But maybe there was more emotional distance in the stories she told and they didn't really - or fully? - qualify as venting
I think that's important. Also, there's the amount of time spent on the subject. Like, I absolutely know that my maternal grandmother never met *her* maternal grandmother and why - but it adds up to maybe three or four conversations over my entire life, and it wasn't an ongoing grievance when I was told the first time.
One grumble from LW that Auntie Sis is always a bitch and she stole the jewelry is, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal. Ongoing griping every month, with great detail - yeah.
Or, you know, another example from my family - my sister and I could bitch about our mom for a few minutes when she'd just done something really upsetting, and then we could stop. My mother, if she got started bitching about my sister, would just keep spinning it out for ages. (And to make it more uncomfortable, I found out eventually that she didn't bitch about me to Jenn. I don't get it, like, not to put myself down but there are a lot more complaints to make about me than her! Or at least the same number!) I had to make a rule that she wasn't allowed to complain about my sister to me even a little. I had to continue to enforce that rule throughout the last two decades of her life - she mostly did follow it, but if I ever slacked it was right back to it.
And it's definitely different from LW's situation because she was complaining about my sister, not hers - but I also had to pull out that rule at times to stop her from using me as her vent buddy about her boss (5 minutes, max, or it never stops), some guy she bumped into on the bus (ten minutes if he's really annoying), that really irritating person in the ER with her (I was there, he was really irritating, and we did tend to make fun of people in the ER because it was preferable to her taking out all her anxiety on me, but after half an hour I had to tell her to pick a new topic or I'd walk).
Now, to be fair, this is not the only thing my mother did that was... questionable. But, judging from what I've seen and heard from other people, it's never just one thing.
I'll bet your mother's complaints about her family never prompted you to try to get petty revenge on any of her family members.
no subject
I think that's important. Also, there's the amount of time spent on the subject. Like, I absolutely know that my maternal grandmother never met *her* maternal grandmother and why - but it adds up to maybe three or four conversations over my entire life, and it wasn't an ongoing grievance when I was told the first time.
One grumble from LW that Auntie Sis is always a bitch and she stole the jewelry is, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal. Ongoing griping every month, with great detail - yeah.
Or, you know, another example from my family - my sister and I could bitch about our mom for a few minutes when she'd just done something really upsetting, and then we could stop. My mother, if she got started bitching about my sister, would just keep spinning it out for ages. (And to make it more uncomfortable, I found out eventually that she didn't bitch about me to Jenn. I don't get it, like, not to put myself down but there are a lot more complaints to make about me than her! Or at least the same number!) I had to make a rule that she wasn't allowed to complain about my sister to me even a little. I had to continue to enforce that rule throughout the last two decades of her life - she mostly did follow it, but if I ever slacked it was right back to it.
And it's definitely different from LW's situation because she was complaining about my sister, not hers - but I also had to pull out that rule at times to stop her from using me as her vent buddy about her boss (5 minutes, max, or it never stops), some guy she bumped into on the bus (ten minutes if he's really annoying), that really irritating person in the ER with her (I was there, he was really irritating, and we did tend to make fun of people in the ER because it was preferable to her taking out all her anxiety on me, but after half an hour I had to tell her to pick a new topic or I'd walk).
Now, to be fair, this is not the only thing my mother did that was... questionable. But, judging from what I've seen and heard from other people, it's never just one thing.
I'll bet your mother's complaints about her family never prompted you to try to get petty revenge on any of her family members.