MIL on repeat, repeat, repeat

[HarrysOwl]

I genuinely love MIL.

She's a lovely person, really kind and welcoming. She never interferes, is only full of compliments and she wrote a lovely letter to me welcoming me to the family when DH & I got engaged.

The only thing that makes visiting her hard is her habit of repeating stories and being talked at. The stories are the same ones. Over and over. I can't express how torturing it is to be talked AT. She's been like this for 10 years.

I've tried:

1. saying 'I remember you saying this'
2. saying 'oh yes, you've told me a few times'
3. telling her the ending i.e. 'did you open the door and there he was, in a dress?' But she carries on regardless
4. changing the subject

Nothing has worked. She has a friend who is the same and they literally talk AT EACH OTHER, over each other. They stayed with us once. It was insane.

On the phone she's better, weirdly, and you can have a slightly more two sided conversation (it's still 80/20 her talking) but in person, honestly, it's 99/1 and I feel like an unwilling audience. I mind when it's new information - it's the repeated stories that make me want to eat my teeth.

She'll ask a question but then talk over you immediately. She'll tell you every teeny detail of her weekend in Weymouth but when we came back from our wedding (we eloped, but had it videod to show her) she couldn't muster enough attention to watch it, instead she talked about work. Poor DH was really, really hurt.

AIBU? She's such a lovely lady, it's just this aspect that put me (and DH!) off visiting her. I have to convince DH to come along, as he hates his mum talking over him and at him. His energy evaporates.

We're visiting her today.

Any advice? Happy to be flamed and I'll put my good-DIL hat on!

Yes, I was a bit harsh before. There's far worse things to get annoyed about. Pick your battles!

Has she always been like this? Have you spoken to your DH about how she was when he was younger?
If not, it must be an age thing I guess and I have seen similar in others -my own Mum was going that way but she always took it good humour when we stopped her and said “heard this one Mum”. She died in her mid sixties so we never saw it it was going to get a lot worse.

Personally, I find that if I am spending time with a lot of different people I can occasionally forget who I told what story.
However I just can’t get my head around someone who is not suffering from dementia yet is so self-unaware that they ignore you when you say “heard this” and plough on regardless. You have my sympathies. How is she around interaction that doesn’t involve stories eg when you ask her advice about how to do something, or what she thinks about something in the news/on TV?

Old people what a wonder they are. I wonder what you will be like later on doing the same thing day in day out. Not much of a social life.

My father does his, but it’s a component of him being on the autistic spectrum. Lengthy stories everyone present has heard twenty or more times. Your story about your MIL talking about work when you were showing her your wedding reminded me of when I phoned my parents to give them some very good news after a period of terrible worry — potentially serious foetal abnormality turned out to be ok — and my father cut across me and monologued for 20 minutes about an old computer he’d been doing something to.

Let me say, loud and clear - this is not an age thing. I have known MIL for over 30 years and she has always been like this.

I agree, unless it started later in life. I know several people like this who are not 'old' at all. It's done kind of personality disorder I think.

I even find myself occasionally being like it ( MH mum and sister are like this) by I'm aware of it (or rather became so in my 30s) and try to stop.

*some

I wouldn’t label this age-related unless the OP has noticed it. My father has been doing it since he was in his 30s.

*my

My dad is exactly the same, although he can hold a conversation on recent things it will no doubt lead to a story from years ago that we've heard a 100 times. My poor mum gets a little cross with him and will tell him he's already told us but he carries on regardless! We are so used to it now we just sit and nod in the right places

I used to go to college with a lady who seemed to have a filter bypass. She would literally say whatever came into her head, whenever it came into her head, including in the middle of lectures etc. A large percentage of lecture time was lost while she monologued on about whatever had just come into her head - it was hard to talk over her because she didn't have sound control either.
I know it's not quite the same but it was also very annoying - I wonder though if your MIL also has some kind of missing social filter that doesn't allow her to shut up and listen.

Either that or she's just very self-centred!

My mum does this - she’s 84 pity me! Tried interrupting her - she just starts from the beginning- some of the stories do mutate over the years and that’s also frustrating when I was in the actual story and know what happened! We get through it by playing Grandma bingo - predict her topics of conversation before we meet up and give ourselves a point for each story we have predicted- large family so it gets competitive

And I've just remembered another friend, who is also very lovely, who used to tell the same stories over and over - but he's very absent-minded and genuinely forgot who he'd told what, so when we said "yes we've heard it" he would stop and apologise.
As a group of friends, we used to hold fingers up to indicate how many times we'd each heard the story before...

