Has anyone found ageing parents become unable to hold a two way conversation

[Blackberryandcherry]

Let me preface this by saying I adore my mum and she is so kind and would do anything for me. But, as she’s become older (she’s 70) she seems to have lost the inability to have a two way conversation.

If I meet up with her I tend to get a monologue about various (I think minor) things which have been happening either that day or that week. I can often see her and say almost nothing as I just get talked at.

If I’ve been on holiday, she’ll likely remember to ask how it was, but then with no follow up questions about how was the food, or the hotels or any of the usual things one might ask (for example).

I’ve had a few things going on in my life recently and she’ll never ask about them. She never asks about my friends, or what I’ve been up to. For example I may say I met up with X friend at the weekend but she’d never think to ask what we got up to, or how they were, it’s just straight into her next topic.

I can’t work out if she’s not interested, not listening or too busy thinking of what she’ll talk about next.

It’s odd because my grandmother got like this when she was older and my mum complained bitterly about it at the time.

Can anyone relate to this? I have no idea if I should try and address it, or just put it down to older age. I have just been feeling increasingly drained and frustrated with it recently.

I've had almost 25 years of this. My DM is extremely old. I'll miss her when she's gone, but quite honestly, I can predict how each conversation will go based on the first thirty seconds. Signs of a cold = ninety minutes of poor me/ nobody cares/ I wish I had had sons-look at my sister whose boys take such great care of her/ your sister sent me the wrong cheese and is useless-she thinks she's helping but she's useless... Bad weather is another hot topic of conversation. Early nights in winter the same. She does a good line in Woe Is Me, ending with, "You're all OK there though?"

Yes exactly this.

We now don’t really have conversations, I just ask questions she can answer. My DM is only late 60s but she no longer has any interest in anything other than what she’s doing today.

I could have an interview/operation/house renovation and I’d still just get told what she had for lunch/saw at the garden centre.

My mum is 86 and not like this at all - still hugely interrested in my life and her grandchildren

She is very sociable though and always our and about - maybe that makes a difference?

My mum is 80 this year and is exactly the same! She’ll text me and just say “I’m fuming with your stepdad…” no hello, how are you, how are the DC? She’s also deaf as a post but refuses to accept it so misses half of what we’re saying. She’ll bang on for hours about people I don’t know and if I say something like “I’m going to make a cottage pie for tea’ her response is always “well I’ve already got my tea prepared, I’m having such and such”. It’s like she can’t respond to anything I say and just needs to turn the conversation back to her!! I love the bones of her, I really do but Christ, it’s hard work some days 😂

In those situations I would just not acknowledge what she'd just said and carry on with the topic I had been talking about. And then ask her what she thinks.

Or repeat yourself. And if she asks you why you said it twice say "Oh well, it didn't seem like you'd heard me."

No, my dad (late eighties) and my one surviving aunt of a similar age are still well able to have a reciprocal conversation and have a good appetite for gossip. My dear departed mum could be a devil for monologuing, but she'd been like that for as long as I can remember, and I tended to let her get on with it because if she was talking about her own business she wasn't interrogating me for personal information to take away and broadcast to her social circles.

I am 70 & find the same thing about my lovely DC. They never ask what I've been doing, how did a certain event go, did you enjoy your holiday etc etc.

I am punctillious about asking them about their lives & they are very happy to talk about them but they show no interest in mine.

They are wonderful DC - just one + spouse & kids and we live close & I, very happily, do a lot of child care and they are there for me if I am ill or need help but they show no interest in my life.

Yeah ive tried that too.
I get things like "well you ignored what I said"
Or silence then she says "what? you didn't ask a question. I cant do anytjing right"

It makes me quite sad but I think its an age thing

Oh Lord, I'm 64 and please don't let me get like this! My older sister is like this and most times I can't get a word in edgewise during the conversation. But I put it up to her living alone, he only son not visiting very often, and during the week she doesn't really have anyone to talk to. So I get an hour of non-stop rabbiting on about the weather and the price of food.

yup. i get a monologue for about 20 mins, then get asked about me. at least she does ask. and listens and responds.

but she does nothing and goes nowhere so i get hit with the carers news: ie someones dog being sick and someones kids being off school for the election or whatever. i dont know these carers so i dont really care that much about their dogs or kids. why is she telling me…

after 45 mins of talking about nothing I say i need to go and she agrees - and proceeds to ramble on about some other uninteresting thing for another ten mins.

i repeat is best be off now mum and she agrees and “before i forget let me tell you about…”. yeah youve had 45 mins to do that and it’s my bedtime. sigh. eventually i can end up saying im off now love you call you tomorrow bye bye bye (hangs up). otherwise itll just go on until SHE has had enough. sigh.

at least ive still got her but it’s every night. the same chat. every night for 45 mins. when i’m tired or somwtimes unwell. but i have to listen to it. sigh.

My MIL could turn any conversation with my husband into a monologue about her eldest son and how wonderful he is.

It made me feel very sad.

This has hit a raw nerve with me.

