Irritated by parents already😩

[Bellyblueboy]

I am an awful person. My parents are staying for Christmas - only arrived today - and I am already irritated.

The constant passive aggressive questions - the long, boring stories about people I don’t know - the complete lack of interest in my life

All my Electrical appliances have been unplugged so the remote controls no longer work. I will have to crawl under the Christmas trees now to turn them back on (don’t know how my dad managed to get under there, he is 80!).

the TV is up so loud I can’t think. They brought the contents of their fridge with them - I had to put most of it in the bin!

my mum keeps asking me are we having (fill in some obscure food item she never mentioned before) then looking disappointed when I say I didn’t know she wanted it. I went to Tesco to try and find Turkish delight with no chocolate because apparently it just isn’t Christmas without it.

i am already so irritated I could scream. They are elderly. They can’t help it. But in fairness they have always been a bit annoying, they have just lost their filter.

I am trying to find it funny. But failing. Every time I move my dad asks me what I am doing. Where I am going. Aggghhhh

Ha ha I am staying at my son and lovely dil’s house and trying so hard not to be ‘that’ mother in law! We do get a bit set in our ways and I’m sure I have annoying habits. But I didn’t bring old fruit, ask about meal timings or menus, insist on anything being done a different way to the way they have chosen to do things or switch off any appliances. Yet.

I haven’t been racist or sexist - not knowingly anyway - or commented negatively on their very different lifestyle to ours.

I’ve been spoiled and pampered, allowed by my grandchildren to play with them for hours which is an joy and taken out to nice places.

I’m trying to get the balance right between being helpful and not in the way, thoughtful but not over thinking and interested but not nosy.

It’s a balancing act which isn’t always easy. I hope you can forgive them eventually!

What's the size of the MN readership got to do with it? Just unclench. I'm so sick of every thread being spoilt by the funsuckers.

Time to develop selective hearing. My FIL does the whole asking me where I'm going every time I move. I pretend I haven't heard as I'm already moving into another room. I highly recommend it 😁.

Not always.... 😬😏

Love this thread, sorry some people have been such fun suckers OP. The Christmas tree lights is hilarious as is @BauhausOfEliottand the black banana - that made me laugh out loud. If it's any consolation I love my DM but can't stand spending longer than an hour in her company. Arrgghh!!

Haha! Very well written OP. My parents are no longer with me, but I feel your pain. Happy Christmas- and please enjoy them whilst you have them x

Old people are old, and with that comes many foibles.
I think they're funny, as in the idiosyncrasies mentioned, but they do test our patience.
Actually mine are OK, mainly because they don't take offence when I correct them or gently tell them off. They have the ability to laugh at themselves.

The moment my children started treating me like an old dithering fool I stopped having them over.

My threshold is usually around 3 days. I think it’s the regression back to them seeing me as a child even in my own home. I get where you’re coming from op, it’s tricky to navigate.

I think everyone needs a space to have a bit of a grump - I do love my family, as dysfunctional, demented, occasionally actually horrible, as they are, they are still my flesh and blood and as there's only two of 'em (and the older one keeps forgetting I am housebound currently and threatening to cut me out of his will for not visiting...) they are all I have, flaws, foibles and all..

But ooh I could actually drop my sister off a very high cliff today - she's confessed that:

• despite insisting we did presents
• insisting they be a surprise
• insisting they be swapped face to face, christmas day 'or it's not magical' (we're 44 and 45, it's NOT fucking magical!)

And knowing I have found her an absolute fucking cracker of a present that is right up her alley.. which I took time over and sourced 6 weeks ago...

She's not actually got me anything. Because various spurious reasons like she ran out of time and last week it was 'oh but I'd need to go to a shop, I can't shop online...'

Today she's revealed she's spent the money she had for my Xmas present on her friends kid because, on hearing she wasn't (WTAF? YES SHE IS!) opening any presents this year, he ran off and got his savings and gave her a card with some cash in it... So she HAD to go online and buy him something on a friends amazon account quickly, and therefore had no time to go into town to buy anything for me...

Riiiiiiiight.

At some point in the last few weeks she had a huge rant at me that I am 'too autistic and specific to buy for'... my list was (to select from!) 'waterproof drawing inks suitable for fountain pens or dip pens, paper, watercolour paints, doesn't matter if you get duplicates as if i already have it I love it and want more - you can get these things from the following list of stores'...

She doesn't get to do total surprises for me after I recieved:

• Box of posh smellies for baths - the year I had no accessible bathroom.
• Plastic Pigeon (practically life sized) that shits cheap nasty hand wash.
• Fuck all.

I think next year im just refusing to play the bloody game. I feel like a total mug for putting in the effort and finding her a lovely bracelet that is her to a T and way out of the usual budget (no expectation to reciprocate that overspend either).

She's meant to show up here between 12 and 1 (she lives 2 minutes away) Christmas day... I will eat my hat on video for all of Mumsnet to see if she turns up in that time frame (or frankly, at all!).

