Spent a few days with close relatives, let's call them Jane and Mary, I see every few months and I've found it a bit exhausting.
Every little things seems to be a drama and overanalysed:
Scenario 1 - Im staying with Mary with DC. We went to Jane's house and Jane is looking after Marys dog at moment as dog (small breed) is is a bit overexcited with the DC around so we keep her on the lead with muzzle on to be safe (dog has never hurt DC to ve clear), and Mary makes a bit thing of saying repeatedly to the DC she's keeping the dog at a safe distance and no need to worry etc. I feel like this feeds into the situation and the dog must detect Mary is very tense as she's hyperfocused on keeping it by her side the whole time (rather than just putting it in the other room) and also makes the DC super wary. Meanwhile Jane gives a constant commentary throughout the whole situation 'isn't this stressful?' 'What a terrible shame' 'I feel bad for Mary, just trying to get together and then dealing with this stress'. Then Mary and Jane discuss the situation between themselves, analyse every nuance of the dogs behaviour while DC are present. Rather than just moving the convo on and not making it a thing.
Scenario 2 - I wanted to pop in to see Jane's sister Violet (both in 80s) to give her an Xmas card. Violets relationship with Jane and Mary is complex and Jane and Mary both harbour bitter resentment towards Violet which I won't go into. Mary is a bit of a gatekeeper with Violet as she also works for her so she was arranging the visit for us all to go over. She didn't like Violets tone on the phone when she rang to sort it and went into a rant to me about it, analysing every aspect of what she said. Jane just chips in to agree with everything Mary says. I just wanted to stop in to say Merry Xmas Violet but it just felt like another drama over nothing.
I'm probably being unfair but I find Jane and Mary's negativity and overanalysis in both these scenarios quite tiring. Others might just deal with the dog or brush off Violet's tone etc but they make those things the primary focus of the convo so everyone gets a bit tense and off.
I'm probably not explaining it that well but I've come away after the weekend wondering why we wasted time dwelling on the wrong things.