to not play along

[travellinghopefully12]

Visiting my parents. I am thirty. They are significantly older.

My mother likes to play this game where she ignores my father and every ten minutes says to me 'now...if your father was alive...'

They are both old and a bit mad.

AIBU?

I do wonder what it must be like to be retired and spend that much time with your spouse of 50 plus years. I joke with my dh that we'll end up hating each other. He does get on my nerves if I spend a lot of time with him at home.

I'm sure your parents love each other to bits, they're just a bit sick of each other.

Hope the evening picks up what with the football and neighbour popping in.

I wonder that too ilostit

DH and I often joke (given my parents example) that we will turn into "The Twits"

I don't think it's funny. Clearly your mum does, but if you don't, just refuse to play the game, and reply "he is alive".

Wow! They've been married 51 years but you are only 30!
[misses point of thread]

I would find this hilarious!

I don't think Mum sounds like she finds it funny though, does she?

I agree that many couples who have been together for a long time develop weird patterns of bickering while being v dependent on each other.

Telling your mum, "I've phoned an ambulance, it's on its way" when she starts with her 'He's dead' role play might shock her out of it.

..or just try to accept that that's their dark humour.
If it makes you feel better, my parents are just as odd and can go for hours without speaking and then pretend nothing's happened.

I lol-ed at the OP. DH looked disgusted and thinks it's cruel. God know what we'll be like in 50 years if he's alive
Play along!

If this was my parents (and I think it's so bloody funny, I kind of wish it was), the point would be not for me to play along, but to be their audience. Do they play up to you and your sister with extra bickering when you're there, do you think?

Now that they have retired (both early due to poor health) They also spend most of their time bickering then sulking. However they would be totally lost with out each other. The rare time that either of them go anywhere alone, they are constantly phoning or messaging each other to check they're ok!

Watermelon, mine love one another too though my mother still threatens to divorce thim every now and then, like yesterday after they had a row over the frreezer then he went to bed for twenty four hours.

Shatter - I think they might actually. My sister think's they are bloody ridiculous. Far older brother who is 50 often comes to sort them out (ie. be a mediator when it gets bad.)

I am going to bed.

I asked her, apparently she thinks it will be 'just like a JB Priestly Play Darling.'

Fantastic. Which one?

Sleep well, OP! (Mine do the same. My sister and I are convinced everything's rosy when no-one's around for them to show off to!)

Grumpy, yes, they married young and brother born seven months later. They then had two girls in their forties. They were forty-four and forty-eight when I came along (birth control and an upset tummy)

Sorry, I am totally with the poster up there who cannot get past the 51 year marriage with a 30 year old! And you, with a brother 20 yrs older!!! Is he like a brother to you, or more of a parent?

A brother, now, but when I was younger more like a parent. I wrote a piece about it for a blog - happy to PM links to folk on here, but not share it on this thread as it gives away my real name.