Dh is a bit of a workaholic, and works an hour and a half's commute away. He is relatively senior, and works quite long hours. He rarely sees 20mo dd during the week. This week he has had to make some quite senior people redundant, and therefore his working week has meant that he was away from home Monday night, came home at 9.30pm on Tuesday night, away at a black tie dinner on Wednesday night, and home at 6.30pm last night.
I was complaining to my mum (why oh why did I do this?) this morning saying that it had taken me until 9.25pm last night to get dd to sleep, and when I came downstairs, dh had not done the dishes or even tidied any of the toys away from yesterday. So I was a bit cross.
Mum has just phoned me and started to talk about it again. I actually think that she thinks dh is having an affair, she keeps on saying things like, 'I don't think he needs to work all those long hours, but obviously I can't prove that' and 'I can't understand why you weren't invited to that black tie dinner'. This kind of thing, she has also called him lazy, irresponsible and just spent the last twenty minutes telling me he expects too much of me, and she's worried about me, and he does nothing to help with dd, and she doesn't feel we're a parenting team. Then she goes on and on about how wonderful my dad was when I was little, how much he did, and even said 'I bet the bloke that lives next door comes in from work every night and rolls his sleeves up and helps with the kids'. How does she know?!
Dh doesn't do an awful lot, and to be honest, when he does it tends to be 'tidying up' (not cleaning, mind), it usually turns into him having a go at me and saying, 'What's this doing here?' blah blah blah.
Now my mum actually gave up work two days a week to look after dd while I work four days a week, so I have to understand that she is entitled to have an opinion, and I have probably opened my gob a bit too much about dh in the past.
But this conversation has really upset me. Dh can be a right pain in the backside, but I used to work at a similar level, and I do understand the pressures of his job. Don't get me wrong, it does annoy me, I'm not a martyr, but at the end of the day, he's my husband, and I don't like hearing her criticising him.
Am I being over sensitive?