To answer questions....Argument was not at all about money. I was on the laptop, laptop was being flakey, I was getting stroppy with it. DH offered to have a look at it, it's about 11pm so I said 'No, sod it, it's bed time'. Because I was having a strop at the laptop I said this stroppily and he took it as me being rude and ungrateful about his offer of help (I think he's being wilfully dim to not tell the difference between being stroppy at him or the laptop but this is a recurring issue for us and I see his point of view too.) He moaned about me being rude, I said something like 'Fine, if you're so bothered I change my mind, I order you to stay up late and fix it. Happy?', he completely flipped, practically jumped up and down, called me a stupid f*ing woman, I told him to F off and then he made the paying the bills comment. It was two minutes from start to finish.
Now I've written it down the common theme between the fixing the laptop issue and the bills comment is probably something about gratitude. He thought I seemed ungrateful about the laptop, so it brought up issues about him paying for more stuff? Seems neat on paper but I have no other reason to think that that's the case. I'm not ungrateful, I never act like I take it for granted and he says he doesn't feel like that.
We've talked, he knows how I feel. He was very hangdog for a few days but now seems to think everything's fine. He claims there's absolutely nothing else to it, he didn't mean it etc, so there's a limit to how far I can get with discussing it.
It brings up big issues for me. My mother is a kept (and entirely helpless) woman, and I have been in an extremely abusive controlling relationship before where (although I kept him!) this sort of vicious loaded comment was common. And like gafhyb says, it made me feel like a child - it's a crass comment that sounds like it's coming from your dad!