Monologues monopolising conversations

[Pinkyponkalonk]

My MIL is a nice lady, very kind to my husband (her son) and our toddler daughter, has lots of friends and had a long professional career. She adores her family and would do anything for them.

However my relationship with her is floundering due to her absolutely monopolising conversations with long dull monologues on any and every subject. I find myself silent or monosyllasbic a lot of the time around her as any topic at all that is raised, she will then proceed to tell you every tiny thing she has ever experienced or knows about it - even something as simple as a potato.

If someone else is speaking, she will say 'yeah yeah yeah' eagerly (without realising she is) as she is anxiously trying to interject and take over again. If she asks you how you slept and you say 'good thank you' she will then launch into a long monologue outlining every detail of her nights sleep - and if someone else comes into the room, she will start again and tell them with exactly the same detail and length.

There are other issues with her being quite overbearing in her children's lives but I could cope with those if time with her wasn't sadly so dull and actually quite stressful due to her constant need to be talking. She is quite an anxious person and always so eager not to offend and to get everything right so I am baffled how she doesn't know how frustrating it can be to be around her. Her children get frustrated and annoyed with her but she just shrugs it off and carries on.

She is a nice person essentially but apparently has always been like this and everyone just lives with it. I am however finding it increasingly difficult to navigate and wondering if anyone else has ever come across this?

I am not looking for solutions such as spending less time with her or getting my husband to talk to her but wondering about coping strategies as I feel I am starting to be rude around her and I am generally quite polite and kind.

I could have written this for DP mum. Nice enough lady but boy can she talk.

Omg it sounds like my mum!! Except she's not really a nice person either! I hate it as she never asks how I am or shows over interest in my life or me its just all about her. Also very anxious person so maybe there's a link there?!
No words of wisdom I'm afraid but utter solidarity in the feeling of exasperation and exhaustion of being talked AT for hours on end. I find car journeys particularly painful as there's no escape ..

Only solidarity! My MIL is lovely but recently she was telling me about a new formula (pronounced formuler) her GD had started and ot was on and on

I'm in a slightly similar situation with a work colleague - she just doesn't stop talking or get any cues to leave. I feel like I'm pretty polite and quite interesting as a person but around her I literally say 'yeah' and 'uh-huh' with an 'oh really?' occasionally thrown in there. I feel both frustrated at her for talking constantly but also like I become extraordinarily boring when I'm around her. No advice but just empathising! I sometimes come home actually seething with rage about how much of my time has been wasted listening to her talking. She is SO lovely too! Argh!!

There are 3 ways of dealing with these people:

• perfect the nod and smile while thinking of something else entirely

• be straight with them - with my DH I say "i dont want a fairytale" or "skip to the end" - but this will come across as rude to people who aren't close and have prior understanding

• be vague and excuse yourself. As much as possible.

My FIL is exactly the same and whilst I'd say he is generous, he's not a nice person!

He's just a continuous wall of sound, and if you dare to speak you get scolded for interrupting. His monologues are 10% slagging off fat people (I am fat) for being weak, 10% berating his poor long suffering wife for some perceived misdemeanour, 20% bemoaning how he has to suffer the weakness and shallowness of other people, 10% about his bowel movements and the last 50% his memorised map of UK motorways and A roads.

You can only block them out and mentally slip away somewhere else. I've become expert at it - don't try to actively listen, that way madness lies. In any case, the waffling never requires a response. FIL likes to maintain 100% eye contact at all times to ensure you are keeping up, I just focus on a point just above his head and think about something else.

If her name is Irene then hi SIL .

Maybe they secretly think they are more interesting than everybody else?

It's strangely comforting to hear other people have the same issue, although I feel your frustration!

I also do not like who I am around her as I feel like I become a moody snappy teenager almost and I think she is rightly not my biggest fan because of this - but she is almost impossible to be around!
Nothing at all stops her - talking over her, listening intently, snapping, asking her to be quiet - whatever tactic is tried, it doesnt change. I am at a loss as to how to deal with it. And yet, I really want my daughter to have a relationship with her as they love each other and so time with her is necessary.

She does live quite far away so we have an intense few days then nothing for a month or two so even more pressure to make it a nice time.

two tactics I've found that help:

• don't wait it out, carry on regardless. These types usually don't mind if they are interrupted. They won't leave a gap for you to interject, so you need to make your own. This can extend to just going about your business while they talk, e.g. cooking, fetching and carrying arc. With work colleague it can extend to interrupting to say, ah look, my next task, I need a quiet atmosphere for this please.

• make it a kind joke. (to be fair I've only tried this one with work colleague, not relative) discuss the phenomenon that they are so passionate about what they're talking about that they don't stop to let anyone else talk, if they take this in good humour, which my colleague does, then you can make a light joke when they're doing it again.

With my relative we know that when they first arrive they will have much pent up to talk about, so we are forewarned not to attempt to really say much in the first hour or so. relative usually calms down a bit after that!

@GumbalinaToothington good advice but with a toddler, I am having to be around her a lot more when we do see her and less able to distance myself which I think is a big part of why I'm struggling more now.

My husband, bless him, does attempt to get her to edit what she is saying but she will brush him off and say 'let me finish, I'm getting there' or words to that effect.