I'm in my 70s and lately I've been very conscious that I feel i'm starting to talk AT my son some of thetim rather than talk with him.. And I feel that he doesn't tell me as much about his life as he used to because I think he thinks I won't listen.

I actually thought this was a " me" thing because of my social isolation and I know I'm worse when I'm worried about something because I have no one else to share things with. I didn't realise it was a common thing and that it was age related.

I'm certainly trying not to fall into this way of communicating.

I

I think it is partially an age thing, but I do find that 80% of the people I meet these days(young or old) just want to talk about themselves and aren’t really interested in other people(unless it some salacious gossip)

Yes! Often rants about goings on locally or grumping about friends

Yes same here. She seems to lack the ability to ask questions, and if she does remember then she won’t then ask any further follow up questions based upon whatever has been said.

So I have just sort of assumed she’s not very interested which may or may not be the case.

I sometimes wonder if I’ve got myself into this by letting her monologue and now that’s become our established communication pattern.

You are being so self aware though. Do you think you could make a note before you chat about a couple of things you want to ask him about, and really listen to the answer? I think it’s a certain amount of habit/practice- you have worries and no one else to share them with, so they are the focus. But that then becomes a habit and the other person stops bothering to contribute.

And the thing is, without intervention it becomes a massive obstacle, not just to genuine relationship but to your own understanding. Mum now can’t listen to instructions, questions or solutions. She talks endlessly about the problem, we try and explain and answer and sort it out but she can’t stop talking to listen and let us. It’s a significant problem. I’m here at the moment, trying to sort out so many things she’s struggling with, but she can’t stop talking long enough to let me!

I don’t think you’re alone- there’s a significant number of younger people who don’t have the same to and fro expectation. I don’t know how they are in groups like themselves.
In some ways it’s conversational style- some people think it’s rude to ask other people questions- but there’s definitely people around who totally lack curiosity about other people’s experience.

My mum is doing this more and more and she’s only 68! It’s driving me mental. Half listening to what I say, telling me the same irrelevant stories about the neighbour’s cat that keeps eating the fish in her pond, or the hairdresser that ripped her off the last time she got foils… I’m a full-time working mum with 3 very young DC, and I ain’t got time to be dealing with those kind of unimportant things right now!

I think that her world is getting smaller and she gets hyper fixated on really small, trivial things. Luckily, she makes up for it in other ways, and in general I do enjoy spending time with her, even if it does become a bit tedious after a while. I’m starting to mentally prepare myself for her getting worse over the next 10 years or so.

My mum was always interested in everyone, she annoyed me at the time but now I miss her dreadfully. I’ve been left with my dad who is 85. He is learning to pass on bits of gossip, I am trying to teach him how to have a conversation with his friends but if I didn’t talk at him about my life he’d never know anything because he doesn’t ask and we’d sit in silence. Listening to him on the phone is painful, he never listens to what people say, I do think it’s a hearing problem as well as old-age self-centredness

You are right @PrizedPickledPopcorn
about not letting it become a habit.

I am making a conscious effort to ask him about what's going on in his life and I do try to listen to what he says without letting my attention wander. Keeping focused is sometimes the hardest part.

Oh my goodness, the grumping about friends. I swear this is a new thing, I never remember my mum being so mean and gossipy. She always has a rude comment about a friend who let her hair go grey and ‘it doesn’t really suit her but I don’t know if I should say anything’ or a friend who ‘went on ozempic but still needs to lose 5kg’.

They did a big 3-week holiday with some really close friends, and you’d think that they all hated each other with the way that my mum spoke about the trip. Literally the only things she said about the trip were negative and bitching about the friends and how difficult they were to travel with. I actually assumed that they had a falling out and weren’t friends anymore, but they are doing another trip together next month. So, I guess it wasn’t so bad then?

I’ve started calling her out on it, the negativity and gossip really upsets me. It’s made me more aware of how I speak about other people, because I never want to become like that. Again, I never remember her being like that before. She would sometimes complain about work colleagues, but never to this level and with so much viciousness.

I think hearing loss has something to do with this, but isn’t the entire reason. My MIL refuses to accept she’s got hearing loss even though she has the TV on full blast and still needs subtitles - she misses so much conversation so you end up asking her something and getting a statement from her about something else. My mum does wear hearing aids but she no longer has any interest in anything we do and any questions she asks seem to be spoiling for a fight rather than conversation. It’s exhausting and I dread going like this.

My DD is like this and she's 22 😂

She has lots of friends & a long term boyfriend so I assume she's only like this with me!

Oh yes, my aunt does this. She’s 82. Very sociable, sharp as a tack, doing amazing for her age but goodness she can go on.

Perfect example yesterday: I asked her a simple question about her plans for today, the answer started 15 years ago when her friends health issues, and her husbands health issues, started. We get everything about various appointments, waiting times, descriptions of medical prodecedures, how the NHS botched every step possible and 20 mins later turns out her plans are taking this friend to another appointment.

We never know these friends, but we let her go on because it’s polite, right?

A legendary / bingo moment was when I once talked about my own friend and she actually said “Haha sorry but I don’t know this person so this story isn’t relevant to me so I’m not bothered about hearing the end of it!”