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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To refuse to drive DW to an interview

353 replies

QuaintSquid · 30/11/2024 08:13

This issue is currently sort of hypothetical but it has caused a bit of an argument already so I just want to know how people would proceed if this actually happened.

For context, my wife's unwillingness to drive is a major bugbear of mine. Honestly, for me it continues to be one of the biggest challenges in our relationship.

We live very rurally and you have to drive to do anything. Our house is provided as part of our pay, so moving to a better connected place isn't an option without changing jobs. My wife never shows much appreciation for the fact that I am the sole driver. It's an hour round trip for me if she needs to return a parcel at the post office. She's had me take leave to drive to pick her guests up from the airport and I can only ever have one beer because I'm obviously the designated driver, but she'll happily see off three or four with no solidarity to me whatsoever. You get the impression. It grates on me a lot.

I have been campaigning for her to start to drive for nearly three years as I find her lack of independence quite suffocating. She first needed to exchange her foreign licence to a UK one, and this took her over two years to actually organise.

Now she needs to get a car. She can't drive mine because it's manual. I've offered to part exchange my car for an equivalent automatic as it makes most sense finally for us to share a car for now, but she says shes scared of a car ‘that powerful’ (it's a 1.8l hatchback, hardly massive). She's only briefly looked at micras and minis. This would sort of solve some of my issues, but obviously any long drives or big errands would automatically fall on me again and we can't split the driving.

This has come to a head this week because she wants to apply for a new job an hour away from us. I asked how she was planning on getting there, and she told me she was hoping I'd drive her to it if she got an interview. She got upset when I suggested she could hire a car because she's not driven in England before and she'd be scared of driving alone the first time.

But frankly I've had enough. She's happily inconvenienced me for years now despite me pleading with her to sort this out. I feel like there needs to be something that finally makes her realise how important driving is and give her the push to actaully do something about it. Taking her to this interview would surely just further enables her putting it off?

YABU - yes your wife needs to get a car and start driving but an interview isn't the right issue to put your foot down on

YANBU - don't drive her. If changing jobs and going to interviews means enough to her, she'll prioritise sorting a car out

OP posts:
Octavia64 · 30/11/2024 08:18

The fact the you live very rurally is down to the fact that you have housing provided with your job.

If you both lived in a city or town with public transport this would not be an issue, so I'm on the fence as it's you and the commitments you have made that mean this is a problem.

Most non drivers choose to live where it isn't an issue.

Catza · 30/11/2024 08:18

I don't feel as though the interview is the right time to put your foot down. I completely empathise and I think you are generally correct in your thinking. I'd say drive her to the interview, cross your fingers that she gets the job and then you stop driving her. She would surely have to find her own way to work from then on.

ETA: I just realised she didn't apply for the job. Ignore my previous comment. Yes, tell her you are not going to drive her anywhere you don't need to go yourself from now on.

HelplessSoul · 30/11/2024 08:18

Hope it doesnt happen, but if you died, WTF would she do then?

She needs to learn to drive, and I agree with you - dont take her to the interview.

Needs to learn there are repercussions for her bone idleness.