@chillied agree about just carrying on - I will often just tell her that I'm doing something and she just carries on while I talk and occasionally gets a bit huffy if it seems as if I'm not fully listening.

Just exhausting to be around and yet she is aware of it and says that she is fussy and goes on too much but can't seem to see the real effect it has on others and how stressful it can be.

I did a boundaries course this year. It was really informative. What you are describing here is a boundary violation. Anything that makes you feel emotional afterwards is because a boundary has been stepped over.

The tutor had a really nice tool for tackling it. But it does mean having an honest conversation with them about it. So you have to be ready/in the mindset that you want to raise it. She said you do a 3 step process, where you approach is slowly, so first you might say ‘I’ve listened to you a lot today. You had a lot to say/you had a lot of stories’.
That’s it, leave it there. Next time bring it up a little more forcefully ‘you are telling me lots of stuff again. I’m listening a lot to you. I really like hearing your stories but it’s a lot to listen to.’
Then next time you take the bull by the horns eg ‘the way you tell really long stories is actually a bit of an issue for me. I really love spending time with you and I love hearing a story or two but can we talk about this, as I need it to stop?’
Once you have a space for a conversation about it you follow this sort of script where you show them compassion and empathy for their behaviour then state your boundary then you thank them for taking on board your feelings and respecting you.

I’ve probably not explained this very well but if you want to learn more it’s called the Personal Development School and the tutor is Thais Gibson. Shes Canadian. She is so knowledgeable about this stuff and explains stuff really well. She posts loads of free content on YouTube too.

Boundaries are so hard! So needed tho for healthy relationships. I’m def a work in progress on this front. Getting there slowly. Good luck with it, I’m sure you can tackle it xx

Am also wondering if you are my SiL.
I keep finding myself glazing over and genuinely don't want to come across as rude, but......

@Zenlifeforme thank you, that is really helpful and I will take a look. Out of curiosity, does it give tools for how to deal with a very a negative reaction to following that kind of script? I can forsee a snappy response if I attempted to say any of the above, even the first gentle approach.

I remember someone posting on here saying that they were like this themselves and they couldn’t stop. Someone suggested throwing a towel over their face, like the way you put a cover on a parrot’s cage, and she said “I wish someone would, it would be a kindness.”

I did actually strip my initial post back to just her talking a lot and am realising now that the overbearing and dare I say, interfering aspects of her nature are actually just as much a contributing factor.
But, she would do anything for us and is incredibly generous and kind which confuses me as I feel horribly guilty for feeling this way and start every visit with good intentions but she wears me down almost instantly. I am not a shrinking violet by any means but am bamboozled by this!

@Waterfordaston I might just put a towel over my own face and hide!

You daughter may not want to have a very close relationship to her - or be able to - if she is like this?

My dad is like this. He is overbearing and sees himself as the head of the family. His job is to entertain us by holding court! He is right about everything and knows everything. I have distanced myself from him as i feel full of rage after being talked at loudly for ages.

OP some people use ‘kindness’ as a form of manipulation and control.

If they’re doing something for you, or giving you something, social norms require you to accept and thank them.

And so they get they’re way. TBH many older women have form for this. My MIL and my own mum
Both do in different ways. I put it down to them being so much socialised out of ever expressing their own needs (because nice / kind / polite girls don’t do that).

So they have to frame their wants and needs in a ‘people pleasing ’ way that means they are doing something for you.

It’s exhausting. But unless they’re up for therapy and / or a feminist awakening, firm boundaries is you’re only option.

I had a work colleague like this once.

I tried letting it wash over me but frankly I got fed up with doing so.

In the end after one major monologue I simply interpreted quite forcefully to say something along the lines of "you talk a lot about yourself. An awful lot. In fact in the past hour we've not had a conversation, nor do we ever. Frankly it's exhausting and annoying to be treated as your verbal dumping ground. Are you aware you are doing this and have you considered that the reason you talk so much about yourself is because you never listen to anyone else and thus have no insight into anything else to talk about?". I then left without waiting for an answer.

She was markedly improved in her behaviour after that.

I genuinely think it's cyclical behaviour insofar because they don't listen to anyone they don't have anything to share other than their own lives/opinions and it then just becomes a habit they can't break because people don't want to call them out on being rude.

You daughter may not want to have a very close relationship to her - or be able to - if she is like this?

^ this.

It sounds v draining.

I laughed at the 🦜 towel idea though!

Your not obliged to listen or have anything more than a polite relationship because of your DH. I think 1 hour every couple of months is enough myself. Leave your child there and go to the shops for something urgent, do a zoom meeting, etc. You could treat it as an observation exercise, as if a study for a character for a play?

But a short play, with a long intermission.

@Catsstillrock I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I am uncomfortable with her generosity as I feel it leads to an imbalance ie if I were to say anything about how difficult things can be, generosity may be thrown back at me (even though I am aware it is aimed at my husband and daughter really) And the people pleasing aspect is exhausting.
@SuperSleepyBaby I agree re daughter may not want a relationship. She actually winced and put her hands over her ears at teatime recently as my MIL was talking so incessantly. But, am happy to guide a relationship for my daughter and will not hinder a good relationship, nor force one to be there.
@BreadInCaptivity, your last paragraph is very accurate I think and insightful, thank you. Such a relief to be able to share this and be understood.

I was about to say Catstillrocks may be on to something ….