My wife had an appointment with her therapist last night and I had to get our ADHD/OCD/ODD daughter ready for bed.  At one point, I heard noise downstairs and investigated.  The dog was trying to get something in a pile of clutter around a small bookcase.  I had to dig and dig, but I found the food.  I cleaned up the food with a vacuum, but I had to get back to our daughter, so I did not put everything back in place (ie, the pile of clutter.)

When my wife gets home, I tell her about this.  She gets angry and I try to explain that I did what I could and I had to deal with getting our daughter to bed.  She then makes the leap to yelling about how the kids and I think she is mean and bossy.  As if yelling at me for not being able to do two things in two separate places at once is not bossy.  Then she starts talking about how she is mad about the clutter ("garbage").  I asked what we had scheduled for the weekend (so we could devote time to cleaning.)  Nothing Saturday, oh, but she wants to see her brother in Long Island! 

When I was trying to go to sleep, she brought up how unfair it is that we think she is mean and bossy.  OK, say how you feel.  But then she began lashing out at me and justifying her bossiness.  She brought up the other day, when I allowed our son to show me a video game commercial he was excited about.  As I was watching, she reminded me that he was not supposed to have electronics because of homework issues.  I immediately stopped amd apologized.  Nonetheless, she preceded to chew me out in front of the kids.  Last night, she used this as an example of why she NEEDS to be bossy.  Although she disputes my interpretation of what she was saying, basically she justified being mean and bossy toward me because I screw up. So it hurts her for us to think she is bossy, she is not bossy, but she is justified in being bossy.  ("I never borrowed the bucket, and, besides, it already had a hole in it when I borrowed it.")

Punishing me in front of the kids after I have already complied with her request and apologized sends a clear message to the kids--Mommy is in charge here, and Daddy takes her abuse.  Her behavior toward us shows the kids she is mean and bossy.  (She also tries to micromanage them and gets mad when I can't force them to behave--even though she doesn't get any better results.)

She also suggested that when one of us goes out we should fill in the other person on what happened while he/she was out.  I pointed out that that is precisely what I did--before she suggested this--when I told her about the dog and the food that was in the pile of clutter.  The fact that she blew up and me shows why I am AFRAID to fill her in on what has happened.