To hate this thing my mum does?

[Cocklodger]

On the phone (I live overseas) she always does the following.
For example (this is a recent one)

Her: Have you watched game of thrones yet?

Me: no I haven't seen it yet - I've got to buy a Foxtel prescription

Her: oh, I watched it last night.

Me: cool, no spoilers please because I know she always does this

Her: oh it was so good, xy did this and...

Me: please don't mum I haven't seen it yet, I don't want to hear it.

Her: oh I was gonna say what x did to y was horrible...

Ad infinitum. Until I put the phone down. My fuse has gotten shorter recently.
It's not always spoilers sometimes it's a blow by blow encounter from a tv show I've never watched or disliked, which annoys me as I have to hear about such and such characters doing x y and z and something about a gay cage fighter... god knows.
I was very upset the other day as I had some important news to tell her but only 15mins or so spare as I had to take DD to her dads by a certain time. I tried to tell her that but all I got in return was "oh I was gonna say " so I just sort of shut up and waited. Had her on the phone while I sorted everything got dd strapped in and I had to go but then all I got was "why? Is everything alright" my response "yes I must take DD to Ex name house I'll be back at such and such time" then she makes me feel guilty by going "oh... I didn't realise you didn't have time..."

Another thing I've sort of touched on is when she says "I was going to say"
She'll be interrupted by me getting flustered and frustrated, then all she says is "I was going to say "

I love her but god she is so hard to talk to

After talking to my mum we will say bye but then she will talk again about something. Me: Ok then, bye. DM; ok, Bye, talk to you soon, did I tell you about ..... it is frustrating. Even if I have to go because the doorbell rang or got to get dinner out of oven, she'll still try and talk!

My mum does that sometimes, but it's the above I find most frustrating

Why do they DO this? Are we all doomed to do it it too, once we pass a certain age? I can understand getting it a bit wrong by starting in on a story/topic that they want to relate (and maybe planned to say) but once we say 'sorry I don't want to hear about that' or 'you told me that already' or 'wish I could listen but actually not a good time for me' THEY KEEP GOING! Like they're running a recording with no stop or pause button.

There are times I actually have to hang up because nothing else I do or say will make any damn difference. Then I feel guilty, then mad because she was the one ignoring the conventions of conversation.

My therapist says I need to address it (not over the phone) with my mum, by saying 'when you ignore everything I'm saying and plough on with your topic, it makes me feel hurt, frustrated and like you don't care whether I'm the person on the other end of the call'. Then I'm supposed to put in place a boundary with her 'I hope you understand that from now on when this happens I'll let you know it's happening for me and then if it continues I'll leave the phone nearby but get on with things that I need to do.'

Gulp. Well, at least she won't be calling me for a while...!

I hasten to add that if my mum were truly elderly, or had a known health/mind condition, I'd just suck it up. As it is, she's young enough to know better. And also, my 96yo granny doesn't do it at all. She's a great conversationalist!

You have my sympathies. I'll let you go now, I know you're busy.

something about a gay cage fighter..

Please tell me the name of this ^ show

Sorry Donald I'm not sure. It has one of the Jonas brothers in.
Hope that helps

My mum will spend ages telling me about things going on in her life (things her friends or other family members are doing that she might not agree with for example). I will listen patiently, then the minute I say anything about the situation, whether positive or negative, she'll say "well I'm staying out of it". Every. Single. Time.

She also has a kind of script that she runs through with every phone call, the same topics every time. If I try and tell her something that is happening in my life I get maybe an"oh right" before she launches straight back into her script. I don't care about what shops have opened and closed recently in a town I moved out of a decade ago! She just can't seem to let the conversation flow naturally, maybe it's just a telephone thing, we get on really well face to face.

With my mum it's repeating the same stories over and over. And either she doesn't care that I know the story already and just ploughs on, or she gets huffy because I remember it from the first eleventy-billion times she said it and have ruined her enjoyment of retelling.

Skittles, I can totally sympathise - I often don't think she even cares that she's talking to me, she'll tell the same stories in the same way to anyone who'll listen!

Could you facetime or video call her instead? When she does it, stick your fingers in your ears so she can SEE you don't want to hear it!

I don't think it is a major issue!

Maybe she is wants to talk to you but is just struggling to find a topic of conversation.

Sometimes it happens less naturally over the phone

Dances my mum does that too. She sent me a message recently to let me know that Claire Jones (not real name) had had a baby. I spent about a week musing over who this person was, slightly concerned that it was someone I was supposed to know.

