MIL and her constant trips down memory lane

[popsoc]

Does anyone else's mother or MIL take constant trips down memory lane? At any opportunity remembering what their kids did / ate, how they mothered them etc ?

My mother rarely does this. She mainly does it in private and not in front of others. MIL just cannot help herself and has to refer everything back to how she did it and tells tales of the olden days a lot. It's so boring. She makes it all about her. Even my DH finds it so annoying.

Also, constantly pushing her traditions on us and our kids. It's just all about her and what she did and how great it all was.

Examples include :

I buy my DS a special coat and she goes on about how she still has her children's coat and must give it to us.

Her wanting to carry on traditions she had with her kids, like a special broach they all have. My kids have to have one too now. A special prayer she used to say to them, she now wants to teach to my kids.

Just small examples. But they add up. I know that it's not mean of her, but it excludes me, doesn't it. It's all about their thing and what they did. My mum might tell me things in private - like, ' oh it would be fun if you send DD to ballet, like you used to, maybe she'll enjoy it'. But she won't make a whole saga out of it. Whereas MIL will give me a huge trip down memory Lane about how she took her DD to ballet and if I take my DD, she'll say ' aw look, DD is doing ballet, just like her aunt did '.. I know it sound silly and miserable, but it adds up and makes me feel alienated from my kids and like I never had a childhood to share with my own kids. Like I'm just an irrelevant third party anyway and my kids are basically an extension of her own children.
Annoying. Rant over !

Talking about what she did with her children comforts her. It allows her to spend a few minutes living in a time when she was younger, healthier, more vibrant and more happy.

Definitely. Reminds me of how some older people with dementia enjoy cuddling and caring for dolls. As we get older and we’re running out of life to live, we spend more time in the past.

It sounds a bit controlling on her part tbh, surprised you're getting a hard time from some posters tbh.

You may not like her and that may be justified but i genuinely don't see anything wrong here. When you are with her let her go down memory Lane and feel free to do same with your family or not.

I make my mam sound awful there but she isn't really. She is self obsessed through a lack of self esteem which was ingrained in her from a young age with a mother who has always put her down and been emotionally cold which Is because her mother was taking it out on my mother because she was given away at birth. In fact my nana would say awful things about my mam to me as a child and at 12 I began to be told my mam was a slag and vain and nana said I took after my mam with vanity as I wore makeup and said other things but as nana has always been odd and cold it didn't bother me and I said things back along the lines of that I was glad I took after my mam rather than ugly people who wouldn't wear make up as it would do no good and had to call people vain who did out of jealousy. Yes I know it sounds bad but I was 12 and she was putting me and my mam down xxx

Is she a loving and attentive parent/grandparent? Does she do anything controlling or unkind? If do I think you need to spend less time being petty and more time being eternally grateful that you got one of the rare good ones tbh...

I totally get it OP. My MIL was like this too. It felt deliberately excluded but in time I realised she is a very insecure woman. And according to DH she reinvents their not so happy family life to what she wishes it had been.

*if not

My MIL is exactly the same as this. But it’s not a bad thing???

Shes reminiscing about the times in her and her childrens lives that mean a lot to her, why be bitchy about that? You sound very insecure.

I say this as a person that has had my own issues with MIL, her weapon of choice is emotional blackmail and she can cause problems in my relationship like no other person… but her story telling, sharing of childhood experiences, talking about her love for her boys etc… these are her nicer moments!!

Of all the things you could moan about, you choose that??? You do need to get a grip.

I'm kind of your DH, in that my mum does this from the other side. Anything my DDs do, they're taking after me or my brother or some other member of our family. She says, 'they've got / they do the family x / y / z' and by that she means my side, so just people related to me. It drives me insane. It'll even be common stuff that all babies do. It always has to be claimed.

Every time, I remind her that my kids have a whole other side to their family and so may well take after another relative from DH's set. Because their family isn't the same as her and what was my family (they still are, obvs, but I also count DH's family as my family, now).

