Aside from my tried-and-true method of just not telling her stuff, one rhetorical strategy I've found that works -- for me, anyway; she's much less a buttinsky to me than to you -- is when I tell her a problem only in the context of its solution, already begun.
So, like, fenderbender a month ago, I didn't say, "I had a fenderbender"; I said, "I can't come by on Tuesday; my car will be at the shop. Oh, why? Had a fenderbender, didn't I tell you?" There's no opportunity for advice-giving or criticism, except maybe "How come you're such a shitty driver??" But that's kind of obvious, after-the-fact criticism that can't be couched as advice, so she generally desists. (Although she offers to throw her husband at all my practical problems, in a way that is both troubling -- dude is old! Nobody wants him shoveling that much snow! -- and hilarious.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-01-25 05:05 pm (UTC)So, like, fenderbender a month ago, I didn't say, "I had a fenderbender"; I said, "I can't come by on Tuesday; my car will be at the shop. Oh, why? Had a fenderbender, didn't I tell you?" There's no opportunity for advice-giving or criticism, except maybe "How come you're such a shitty driver??" But that's kind of obvious, after-the-fact criticism that can't be couched as advice, so she generally desists. (Although she offers to throw her husband at all my practical problems, in a way that is both troubling -- dude is old! Nobody wants him shoveling that much snow! -- and hilarious.)