you get into this pattern of behaviour it is difficult to stop. I think I probably was quite bitchy myself, but my dh really isn't so I have go out of the habit. Or maybe it was the ecstasy

cornflower funny you should say that you were bitchy too. i grew up in a family where sarcasm dripped off the walls. to me that was how you related to people, it was only when i started seeing my EXP that he pointed out how constand it was in me and that i always took the sarcastic angle. i see now that it is because of my family''s attitude but i have been able to stop it.

Oooohhhh....cornflower....I wonder if you have just given boo a rather naughty idea....

I like your thinking melezka - that would jolly up the family gatherings no end. 'I really love you' 'No, you don't understand how much I REALLY love you'
I swear to God - I think it changed how my brain was wired, but I met dh at the same time, so it could have been him either, or both
Although [dons responsible hat] I knew a fair few casualties too...

Boo, agreed - I think when it is pointed out to you and you are able to step outside the family dynamic and look at it objectively (or reasonably objectively) you can break the pattern.

I suspect that, at pushing 70, your mother is too old to qualify for a personality transplant but I do know how wearing it is to receive these tirades of negativity.

My former MIL almost never had a good word for anyone. She didn't put on spectacular displays of bitchery but preferred to keep up a constant level of unnecessary criticism. Nothing was ever quite good enough but she'd never offer any tips about how anyone could meet her standards. She was the ultimate loser, however, since my dcs became ever more reluctant to visit her and now, at just over 90, it looks as if her attitude is going to mean she never gets to see her first great-grand-child.

I coped with her by silent ridicule - it often involved sitting at dinner tables looking innocent whilst in my head I conjured up terrifying, necromantic forms of torture for her. I wasn't at all sorry when she became the ex-MIL though and realise that when the bitchfest emanates from your own mother, the detachment is rather harder.

I don't think 70 is too late to face up to some things tbh. it's harder I guess (all that time wasted!) but not impossible.

don't want to sound soppy, but it's all a bit sad isn't it? it usually starts with being hurt... and ends with being unbelievably hurt (re the 90 yr old who will never see her ggc), with the bad stench of bitterness clouding the years inbetween. bcs stench it is (amazing how anybody puts up with it tbh)

somebody said once that bitterness is buried pain that never got heard. unbearable to think of it really . not that the symptoms should be indulged - just pretty sad to think of it really. lot of deeply hurt people about