We currently have an older relative staying with us for an extended time. Maybe even years. She has nowhere else to go (and, dare I say it, isn't looking very hard for alternatives).
She is extremely helpful, doing housework, cleaning, helping with the kids, that sort of thing. I don't ask her to help and am forever asking her not to.
Ungrateful cow that I am, she drives me bloody MAD. She criticises me constantly. She argues with my way of doing everything. Even when I have occasionally had to say "I understand that you want to do this differently but ultimately it is my decision and I want to do it THIS way, so that's what we are going to do" she still argues bloody murder that her way is better. And always about such petty things that I reflect afterwards and decide that I need to chill a bit and let it wash over me.
She is old and worried about her security and set in her ways and also simply a bossy personality. I DO regularly have stern chats with myself and try to give her as much slack as I possibly can.
But still, she would try the patience of a saint.
And so, to the point!
If ever I make any little errors in the house (leave the door unlocked or don't quite close the fridge properly or forget to put the butter back in the fridge) she is SO delighted to gleefully point out my mistakes. She crows about it, shakes her head sadly, tuts and bloody loves it. The thing is, batty old gimmer that she is, she is ALWAYS bloody leaving doors open and putting the sugar in the freezer and the remote controls in the fridge and (more worryingly) leaving bleach in the children's bathrooms or the high window open. I just fix whatever she has done and don't mention it. But then when she comes crowing to me about something I've done wrong it makes me want to ROAR.
Is there any possible tactful way of saying "I don't point out your many hundreds of senior moments you bossy old biddy, so could you perhaps not be quite so gleeful in pointing out mine?"