Dear Eric: My brothers and I have a problem with our mother who is in her mid-70s. Whenever she calls us or we call her it starts out well then out of the blue she starts fibbing about people that are supposedly out to get her.
She accuses them of trying to take her job away or saying that they stole from her only to find the missing item(s) hours later. This has been going on for years. We usually just let her talk about it while not really listening to her ranting in her fibs, or we cut her off and say we have to go. At first, we were like “yeah, yeah, OK whatever mom.” But now as we all are older it’s just downright annoying.
My mother doesn’t have any close friends but knows people from her church so we just associate this fibbing to loneliness. My question is do we just let her continue ranting on her fibs or do we start calling her out on it which may cause a conflict? And if a conflict begins, how do we handle it? – Truth-Telling Brothers…