Family doesn't know how to have conversations

[lovesT]

I'm just wondering if anyone else struggles with this?

My biological family is TINY, just the 3 of us (mum, sister and myself). My husband's family isn't huge but there are more of them and we get on really well.

Both my mum and sister live alone and I just find it incredibly hard having conversations with them as they don't ask questions and they don't have much to talk about. They're not bad people but I'm struggling as I'm just not the same as them in most ways.

My sister especially just doesn't ask questions, doesn't ask how I am or what's going on with life. I'll ask her and try and start conversations but it will end up being a monologue about her work and nothing back to me. The only thing we properly end up talking about is wonder family issues which I'm completely bored of and will definitely seek therapy for one day 😂 I just can't keep talking about the same things that they both need to work through to.

I know there are bigger problems in life but I really struggle spending won't with them but feel I need to for the benefit of my two children and as I say they're not mean people just hard to be around!

Just need a vent I think, and maybe anyone who can relate.

.

I have the same problem with my elderly father. One sided conversation mainly. Also with my cousin's....gets really really really really annoying

It sounds like you just don't have much in common.

I think you've sent this on the wrong thread?

But no you're not being unreasonable!

Maybe some people don't know how to converse anymore? Conversation with my in laws is so much more refreshing!!

@lovesT could well be....my dad tells me all about his social life. If I try and say what I have been up to he just carries on 😵‍💫

I think just because you are related to someone doesn't mean you've anything in common. My mum asks the occasional question but then immediately talks over you, like asking the question means job done and you don't need to listen to the answer. She just likes terminating cliches as well so no way to have a conversation. Spend less time with them is the only answer.

Yes, my family is exactly like that.
I think it's lazy and rude*. There is an acceptance that you will come to see them because they are family and they don't therefore need to make any effort.
Do you have a good enough relationship to bring it up? If you don't, I guess that in itself is some sort of explanation.

*My mother went over 10 years without managing to say both hello and goodbye to everyone on any single visit. She only broke the streak because I did raise her lack of conversation and used this as an example of something that really wasn't difficult but she still couldn't be bothered to do. She told me I was selfish to expect her to behave in a certain way, but from then onwards made a point of saying hello and good bye in a very pointed voice. She didn't make any other effort, however.

Oh yes mine doesn't say hello really, she just kind of barges in the house or gets in the car and starts talking at me. Last Christmas she came in, we (husband daughter and my father in law) were in the kitchen and she came in and probably spoke at me (there will have been a job she wanted me to do) for quite a few minutes before she even realised my FIL was there and then she acts surprised like he has been deliberately hiding.

My family are the same and it's very wearing. There's conversational noise but no substance. Endless monologues about what housework has been done, that they put the bins out, that they'd spoken to the neighbour very briefly etc etc. I love them dearly but it's driving me bonkers. They know nothing about me, don't listen if I tell them something, and if I ask them questions they gloss over them and don't answer.

My children also find it hard. My family still treat them like they're tiny and don't seen interested in who they are now. It's like once they've established a narrative it can't be changed. They hold a lot of incorrect negative assumptions about me. Nothing I have tried to improve things has made any difference.

It's all very sad really.

I might be shot down for this, but I think a lot of people have an expectation that family have to be close and have to enjoy each others' company, whereas in reality, you're no more likely to get along with them than you are with a random stranger.

There's also no need to force your children into spending time with people just because they're related to you. My extended family have always lived overseas and we've never been close - it's honestly not a problem and I don't feel as though I've missed out on anything.

Honestly, I think significant numbers of peiole are like this. My octogenarian father, who is almost certainly autistic, gets up and leaves the room as soon as any of his adult children arrive on a visit. When he and my mother visited me at my house last weekend, we were walking around the garden just after they arrived (I’m having work done), and after a minute he just walked away into the house by himself. My mother, if asked about herself, will monologue endlessly about a car accident that was on the news, or the death of someone she once had a passing conversation with, while ignoring something serious I actually say about myself. It’s like a conversational wall called ‘other people’s problems’.

i do talk to my 13 year old about how this isn’t normal, though, but that they’re not going to change in their 80s. His other grandparents aren’t any more conversational or attuned to him or theur children. DH’s father has dementia and his mother only utters mildly disparaging platitudes or talks about sport.

My mother's only mode of conversation is asking questions, not sure that I wouldn't prefer your mother's!