With my mum, I think it's just a part of her complex issues around a fear of rejection by me in particular - so she's always ensuring that people related to her and me are referenced in my kids as a way of reinforcing the relationship, for example. My husband takes it all in his stride. It helps that both DDs look very like him!

How does your DH take it, I meant to ask?

This is terribly, terribly petty of me , but I got excited then waiting to hear what you would say when you got to the point of feeling snappy and thought you were going to make some comment about your dp putting his hands behind his back as a child that would give your mil a bit of the irritation she had given you, but you're obviously a better woman than I am because it didn't happen lol. I know that it's best that it didn't anyway , but sometimes it is satisfying a little bit to give them a dose of their own medicine lol xxx

Well, like I'm not even there. When I say, oh I also used to do ballet or whatever it might be and try to tell stories I just get ignored

Do you live with her?

If not then surely you’d just tell your kids about your childhood when you’re not with MIL.

I’ve met a few women who always talk about their children.

I have a colleague who will turn literally any conversation around to her child.

It can obviously be annoying but she just wants to share and there’s nothing malicious behind it, it sometimes makes me feel a bit sad that she obviously misses them now they’re friends up.

You are being ridiculous and sound nasty and very petty.
I expect you will get on your own children's and grandchildren nerves in time. From the way you come across it will be very easy for you to achieve that!!

I don't see anything wrong with this, however I love hearing about stories from my MIL about my DH childhood.

I’ll probably get attacked for saying this, but yeah this would annoy me as well. You have your own traditions and family things you do with your kids, and I would just say “ that’s lovely , but we do this instead …” I wouldn’t be nasty but yeah it would annoy me. I think it’s an over egging of nostalgia, and we all want to create traditions with our own kids without having someone else’s pushed in our face at every opportunity.

you are not cold, your just sick of tolerating.

Like another poster said, it does sound petty when you haven't experienced it.
My Mil is the exact same. It physically would pain her to say one of my children has my eyes/ smile etc.
My son is his daddy double so I understood her comments about him being like uncle x auntie y. And the isolating monologues.
But my daughter is the absolute clone of me, expressions and personality too. Mils behaviour seemed to ramp up tenfold with my daughter. The story's and comparisons where constant and even irked DH.

For anything to be a family tradition it must have been going for at least the previous three generations.

She sounds like a loving, proud grandmother and you seem to be jealous of her wanting a relationship with your children. Poor woman.
Please try not to project your dislike of her onto your children

I agree. It’s really annoying and I’ll make sure I’m never like this with my DIL. It can be really OTT and to me suggests she’s perhaps overly sentimental when she just needs to enjoy her grown up kids doing things their own way. Feel for you!

Well as you can see OP, some people get it and some don't. My MIL was like it - absolutely EVERYTHING you said was somehow related to something she did 50 years ago. Endless reminiscing about DP's childhood but virtually zero interest in his life as an adult. It was incredibly tiresome and draining to listen to. I guess if your relationship is generally ok you're more likely to shrug it off or find it endearing, but not all of us have that kind of situation sadly.

Maybe divert her attention, if you can, to making a memory box / book to pass down to the kids? she might enjoy it and get her to focus on making that instead of going on verbally. She might just be trying to build a relationship with you the only way she knows how.

No it's just that it's very hard for people to understand why this is so very awful so the thread won't go well for you. I assumed you'd not want loads of people saying you're being silly but genuinely mistaken, clearly.

@Ingrainedagainstthegrain oh I knew that lots of people wouldn't understand. It sounds ridiculous. I get it.

I knew I would only get a few replies that would understand it. I didn't need or want the thread to ' go my way ' or anything like that.

I just wondered if there were some people who might get it. And there have been. But I was totally aware that most people don't get it and think I'm a miserable cow.

I’m sure that this would drive most folks bananas if done repeatedly. I’d have lost if by now - she’d have had ‘oh give over, she’s my daughter and she takes after me ‘ hopefully without any foot stamping.

I also get it. Solidarity!