How would your spouse/partner react if...

[Dinodrivingacar]

You accidentally reversed your car into a wall and caused some scratches to the bumper? Then went to some garages to price up quotes and get booked in. You will pay for repairs. For info, it's a fairly new and decent car.

Probably take the piss a bit (unless I was upset/shaken up) & he'd do the garage running around because I hate that stuff more than he does.

He reversed (very gently at very low speed no damage done) into a tree when parking nearly a year ago - the kids still chant "tree tree tree" when he reverses 🤣

Life's too short to spend it with someone who pulls you down 💐

He'd ask if I was ok, shake his head and roll his eyes at me.

Twice I've bumped into his car with mine when getting on or off the drive, both times he's been a passenger in my car. Both times he's asked what I did that for and shaken his head. Both times I scratched his car and no damage to mine. Repairs to his paintwork came out of our joint account as we don't have separate money. He's never had a go at me about it, or even brought it up.

Your DH is a twat OP. I hope you are ok.

I have actually done this, I damaged DH car and our garage door. He wasn’t too fussed, said something like looks like I’m off to the garage then. My DH is the calmest man ever, he doesn’t really worry about things.

I can't pretend that my DH would've exactly laughed about it. He would probably roll his eyes and say what a shame, we've only just bought it or something along those lines. He wouldn't give me the silent treatment or a massive bollocking though.

So he thinks he is in a position to critique your actions like this? "I am the Lord of the house and I have decided that you gave behaved badly"?

These things are accidents that can be fixed.

Then, after he has passed judgement on your behaviour he is dishing out a punishment of many days of silence towards you?

Who the fuck does he think he is? He isn't the decider of these things. He doesn't get to make you think you've done anything wrong here

You scraped your car and you are repairing it. He doesn't even need to have an opinion on your actions.

He is putting himself into some sort of seat of power in your relationship rather than seeing you both as equals.

My Dh would say shit happens, not to worry it could be worse and we’ll sort it. He had a couple of scrapes when he was a young teen driver so he’ll never have a go at me over anything like that. He wouldn’t want me to go the garage though as he’d surely know someone who’d fix it cheaper.

I knocked our gatepost -brick one -over one day. Hardly any damage to the car - bumper scratch - gate post collapsed- think it was already past it and didn’t need much of a push.
We laughed and then he lovingly scraped the mortar off the bricks and learnt how to relay them.

I can hear the exact tone of voice in which he would say "Oh, Katie!" Then ask if I was OK.
@Dinodrivingacar - he's an arsehole. Does he have redeeming features?

I once reversed my car into DH's little 2 seater classic MG. That was an interesting call to the insurance company. I can't remember what he said but it didn't involve anger.
My car was a brand new Volvo.

It’s common but not normal. He’s being a child. Two hours would be unreasonable. Two days is abusive.

He'd be delighted because he hasn't lived down backing into our wheeliebins a few years ago. But even if that hadn't happened, there'd be a bit of gentle ribbing at most.

My dad, on the other hand, would have been very unpleasant indeed about my mum doing something like that. But then it was a pretty abusive and difficult relationship. (I was going to say that money was an issue for them, but I think he'd have been the same if it wasn't.)

How long have you been married op?

He would forever rip the piss as would I in the same circumstances

I don't understand why partners would be so horrible to each other.

Never letting the other forget a minor mistake.

Wow that's an extreme and worrying reaction
Mine would shrug his shoulders and say we'll sort it out, that's pretty much his answer to everything though 🤷‍♀️

My DH wrote off my brand new (less than 100km on the clock) car so wouldn’t dare say a word!

He'd ask how it happened, ask if I was alright, gauge the mood to see if it was too soon (I was to upset) to make fun of me and that's about it.

It's your property that's damaged no, and you're repairing it so I can't see what it would matter to him that he'd take the position he has. Frankly even if I crashed my partners car I'd not get two days silent treatment. Something's not quite right here with him OP, that's emotionally abusive and an overstep.

I don't understand why partners would be so horrible to each other

Never letting the other forget a minor mistake

i think you’re missing the love and affection that comes with teasing in a healthy relationship. Perfectly normal to have a laugh over stupid things a partner had done.

I understand if your relationship is dysfunctional why you might find it horrible but within a healthy relationship it’s very normal to have this sort of lighthearted teasing

Mind you-it's not an uncommon reaction. My dp damaged his own brand new car, and the dealership sent someone out to fix it. He couldn't do it on-site, and as DP was away, the mechanic offered to ring dp to tell him. He asked me several times if it was OK for me to tell him, and I realised later that he was making sure I wouldn't get into trouble because of it. 😮

Mine would establish I was okay, give me a hug and tell me not to worry and accidents happen.

Yours is behaving in a dick manner.

If it was a brand new car, he'd probably be a bit 'oh noooo!' and huff and puff a bit, but he'd get over it very quickly. He is under a lot of stress at the moment due to his dad being terminally ill, so I would forgive his reaction as being influenced by that.

As we actually drive fairly old cars, his response when I did that exact thing recently (and said, oops, needs some T-cut) was to make a slightly incredulous remark about exactly how magic I think T-cut is then laugh and say that's why we have crappy old cars anyway and give me a hug. To be fair, that IS why we have old cars (well, that and budget 😁) - because we live in the country and our cars are always being scraped along hedges or covered in mud and pawprints. So we tend not to be too precious about them.

Abusive men often are very convincing. It’s how they get into relationships in the first place because if they were nasty from the first date, nobody would go on a second date with them. It starts insidiously, without you even realising. And before you know it, you’re spending two days building up the courage to tell him something relatively small because you’re afraid of his reaction. And he’s blaming you for the way he’s behaving. ‘You’ve made me so angry I don’t want to sit near you… this is your fault… look how angry you’ve made me… look what you made me do’.

And the fact that you don’t know any other men who aren’t the same is definitely making it harder for you to see his behaviour for what it is. You see it as familiar and normal. That’s just what men do. That’s just how they react. Well, actually, it’s not.

I did pretty much the same. I rang my husband in tears and he said not to worry, it was only a car.

It was only 6 months old and on a 3 year lease, so had to be returned undamaged. It was repaired on the insurance and as finances are joint, we both paid the excess.

Mine would react pretty much the same way I would if it was the other way round. Check everyone's ok then randomly use it to take the piss a couple of times a year.
Your husband sounds like a prat (to put it politely)

Probably the same as I did when he managed to reverse into the only bollard in the works car park....make sure I'm ok then laugh.