Some people can be irritable if they've had a bad day.

I may be looking too much into it but it seems he is rather controlling of his wife because he implied he would not tell her that a friend of hers phoned while she was at work. It also indicates a lack of trust and high suspicion of her actions because he treated you as though you did not know her, otherwise you wouldn't have left a VM on the "wrong" machine. The fact the "correct" machine is in their bedroom suggests a lack of trust in others who could check their voice machine if it were in the open. Furthermore, it prevents her from checking the voice messages without alerting him because it is in their bedroom.

If I phoned and someone told that to me, I would think they're telling me not to call and go away.