...to be soooooo bored at in-laws.

[MissClarke86]

I know this is unfair and IABU but I am SO DAMN BORED.

We're visiting OHs parents who live a couple of hours away in a rural location where nothing happens. They are lovely people but my goodness it's so dull every time we come round.

They are old before their time and never go out so conversation is very limited.

So far I have listened to hour long discussions about the new curtains and their fabric and the cats scratching problems.

We've been to a factory outlet and spent two hours looking at work shoes.

Now we are going over old "stories" that are told literally every time we come and have to be laughed at.

It actually makes me sad that they never get away or go anywhere, they're only in their 60s. But it's their choice.

I don't even need to know if IABU... I know I am, im just so bored and writing this has at least occupied me for two minutes!

My mother goes on holiday or out a lot, but her conversation is really limited. Mostly to the Asda bus:

The bus was late last week. The driver had a flat tyre. And the week before he was off sick, so we had another driver, but he wasn't as nice as our usual one.

Madge wet herself at the till again. But it's alright, because it's happened before and she always keeps spare pants in her bag. They didn't give her her shopping for free this time though.

When we get to Asda, we go and have a coffee. But Doreen sometimes has tea, because she prefers tea in the morning, and Mary sometimes has a bun. Reg always has a cooked breakfast though, and he has tea with his.

Joan wasn't on the bus last week. It turned out she'd died.

And the holiday to Egypt, consisting of a Nile Cruise and visit to Cairo and the Pyramids:

It was all beige.

Yes, the pyramids were beige too. Big, but beige.

The Nile was just a big river. Like the Thames.

The boat was nice but they only had long life milk.

hope they wore good shoes

Pmsl MrsAchadenfreude! You are the next Alan Bennett. Just done a day with the ILs & you've cheered me right up :-)

Some people just decide to be old, don't they? I often wonder if my FIL is having a laugh after we leave his place. We hear about his week is wrapped around what's on TV.... on Monday we watch x, and we eat salmon patties and veg. Tuesdays we watch x and eat pork chops. Thursdays there's a clash, so we tape x & y and eat chicken. Fridays there's nothing on, so we watch what we taped yesterday and eat leftovers. I could literally stab myself in the eyeball with a fork to get out of this kind of conversation. In fact, I went into labour to avoid hearing what TIME they ate whatever flavourless 70's crap and go home!

I wish my visits were a couple of hours

It's always a weekend due to distance

They read the daily mail and mil cooks all day and I'm expected to chat with her in the kitchen while dh sits on his phone and father in law sleeps

Kids go crazy

Oh lord the memories....

At PIL we had to sit in the dark watching bastard ITV every night.

If DH left the room we would have to have the same conversation 'where has DH gone, has he gone out, did he go in the kitchen, what's he gone to the kitchen for.....'

DH would come back and when asked where he had been 'I've been for a piss...'
This could happen several times a night and I assume napped every time I left the room also.

MIL also told me about the corned beef she'd bought for an hour - I was a veggie at the time and thought it would convert me.

I get politics so next time on my visit I might raise the topic of work shoes lol

MerylPeril - EXACTLY what you just said!

"Where's he gone now? Has he got lost?" Etc. Just let the poor man poo!

The work shoes situation was as follows:

OH, FIL and I (purely to get out the damn house!) went to a local factory outlet to purchase new work shoes for OH. Apparently this is the best place to go for work shoes. The only work shoes they had were extra large and extra wide and did not fit OH, so we resorted to a different outlet shop and bought some cheapy ones. FIL purchased these for OH as a birthday present.

When we got back, we put them in our car. MIL wasn't present during said shoe shopping trip, and wanted to know all about them. FIL kept saying "show your mother the shoes". I described them in copious detail for her - black, with laces.

I've no idea how it came up in conversation three times.

Oh and good god, I never ever want to go to the opticians/glasses shopping for OH with them ever, ever again....that was 4 hours of my life (and a lot of money because apparently you can never pay too much for a good quality pair of glasses) I'm never getting back. FIL is OBSESSED with glasses.