She turned out to be the sister of someone I went to playgroup with

FYI - the show is Kingdom.

This post has made me smile as I use to feel exactly the same about my Dm. She died 4 years ago and I now remember those frustrating conversations with affection.

Haha, this sounds quite similar to my Mum. Sometimes she'll FaceTime me multiple times after our main chat to tell me things she's forgotten. She's good at not giving spoilers though. Sadly, I'm not good at avoiding them online anyway!

What I find worse though is when I am back in the UK and staying at hers, she will be talking to someone random on the phone who I vaguely know and she'll say "Oh, Acrasia's here" and hand me the fucking phone!!!!! So I have to make small talk and sound interested. After the call she'll look at me and say "I used to hate it when your Nan did that to me" Then why the fuck do it to me?! Now I move rooms in the hope that she won't think about doing it/run and lock myself in the loo at the first hint she might!

My mum also doesn't pay attention and winters on and on about things that have no bearing on our actual conversation.

I leave the phones on the side get back to it later, she doesn't notice.

My DM's the opposite! I live 3.5 hrs away and have done for most of my life. If I'm on the phone to her (we speak daily) and either someone's at her door or her mobile rings, she just hangs up! Or, if I say, I have to go because I'm , she'll hang up with a 'ok, bye' before I've even finished the sentence and not wait for me to finish.

It used to upset me because I felt dismissed but now I just think it's funny!

Mine is pretty long winded.
She also likes to feel in the middle of things with my family.
DH and I have had a few problems lately which I made the mistake of telling her about, and she's on the phone or texting 3x a day asking "how are things now?" "Have you spoken to him?" Etc.
It's hard to explain as it sounds like she's just looking out for me, but it's too much. It's our business and we need space to work things out ourselves.

My mum does most of the above things, and you have to invent an emergency to get off the phone with her, even if you said at the beginning you only had ten minutes, and it's been half an hour. Then she gets the hump and says "you called me, and now you are making me feel like you can't wait to get rid of me". The same happens when you pop round, or if she pops round.

All of our conversations are at least 80% her talking, but the other day she had the audacity to tell me that she never gets a word in edgeways with me!

Also, absolute worst thing, had dinner with my MIL and mother the other day, MIL was talking, mum wasn't interested in what she was saying so just spoke over her, loudly, about a different topic.

My mum will spend ages telling me the latest plot in EastEnders or Coronation Street, even though she knows I hate soaps and really couldn't care less. My bored expression doesn't seem to put her off. She also repeats the same old stories, sometimes I think she just likes to talk because she can't bear silence. I guess it's partly old age and a bit of loneliness. (My dd is stone deaf so not much conversation going on there! )

Foxtel prescription

What's that?

Some medication?

Ah, kingdom. That's it, sounds familiar. I had a blow by blow plot from episode one up till now basically, to a show that I watched once and simply couldn't get into she kept going on about this cage fighting bloke being gay and I'm like I don't even know who you're talking about much less know of his sexual orientation. Saying that was a mistake because she goes "oh my god do you never listen! It's x! I told you about him the one that does x y and z!" 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ Fuck knows.
We do FaceTime, sometimes on video at which point I put my phone down and walk off and do something when she starts but she keeps going

Mum was the same, I could give you the script even though it's 17 years ago: "I had a nice bit of chicken for my dinner, NDN came round and said, that man on the news, the weather, her greenhouse.
I would give any thing to hear her voice again.

Subscription. I have no excuse for that cock up 😂😂😂 maybe autocorrect, perhaps because I have a 1yr old DD who never wants to sleep. Who knows!
It's a TV show service like amazon prime or Netflix. HBO sold the exclusive rights for GOT to Foxtel so you must stream it illegally or get Foxtel which is actually more expensive and less useful than any other streaming service but hey, they have game of thrones so they get away with it 😥

My late MIL was the same , no stop or pause button.
I don't just think it is age , I think it's loneliness.
I think they save up conversations in their head to have when they get a real live person on the end of the phone.
It makes me feel guilty now. Our life was always so busy busy, no time to listen.

I do wonder if it's a symptom of loneliness?

If I'm solo with the children for extended time, I make mental notes of things I'd say to an adult if I got the chance. It sometimes manifests as verbal diarrhoea when I do meet an actual person. I try and check myself but It can become habit.

However spoilers for GoT cannot be forgiven.