to ask for ideas for quick responses to MILs constant negativity

[tomatoesarered]

She is coming to stay this weekend (duty visit) and I am dreading her always droning an about how hard her life is (even though it's not), how much harder SILs life is compared to ours (it's not), if we say anything positive she will reply with some story to make out we are so lucky. From the minute she arrives she will moan about the journey, the car, the weather, some ache or pain. She will not talk to the dc. She will hover around me because she cannot talk to her own son and he cannot talk to her and I will have to make ALL the conversation. I will feel on edge if the dc misbehave as she has such a rigid idea of behaviour and etiquette. I just need some ideas to make it more bearable!

Last time he asked her how many slices of toast she wanted. She said she didn't know. 2 was too much apparently and 1 not enough!

That's flippin' hilarious, it reminds me of my hospital ward days when a colleague asked a patient what they wanted for breakfast and the reply was 'just a couple of conflakes dear' she nearly exploded and was sorely tempted to just put two cornfakes in the bowl to swim around in the milk.
I think she must have been having a bad morning, conversations arounds drinks at the hosp used to always go something like:-

Nurse - Would you like a drink Mr Brown?
Mr Brown - er I'm not sure (pauses for 30 seconds) er go on then.
Nurse - what would you like?
Mr Brown - what have you got?
Nurse - tea, coffee, hot choc, malted milk, beef tea, juice
Mr Brown - what was that?
Nurse - repeats above
Mr Brown - tea please
Nurse - do you take milk and sugar?
Mr Brown - no milk but some sugar
Nurse - How much sugar?
Mr Brown - just one or two spoonfuls, not big ones though

Nurse then has to repeat this thirty times for the whole ward.....

Sorry, nothing to do with MILS but it came to mind...

Oh, yes, this drives me crazy with my (generally lovely) in laws. They are so desperate to not be a bother, they can't have an opinion or preference about anything.

Just to say, tomotoesarered, that I'll be thinking of you this weekend and hope all goes better than you expect.

If you need us, we'll all be here for you over the weekend (not me, actually, as I'm going out this evening) and if you can be bothered, I'd love to know how it went when she finally leaves.

Been thinking of you.

Thank you so much. Feel so supported by you all which makes me feel so much stronger. I'll let you know how it goes.

Just be overly bright and cheerful and find a positive in EVERYTHING that she says.

'Oh the journey was so long and I am so tired'.
'Well, you'll be glad that it's over then, and you can rest a while. Would you like to go for a little nap before dinner?'

'it's so cold outside'
'Isn't it good that we have central heating so you can stay warm and cosy inside'

If she makes out you are lucky - just agree with her.

'Yes, we are lucky. We are lucky to be in a country that allows us freedom, lucky that we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. There are so many people in the world that are homeless and starving. We are all very lucky' (emphasise the all...)

Just keep smiling. OK, it might be the only thing that is achieves is that she gets frustrated by it - but thats something, right?

My mother's like that. Only way I can cope is to play Bingo - I mentally have a list I know she'll moan about, and tick them off one by one. Can be 'fun' seeing how quickly I manage to get a full house!

Problem with it being my mother is that I'm basically not allowed to go to her for support. She's so busy moaning about how hard her life is (largely her own choosing) that I really don't feel I can burden her with anything else. So I don't. I think she believes I live the life of Riley!

My would-be MIL on the other hand is great. Laughs about absolutely everything. Love her!

My dsis is exactly the same.

No one works as hard. She's a teacher and once she worked 120 hours over a weekend. Now my maths is shite but even I see this is impossible.

My kids now ask her questions about how much she does just for a laugh.

Wine wine wine helps. We drug her too. With wine obviously.

I compete now. I always start by saying how tired I am, how hard I have worked. It's actually fun as all the family are on board.

Try it op

Rabbit are you my stbdil? I sound familiar!

Happy - I dunno. I suspect not, as DP hasn't proposed, and I can't see my would-be MIL being online at all. But I suppose everything's possible!

If not, I'm sure I would LOVE you to be my MIL!!!

make it a drinking game, every whine response "oh dear, can you pass my shot glass?"

My FIL visited for 3 weeks.

As there was no conversation between DH and him, I thought I had to fill the void. After 2 days, I thought 'fuck this' and just shut up, watched TV and MNed.

It was bliss

point out to get that she seems to have a very negative view of life and it's not good for her health or the people around her.
I hate listening to moany people. I have a friend who has a tendency to do this. She even makes up scenarios so she can moan. Thankfully I can tell her to stop moaning.

