How to deal with boisterous mother-in-law who’s hard to be around
Dear Carolyn:
My mother-in-law apparently didn’t come with a volume button. When we are in church, at a sporting event — pre-COVID— or generally out in public, she doesn’t seem to notice how loudly she speaks. It’s embarrassing.
Don’t suggest hearing loss due to old age. She has been this way for the decades I’ve been married to her son. Plus if you say something quietly across the room that interests her, believe me, she will hear it.
The worst part is she has no filter, either. At a high school basketball game, for example, she will VERY loudly criticize a player, to the mortification of those sitting next to her. Please tell me how to handle this!
— Chagrined
Chagrined: When someone next to you in the stands VERY loudly criticizes a player at a youth sporting event — as in, acts like a complete, undersocialized, overweening jerk — stand up without saying a word and move to another seat.
Live your message.
And let both the community around you and your mother-in-law see that you refuse to be a party to this kind of behavior.
Church pews aren’t as forgiving as bleachers, but you can do the same thing with a more gradual unroll: If your mother-in-law regularly says rude things at church, then choose to sit somewhere else starting ... whenever you can start going to church again safely. If she asks why, own it: “When you [whatever], I feel mortified.” This is for when the “whatever” is egregious and you can cite it specifically — such as, “When you mocked the acolyte’s acne.” For less-than-hateful remarks, where no moral stand is indicated, try, “I’m less distracted when I sit alone.” Not untrue, just incomplete.
If she’s merely loud in church, and her remarks are benign, then, beyond just not encouraging her, your burden sounds more perceived than real. She embarrasses only herself.
That doesn’t make it any more fun to be around her, but it does make her behavior suitable for reframing. Repeat to yourself, “I’m not being judged for this, she is — but I do get to play What-Will-SheBellow-Next Bingo” (Ages 12 to Adult).