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.

Dm always said A nasty old person was once a nasty young person. In other words, character traits don’t change, they just often become more pronounced.

So, in the case of “broadcasting” I agree with pps that there are a fair few people I know who are young who just talk at you. Never ask a question or even engage in conversational tennis - just regale you with their life and times. Sil is a bit like this: last time I saw her I told a very funny (I thought!) self-deprecating story and she just blandly smiled at the end. There was a bit of an awkward silence till I said, “So how’s your dm’s knee?” and then she was happily off again.

Yes to this. My MIL will tell us all about her friends ailments, intimate details about her carers lives. But could not tell you details about what her DGC are doing because she never listens to DH or I.

My DM is early 70s and has started getting this selfish way in conversations now, always turning it back to her and her experiences. I can only see it getting worse. MIL is over 10 years older.

Nope.

Cause words meaning have "words with one another" or have an argument.

Apologies, I didn't realise it wasn't a commonly used term.

Delightful 😵‍💫. As the “stronger party”, l will be concentrating on myself going forward (if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander!)

With regards to OP’s original question my mum has always been like this. She’s just got worse. Consequently l try to avoid phone conversations and video calls. I find it rude and self absorbed, as well as very annoying!

My dad is the same, in fact I’m lucky if he even asks how I am or what I’ve been doing.

I get a monologue about his ailments and various issues/things that have gone wrong this week. Nothing positive or amusing, ever. It’s very draining.

My mum does this but with some weirdly specific questions thrown in. So I’ll say something like I’ve had a long busy week at work and she’ll ask whether there is a kitchen in the office, or where one of my colleagues lives. Then back to her monologue about the timeline and topics of conversations with her neighbours.

Doesn't anyone's parents here do anything interesting at all? And have friends that do? Any hobbies? My MIL was crazy about badgers, for instance - she used to be out at night watching them at least once a week into her late 80s - though I admit too much information about their comings and goings got a little tedious. FIL volunteered teaching at a local swimming club until his 80s.
When MIL became almost housebound she used to keep a secret scorecard about the carers that came which was very amusing, or she'd be out scaring pedestrians and knocking over shop signs cluttering the pavement (she was as bad a driver with her biddy buggy as she had been with a car.)

@toomuchcardboard I think it depends on their personalities. My late Mum always had interests and hobbies even when her health was terrible. My Dad has some, but not as much now that he also has health challenges. Plus being widowed has affected him. It can be hard to think outside your own small world when you're in pain.

I’m the aged parent. I seem to have lost interest in other people outside family -so prob the opposite of the complaints on here. But there has been a lot of water under the bridge and over 7 decades sad events, successes, ongoing trying situations, financial problems, world events etc and it’s harder to be interested in stuff and maybe my little world is enough

My mum does have hobbies, yes. She tells me great detail about the latest going ons in those too, the families of the people in her club, and their health. That is all part of my DM's monologue.

Mine doesn’t do anything very exciting but even on the odd occasion when he has been out, he never volunteers any info about it. I have to ask him “have you been out this week/who with/where did you go” etc to get any sort of conversation.

He’s on anti depressants and they seemed to work for a short while, he was a bit perkier/more chatty but it didn’t last. He won’t go back to the doctors to change his dose as they caused weight gain.

I feel the same actually . You get to the point that you want to conserve energy for your nearest and dearest as you get older. Friends move , change or let you down in various ways. The world feels like an exhausting place. I concentrate on my own immediate family these days.

My Mum is exactly the same. She’s 77 now, but has been like this for some time, and it’s worsening with age. I read something a while ago about losing empathy as we age, so I wonder if it’s that?

My Mum is like this. It’s not a dementia thing, she’s always done it.
She came round yesterday after not seeing her for a few weeks and it was just a brain download of the neighbours who I don’t know, what she’s been doing, her health, what’s happening in her village, boring as hell.

I was cleaning when she came so I just carried on and made the right noises.

I don’t think she asked how we were.
I changed jobs in December and started antidepressants a few months ago.
She doesn’t know because she never asks.

My mum and MIL are both like this in different ways 🙈

My mum basically lives in her own world and will sometimes not ask me about fairly major things in my life - eg I could have just come back from holiday and she might not even ask how it was. Sometimes it is embarrassing when it's major things my DH is doing - eg starting a new job - and she might not ask. But she doesn't monologue, if anything she's more likely to just sit there making no conversation at all.

My MIL does ask about and remember things but can't wait to switch the topic to some irrelevant story about her friends/someone else we don't know. Eg most recently we were discussing my DD - her grandchild - starting school and local schools we might view, and she literally said "To change the topic slightly, you know Margaret's son and DIL had to move into that temporary flat...." and went into a story about her friend's family - who none of us know from Adam. And she will just go on and on and on about it, even though nobody has the slightest interest.

@LittleSpeckleFrog My MIL does ask about and remember things but can't wait to switch the topic to some irrelevant story about her friends/someone else we don't know.

It's this isn't it? Not continuing the conversation with you, that could lead to some interesting discussion, but immediately telling you about people you don't know and have no interest in. I wonder what mine tells others about us now, as she barely knows anything about what we are all up to.

I think you can be pre-disposed to this personality wise and then age can accelerate it definitely. Has her actual life recently narrowed?

My mum's been like this - repeating the same stories/grievances "dwelling on things" - in an increasing way for maybe five years now? Maybe a bit longer, I guess it was there, pre-Covid. She is now 83. The weird thing is she does plenty in her spare time and has lots of friends.

My MIL is now off the scale with it, similar age. But it can be selective (i.e. an interest in BIL but not SIL.) And her life has shrunken since COVID.

I recognise this too. "Not to change the subject" but here I am doing this anyway.

Funnily enough, I had this exact conversation with my DH the other day. My DM is mid 80s and goes on about people I don't know, etc, etc. But when we've been on hols we have that same conversation - did you have a good time - and then that's it! She came round for dinner the other day and I said I put all my flowers out and I think they look nice (while we were looking at the garden), and she just said yes and moved on! No chat about them at all! I know she loves me and all that but it does make conversation a bit difficult.

My mum has started doing this (more) since covid.

The other thing I've noticed is that she copies and pastes whatsapp messages and sends them to multiple other people. She used to actually just forward them until I commented on it. I can tell she's still doing it because the tone and language is slightly different. I find it absolutely infuriating, I think because she's basically trying to get me (and others!) to respond and engage without putting in any kind of emotional effort. Really odd.

But those things are not trivial to your Mum. You seem to expect her to listen to you talk about your life and issues (which she may consider trivial) when you are not willing to make time to listen to what is important to her.

Yes exactly. Turning the conversation away from something that we are mutually interested in/care about - like people in our family, her grandchildren, our upcoming holiday together - and onto something where it's just basically her monologuing about complete strangers, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

I would never sit there going on and on and on about my work colleagues to her - and to make it even worse, it's not even her actual friends she's usually telling us about, it's their children!

So somewhere an elderly lady is no doubt boring her own children rigid with tales about you and your kids!

My mum was like this, she ended up with Dementia and passed away a few years ago. Whole phone calls would take place when she wouldn’t ask a single question about me, and she was still working then. She would have been early 60’s

My mum certainly made stuff up. My sisters and my daughters and I were all on to her and didn't take anything she said to any of us about any of the others at face value (it varied according to who was in favour at the time, though her sons-in-law were never presented in a good light), but I have no doubt that various aunties, cousins and random acquaintances took it all in because she was so lovely and so plausible and had nothing obvious to gain by making up stories. We roll our eyes gently and go, "That was just Granny," now that she's gone, but at the time it wasn't at all funny.