I do the bingo thing too haha!

'family' holidays (just her, fil, dh and bil)
'foreigners'
'the office cant survive without me'
Past injuries
'you need to sort this house out'
General guilting me and dh
'why aren't you buying so and so for baby?!'

BINGO!

make it a drinking game, every whine response "oh dear, can you pass my shot glass?"

You should get to have a glass of wine every time she whines.

I have a dementor MIL as well. After thirteen years I smile and nod and completely ignore her. DH pulls her up if she gets particularly offensive or says anything hurtful (which she does at least once an hour) and I say the bare minimum to her after she decided to tell me that my 18 month old needed a smack and she'd told my 3yo's nursery not to show him sympathy when he gets upset at drop off when she took him in for a favour for me.

"Just think of her as a whingy toddler where you aren't going to give them attention for negative behaviour"

I had a landlady with a very similar attitude to the OP's MIL. She really was incredibly draining and actually I think added to my depression. It's very difficult to practice positive reframing if every time you say "nice weather today" the response you get is "the forecast is to get worse later". At first I tried appeasing her but yes, giving her attention for negative behaviour did encourage her. I was a bit stuck, since I was paying her rent. Yes, I did move out.

So yes, I agree it's better not to reinforce behaviour you don't want. Something non-committal every time she comes up with a negative statement might help. That, and humming Only Happy When It Rains.

Op I feel your pain. Snorkins I disagree about being positive I ended up like a crazed Pollyanna when I tried that being maniacally positive is exhausting.

Example conversation

Me - I had such a lovely trip to X place
Mil ooh my sister in law went there. She said it was too hot.
Me - oh temperature was lovely
Mil - and too crowded. Also traffic jams, lots of traffic jams.
Me - it seemed fine
Mil oh sil wouldn't go back no what with the heat and the traffic jams tut tut (she is a prolific tutter)

She can bring you down from average to good mood to depressed headache in 3o mins dh and I have timed this. She has no friends as no one unrelated would choose to be in her company. She's also rude and can be weirdly aggressive. When ils visit dh works late then buys me a massive present.

Be out as much as possible. Your DH can deal with HIS mother.

The only reason we see ILs is my conscience. DH wouldn't see them but I feel bad for them not seeing their grandchildren. By the end of the visit I regret it though they are pretty dire

Can you invite a couple of friends or more around on rota periodically throughout her visit to defuse things a bit?

*make it a drinking game, every whine response "oh dear, can you pass my shot glass?"

You should get to have a glass of wine every time she whines.*

would much rather shot of schnapps than wine, so much quicker so can fit them all in.

I think its rather unfair to inflict ones dire inlaws on friends and family. You get the benefit of a lovely husband the price you pay is having to spend time with awful ILs is how I see it anyway. Innocent bystanders get none of the benefit and all the pain. My family who are a friendly and kindly bunch have now made it politely clear that I am on my own on the in law entertainment front.

ILs are painfully shy and frankly terrified and mute when confronted with any cheerful normal friend of mine. When I did have a couple of mum friends round they aggressively gardened around us and, despite our efforts, would not engage. Still garden got nicely cleared up.

I hope it went OK tomatoes. If she's telling you how hard SIL's life is I bet she goes to your SIL and nips her brain about how great you are, how you do everything so well and never have any problems...

'My FIL visited for 3 weeks'

I actually want to jump out of a window at the very thought of this You deserve the biggest, shiniest medal in the world. Assuming you didn't actually murder him

Some great advice on this thread. My MIL is a total bloody neg-head as well and she came to stay last August bank holiday weekend. It was probably the worst weekend of my entire 35 years. Smile and nod is good advice, as well as 'oh dear, what a shame' non-responses. Make your own plans, suit yourself, don't do anything special for her. Don't put yourself under any pressure to make it a 'good' weekend.

A word of caution about the wine. I deliberately did not get stuck in when my MIL was here, because I knew that I would have a banging head the next day and I then I really would have been unable to endure her nonsense. I mean, I had a glass or three two every evening, I'm not a total martyr

I dread visiting my mother, she can be so relentlessly negative. She has health problems which mean that she has some reason to be negative, but the frustrating thing is that she categorically refuses to do anything to help herself, to the extent that we have given up offering or making suggestions. I've reached the point when I just go conveniently deaf at times, but I can still arrive at her flat feeling fairly positive and come away totally wound up and incredibly frustrated. However, I shall try some of these strategies - they certainly can't make things any worse.