And Hifis, but that's a story for another day.

In my family everyone has a lot to say about a lot of things TV, films, politics, news......
I don't know how people get to the stage where the main conversation is where someone has gone in a tiny flat.

I literally used to count down the seconds till we could go home. Sympathies for you

There was mention of an impending baby, upthread. I suggest you use this pre-baby time to air all your plans for bringing up said baby, just so that your PILs are brainwashed by the time the baby arrives. And I do mean plans - don't whatever you do ask for their opinion! To cover the following: breast or bottle, feeding on demand or on a schedule, sleeping ditto, disposable or reusable nappies, current scientific/medical opinion on safest sleeping arrangements, which vaccinations (all/none/some), weaning (which happens sooner than you'll believe, what kind of pram / buggy / car-seat etc.

Things have changed a lot since your DH was a baby so this is an ideal opportunity to get their old-fashioned ideas (whatever they are) out of the way before the baby arrives.

I am so relieved to see all your posts as they make me feel less alone. I haven't seen my family since the start of the pandemic due to travel restrictions but have had to endure my in-laws' visits 4 times since for several days at a time because they live closer by.

I have reached a stage where the mere sight or sound of them fills me with rage. They are the most self-absorbed, un-empathetic and uncaring people that I have ever come across. They have nothing interesting to say and are obsessed with the grandchildren so my husband keeps sending them photos which they ooh and aah over. I love my kids but surely there must be something else to talk about apart from them and the weather. It has caused a rift bet ween my husband and myself which is the most tragic part of all.

My in-laws aren't too bad re conversation (although sadly FIL is so deaf now that it doesn't work well) and will leave the house after mucho faffing. But as an active person, I struggle with the sitting sitting sitting sitting and more sitting.

The irony is, MIL now has various health conditions from too much sitting. My parents (same ages) are much more active. BIL and SIL are going the same way with the sitting.

Anyway, if I suspect there's going to be hours of sitting I now take an admin job to do. Once I wrote 135 UCAS reports. I got a lecture from MIL about working too hard, but imagine if I'd done all that sitting and still had it all to do on our return home!

Plus DD has ADHD and is like an unexploded bomb by mid morning when we go there. We have accordingly developed a huge love for the local BMX track which is open 24/7.

This thread is 6 years old - I imagine the baby is now at school

I wonder if their school shoes are nice and sturdy?

I just say I have work to catch up on and take my laptop to another room. Or I'd sit reading. I can't bear just sitting in someone's house in silence, and agree when your hosts are shut-ins there's nothing to talk about. They haven't so much as watched a TV show since 1984.

Swear we need to ban thread resurrection.

How does anyone find threads that are 6 years old

How do people get like this? Were they always boring or does it just happen one day? I just wonder because my DPs are 70s and are very interesting and active and social. I find it strange when all ppl want to do is watch telly and don't have anything to talk about.

Go out into the garden and scream? That'll give them something to talk about at least until Christmas.

My inlaws used to be like that. For about a year they had long monologues about my SIL's and BIL's new chimney every time we visited. When we went for walks it would be somewhere boring and if we finally passed something nice to look at they'd never stop, they'd didn't walk, they MARCHED and if we stopped to look at something they would accuse us of being tired and indicate "young people these days, so weak and lazy".

We talked back and said we came out in nature to look at it and they actually seemed to understand that. We bring up what's in the news if we don't have news of our own so that there is something to talk about. And after they retired they started dancing on a regular basis so they actually socialize with other people which they didn't really do before. They seem younger and more vibrant now than they did 30 years ago. They were really in a rut.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Do you think In-laws meet their friends for coffee on Mondays and say

<sigh> 'we had the kids visit at the weekend. All they did was play on their phones, talk about work etc, etc 😂

I found it best to Do things rather than talk about things. I know you are in the middle of nowhere OP, but can you take them out for the day - is there no National Trust places/Gardens/Sculpture Parks an hour away? We took MiL to loads of places and she'd always say 'I didn't know this was here'.