You say a couple of times “she’s been like this 10 years” but is that the whole time you have known her, or do you mean that DH reports a shift in behaviour 10 years ago? He’s obviously as upset by it as you are, perhaps more, just trying to understand if he grew up with her like this?

Have you tried stopping her in mid flow and asking her WHY she keeps repeating the same stories? Not rudely, but laughingly “MIL, that’s the fifteenth time you’ve told me this story - why do you want to tell me again?”

YY.

Talk to her!! Did your dh say, 'Mum, why don't you care about my wedding? It really hurts me that you can't be quiet for 5 mins and watch my wedding video.'

Have you tried that??

A bit of a tangent here but why are you the one instigating the visits? It's your DH's mum and it's his responsibility to keep in touch and arrange visits. It shouldn't fall to you to force him to visit!

It’s really wearing but it’s sooooo common. My grandparents had a batch of stock stories and any slight link would set one off. Mention going on holiday and you would get their trip to St Anne’s. Mention Scotland or anything to do with Scotland and you’d get Grandpas war years in Stornoway etc etc. My DM made me promise that if she started repeating stories that we would tell her, but somehow we just couldn’t. Also commenting that you remember the story didn’t stop future renditions. I feel your pain. All I can say is there’s a good chance we will be the same and just hope our nearest and dearest will try to contain their exasperation.

I do this, my children tell me all of the time, its old age I tell you,
did I tell you that I do this all of the time and my children tell me they've heard that one before, its my age I think.....

Are you my long lost sister? I think we share a mum.

This is my Mum. Planet 85.

Not only what you have written about but visual prompts - going past certain places, gates, shops etc will prompt a replay of a familiar story, event* etc. If I hear once more about the butcher, his son, now retired, once more.......

I could let it annoy me - I just let it wash over, pleased that my mum is ok, chatty and reasonably compos

It’s just how it is.

• The recalled events may be quite different to the actual event possibly 40+ years before.

Do you have the same mil as me...

I have been like this sometimes during a difficult time in life. Couldn’t remember who I had told about what, and also really wanted to keep conversations on safe ground.
I didn’t really want to hear about other people’s stuff, good or bad, and it was too tiring to keep track and engage unless it was my nearest and dearest.
Think I am better now but it could easily get to be a habit.
I went freelance, and still just can’t be bothered with small talk and superficial relationships. I have to make a conscious effort all the time to ask things and listen to the answers, and not forget them immediately. It’s wearing.
Much more comfortable just to natter on about the same crap until the time is up.

She's trying to communicate but when she is in a room with someone her emotions make her use this defensive behaviour of 'storytelling'.
She goes right into herself and is not 'present' with the other person. The other person then loses connection and feels ignored, dismissed and talked and ranted at.
Her strategy is...'if I Keep talking then I won't have to be aware of what their real feelings towards me are. I won't have to actually have a transactional 2 way conversation where I risk finding out my feelings or their feelings'
A person can be self-centred in the nicest possible way. My mother was lovely, gentle, kind, reserved. But had not the slightest interest in me whatsoever. She was afraid of the feelings. Of finding out that things might not all be rosy.

My MIL is a repeater.

‘Do you need X home with you?’

‘No it’s fine?’

‘Do you need X?’

‘No, we’ll get them tomorrow’

‘Are you sure you don’t want X?’

YES I AM FUCKING SURE (not no quotations as this is said inside).

note*

My MIL used to do this - drove me crazy - she'd repeat a story and then immediately repeat it and then repeat the punch line again - so --''He tried to get the fluff out and his arm got wedged in the hoover. Can you believe it - his arm got wedged in the hoover when he tried to get the fluff out. In the hoover. Wedged. His arm. His arm got wedged'. .. ad infinitum. I would sit with a rictus grin on my face, waiting for a pause for breath when i could change the subject. (Didn't happen often - as my XH used to say 'Mum breathes through her ears' )

I'd probably be a bit more patient these days, it is definitely age related - as my kids tell me I repeat myself - they say ''you said that yesterday Mum' quite bluntly. But I actually have no recollection of having said it, or who I said it to. I imagine I am quite irritating - but it isn't done deliberately, just that my memory is crap. I am genuinely interested in other people and I do listen to their stories, as well as repeating my own

Thebatmother
My DM made me promise that if she started repeating stories that we would tell her, but somehow we just couldn’t.

So you broke your promise to your mother then? Why would you do that? She was very specific about the way you wanted to support her old age (eg help her, when she loses control over her train of thought, not to become someone who annoys people) and you just ignored that?

I will be asking similar if my nearest and dearest and the whole point is that they need to do it, and remind me I asked them to. I had better write it down in case I complain they are being cruel and they need to show me what I asked them . (I am not talking about dementia here. )