That aside I shall enjoy Xmas day as for the first time in four years I am not working and it is me, DP, a pile of dogs and crap tv and snacks all day until we pass out. I've had a lovely hamper from work, DP and I have got each other some lovely bits and bobs, and relaxing shall happen. I may or may not start a painting ive been meaning to do for ages that ive put off in order to do work related stuff instead. Who knows!

perfectly normal in my experience! Sometimes when I go to my mums, i’m there half hour and wondering when i’m leaving! Of course I appreciate she is still around (my dad isn’t) but doesn’t mean you can’t be irritated by them.

I personally find it very rude to go into someone's home and turn off their items aswell as making passive aggressive comments to them. Parents or not.
My mother is dead and I don't miraculously see her as an amazing person that I should regret ever feeling annoyed towards.
I think this might be a case of people with parents who are lovely that have developed funny quirks as they have got older vs pretty lifelong crappy parents so we all look at it through our own lens.
Hope you get through OK OP.

This is not necessarily true for everyone.
My Dad was really spiteful & unpleasant in his last few years and I was not sorry the first Christmas after he was gone that he was not with us.
It was a relief

M&S do Turkish Delight and now I want some. Switching on the subtitles on the telly might mean you can turn the sound down.

Have a good Christmas!

That’s exactly who I was thinking of!!
Julias in-laws!! 😆

They brought crap wrapped in foil from their fridge and kept asking “ is the kettle on?”

My mum irritates the hell out of me doing all the things yours are doing op. I love her but I dread her coming to stay. The two things are mutually possible for those giving the op a hard time.

People can be irritating, selfish, lazy etc whatever their age. People can live to 90, 100 these days. Not everybody has parents who are about to drop dead in the next year, so that all their annoying behaviour should be tolerated. Annoying parents are annoying parents and anybody is allowed to moan on an online forum.

I hope Christmas goes okay OP and do assert yourself if they get too much. Don’t let them get away with it all.

Where is the info about their health? How do you know these parents are about to drop dead?

I am rolling my eyes so much at the sanctimonious waffle on this thread.

You have my sympathies. I’m staying with my 85 year old mother. She has suddenly become unable to do anything but sit on her arse ordering me around. Although she’s not happy with anything. Apparently I’m useless as I can’t clean the kitchen properly.

Every meal I’ve cooked has been terrible. She drinks tea non stop and has so many sweet things I can’t believe she’s not diabetic.

She watches all the quiz shows. Asks me what I want to watch and when I put my shows on she complains “what are we watching this crap for?” or slags the people off constantly, especially the women (poor Tess and Claudia. You would think they were the Antichrist).

She will happily criticise me, my sister and niece but if we answer back or sound slightly annoyed at her she wails that we are picking on her and starts crying.

The last three cleaning ladies she had have refused to come back because she was rude to her so I’ve had to clean the whole house while also working from home.

arghhhhh….it feels so good to rant. My DH didn’t come this year as we couldn’t find anyone to look after the cat. I envy both of them.

Don’t be an arsehole and you’ll be fine. My friends love spending time with their parents because their parents treat them kindly. I’m sure you do too.

Absolute bollocks, the OP was nowhere near “the line”.

Scroll on by and let the woman vent ffs.

I feel your pain, we’re with MIL, she’s only 70 but you’d think she’s about 90, she’s always seemed older to me and I’ve known her 20 years! Yesterday she tried to put cartoons on for my 12 month old after me repeatedly telling her we don’t allow that, I got a cheeky ‘my kids watched tv and nothing happened to them.’

Well Op made a wise decision because here you are, adding to the pile on, with the rest of the sanctimonious idiots out tonight. God forbid someone wants a little moan and some solidarity. It doesn't mean she doesn't love her parents, or want them there. Typical MN these days, people coming along to rip the OP to shreds from the anonymity of their phones.

I get it OP. My DM is mid 80s. I love her, and will desperately miss her when she's gone (lost DF back in 2017), but I know her visit tomorrow will have me rolling my eyes at some point.

I feel your pain! I only see my parents every couple of years and me and DS are staying with them for Xmas this year. Yes, it is lovely to see them. But I am going to struggle with my annoyance after a few days, I can see:

The TV is constantly on even though no-one is watching it.
DF makes low level racist/xenophobic comments as easily as he breathes. Along the lines of "they always do such and such..." or "these people...". Also "he was a black gentleman but he was really lovely" type of thing. If you pull them up on any of this they become immensely puzzled.
DF keeps telling DS to be quiet when he does a little bit of quiet autistic humming, which is his way of calming himself down and prevents any more annoying behaviour issues.
They use fabric napkins at the table but re-use the same ones without noting whose is whose, so you dont know who last used the one you have now. Uck.
DF is constantly suspicious that people are trying to cheat him. He accused a shop assistant yesterday of putting an item through twice, and was rude to a waitress because he thought she hadn't brought him what he asked for (she had).
Thay have 6 large very hairy dogs who have no boundaries and are treated like people (can sit on any furniture, stick their long noses in at meals etc), and dont seem to realise that there is dog hair in and on everything. They insist that I have always loved dogs although I never have.
Like others have mentioned they keep talking about the lives of people I dont know and dont care about in enormous detail.