Do they spend a lot of time alone? Conversation is an art and takes practice

I have just about nothing in common with my sister. We both know it and only communicate when it's necessary, which is almost never. You don't have to maintain discourse with your family members if it's hard work.

No I totally agree, but my children enjoy time with them and they love seeing the children (not much else in their lives tbh 🤪) so I couldn't just cut contact and it's not that I don't like them but I come away exhausted as it's so draining being with them and yeah we don't have much in common at all. Very grateful for my husband's family who has always taken interest and we have good conversations but it makes me realise what I don't have with my family.

I too have family like this. I manage by lowering my expectations and not expecting anything at all of them. Also, try not to invite them to very much. One moves on, finds people more in tune with you, stops caring about family when they're like this. It's sad but they can't change.

Would it be better to meet up somewhere that prompts conversation, maybe? I always find conversation much easier if you're out and about somewhere and can talk about what's going on.

Thanks for the replies so far! I feel quite validated in my frustration 🫣 sorry there are others who struggle with it too!

They often want to spend time together and see me/ the children but don't actually suggest anything so we end up meeting in one of our houses (usually mine) and then not having proper conversation unless it's about certain things we've talked to death 🫠.

After they wanted to meet the other day but didn't suggest anything I said what I was doing and my sister tagged along. Literally asked her about work and she told me all about that and that was it for the whole hour and a half we were together. It's exhausting!!

When they come over I'll often make food and instead of "hello how are you?" Or something it's "what you making" then leave me in the kitchen and no interest in how I'm doing 😩. I think I'm sad I don't have that connection with my family basically but I don't feel I can just not see them so just kind of need to accept it for what it is I suppose?

Yes!! My mother does this too.

Just an endless, uncomfortably intense interrogation about what time I’m doing things and where I’m going, and ‘how was it?’ when I come back from any tiny errand (there’s only so much I can think of to say about my experience of putting petrol in the car, mum) and what I’ve eaten and what I plan to eat and what everyone in my family has eaten and when they ate it and whether they enjoyed it.

I also suspect ND - it feels like someone taught her at a young age that the way to make polite conversation is to ask questions, and she took that incredibly literally and never learned any further skills.

Unfortunately it also means that she attracts people who LOVE to talk endlessly about themselves, so most of her friends are self-obsessed egomaniacs who exploit her capacity to listen (without realising she’s not actually listening - she just kind of goes into sleep mode until she can ask the next question).

I agree with this.

I've got inlaws who've never grasped social conversation and my elderly dad is increasingly like this too.

Fortunately both lots have National Trust memberships. Always something to talk about at a NT property, even if it's just why they are surprised every single day by peak coffee demand!

I think either extreme is hard - we just want middle ground don't we. I am still waiting for my mum to ask me if I had a good holiday from six months ago. She won't but it's fascinating to observe how people interact or don't. My daughter is still waiting for an Easter egg that was promised about four years ago.
Mine does interrogate though as well, not me as I am not worthy of it but sometimes my daughter, it's not a conversation though, it's like mining for information. Odd.

Yes, we do sometimes but my mum isn't always up for it (she's only later 50s but not always got the energy for things). They also have the complication of both having dogs so we are often limited with time or what we can do but we do go out sometimes. I said further up how my sister joined me and my kids going out the other day but there was still no conversation and I'm so bored of it I just decided to stop trying and carry on as if she wasn't really there with us (after asking her about something going on with her because I can't be rude). But nothing back and I find it exhausting even doing something together. We have occasional good days but I think I'm tired of most of the time being hard work.

It hasn't happened to me but I would suggest just keep the links going but make the trips either shorter or less frequent. I doubt your family members will change and there is nothing you can do to remedy this really.

How old are your children? I found with my children that once they got past about 9 or 10 and the "playing toys/games with" age, that the relationship with my parents faltered as mine with them had similarly done, because my parents had no interested in talking to them or finding out about them. So you then have the situation where you are torn between duty visits that no one enjoys, or not bothering at all.

I'm hoping you may now say that your children are teenagers because it will mean your situation is different :)

I find with older people who don't get out much they don't have any new conversation material and fill the void with going on about something totally insignificant that must be the most exciting thing to have happened in their lives in the last few years.

My in laws neighbours son 'came out the wardrobe' according to FIL and that's all he talked about for well over a year until the neighbour across the street got their hip replacement and then it was all about Bob's recovery. FIL was a lovely man but incredibly boring in later life.