We had a party over the weekend for ds2. About 18 children came along plus assorted parents and grandparents. I booked the venue and entertainment, sorted out stuff for party bags, and made all the food, including the cake. DH looked after the DSs for a couple of hours during the day of the party whilst I finished off food prep. DM came 90 mins early on the day to look after the DSs so that DH and I could take stuff to the venue. As my family live about an hour's drive away and there were train engineering works, DM drove, meaning DF, Dsis and family (five people in total) crammed into a smallish car, with two very small DCs in child seats, so DM could drive over early in the other car.
DH brought some boxes down from upstairs, and I packed everything else in the house and loaded the car. When we got to the venue, DH and I unloaded the car together (DH did a bit more than me). He then went back home to collect DM and the DSs, whilst I set up.
The party was great. At the end, my family (all above mentioned, plus a couple of friends) - without being asked, just because they are lovely - stayed about 45 minutes longer than everyone else. For the first 30 mins or so, they washed up, hoovered the floor, put things in bin bags, packed up food and pressies etc and put everything by the door.
The venue was on the first floor up a couple of flights of stairs. Somewhere in the middle of this, DH went to get the car, parked it at the bottom of the stairs and, as me and my family sat down to have a chat, loaded up the car (probably involving 6/7 loads). I sat with my family for 10-15 mins. DBil was due to begin major cancer treatment the following day; DM was having a second biopsy the same day; DF (aged mid 70s) was going to take DM to the appointment and, later that week, finish sorting out the estate of a close relative who had recently died. DSis was BFing DN whilst we chatted. (DH knew all of this.) It was good to have some time to catch up, away from the hubbub of the party and the busyness of clearing up.
We got home and unloaded the car. I made cups of tea and DH collapsed on the sofa whilst the DSs watched a pre-bed DVD and I started clearing up. DH put them in their pjs and I put them to bed (a longish process at the moment). When I came down, DH was lying on the sofa with washing up stacked in the kitchen. I made a start on it whilst getting on with dinner. DH then came into the kitchen to say he'd been planning to wash up. I said that I wanted to crack on with it just to get it out of the way.
Without any appreciation of my family staying so long to help out (his family had been the first to leave the party; they live about an hour further away), DH then said he was upset that no one had offered to help him load the car. He said he felt very taken for granted. We carried on talking. I asked him whether he could understand why, with the various treatments/investigations the following day, we (i.e. me plus family) might want a quiet chance to chat. He responded that that was "a cheap shot".
I was dumbfounded by this response. Aibu to think:
(a) when you've had masses of help clearing up after your own child's party, it is not unreasonable - particularly when your spouse has done the lion's share of the preparation - to load the car yourself, particularly when everything is near to the door (thanks to others), and the alternative car loaders are: an old man, a woman in her late 60s, a breastfeeding (at that moment) woman, a young but seriously ill man, or your DW (who had been whizzing around like a blue arsed fly)
b) it's callous - at best - to refer to a low-key mention of the reasons why people might want to converse undistracted as "a cheap shot".
I feel - still - really upset by this reaction. I think it's hugely unsupportive and, when he'd taken everything I'd done for the party for granted, graceless. Finally I think it's massively unappreciative of all my family did. Given their circumstances, or even just the length of their return journey, it would have been totally reasonable of them to have left as soon as the party ended.