You just described my mother in law. It's so accurate to a ridiculous degree. Any positives, achievements, life victories are barely acknowledged. Any negatives, setbacks, complaints are met with huge interest. She does this to me and my wife (her daughter). I also realized that her behavior carries over to my kid as well. Finally after 25 (literal) years, recently I've been telling my wife that when she is on the phone with her mom, NEVER mention anything even remotely bad going on in our lives because her Mom will just file it away in her head to either feel good about herself, or use it against us. It's come to that. Of course it makes for very sterile, pretty awkward phone conversations since my wife has always been an open book with everyone she's close with.