I'm getting to the end of my rope with how my wife speaks to me, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced similar. I'm a competent guy in most fields – happy to take care of the kids, reasonably successful in my career, capable of running a household and keen to take on projects around the house and garden.
But no matter what I do, my wife just seems to chip away.
Took the kids to a lesson this morning and picked up some pastries to have with coffee – my wife's reaction? "Why didn't you get these others that are on special offer?" They're not on offer until next week.
Got my daughter dressed for a party – "Oh, I was going to put her in her blue dress"
Made dinner for the family – "Didn't you use the chicken I'd bought?"
Even when we're driving somewhere she'll ask "Why are you going this way?" and then act like I'm being a dick if I check later and Google Maps says it was the quickest route.
Whenever I take laundry down of the line and she's around she'll say "Are you sure that's dry?" as if I've a history of putting wet washing away!
Any insights on why she does this or how to stop her? And yes, I've tried speaking to her but she's instantly defensive and will make me feel like I'm attacking her for answering an innocuous question but it's honestly wearing me down.
I feel like if I bought a couple of lottery tickets and won the jackpot, she'd ask why I wasted money on the other ticket! 😁
Edited to add:
Thanks for all the input, resources shared and general advice, it's much appreciated. Had a busy weekend with others around but I'm definitely going to try and address the behaviour and see if we can get along! I should clarify that she's not overtly critical – she doesn't say "you've done that wrong", but more often "why didn't you do it this way".
I feel like it's down to her thinking of what she expects, and then questioning why I didn't do exactly that rather than simply accepting that I wasn't aware of the plan, but there's no harm in what has actually happened.