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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think DH should let me drive for once?

138 replies

Diam0nd7 · 31/05/2017 18:10

Will your DH ever let you drive a car if he is a passenger in it? Even though DH currently has his hand in a hard plastic support due to two broken fingers (so I have been offering to drive recently), he still refuses to be a passenger if I'm driving. I've realised today this has been going on as long as I've known him, but I never really thought about it until now. I've been driving for about 20 years, but I don't think I've ever had him as a passenger. I drive the kids all over London every day and am hardly a nervous driver. I have also had less scrapes than him over the years. AIBU to think this he is BU about this?

OP posts:
Original poster
Diam0nd7 · 31/05/2017 21:48

Yes we're in the UK. I thought if you had a certain number of speeding points you had to go on a course? If he gets banned he will be a total nightmare. He is also an obsessed cycling enthusiast and constantly buying bikes and gadgets for bikes. He broke his fingers falling off a bike (among other injuries). He was in hospital for three days and had to have a brain scan, stitches in his face and ear. The cycling worries me a lot.

OP posts:
LynetteScavo · 31/05/2017 21:49

DH always drives when we're together.

In the car he's a total control freak...he likes to be in charge of the windows, the music. In every other area of life he's completely normal. He also seems to think I'm a crap driver, which I'm not!

I'm happy to let him drive though. I'd rather just look out of the window and relax. I do enough driving when we're not together.

pointythings · 31/05/2017 21:49

My DH doesn't drive - he's phobic about it and has never held a license. So I do all the driving. Every now and then he will make a 'look out for that car' kind of comment - always when I am already reacting to the hazard. Then I get quite sharp with him and he shuts up for a few more years. But he's just generally a nervous person. Your H sounds like a knob, and a bad driver too.

PrinceAli · 31/05/2017 21:50

I wouldn't let him drive me anywhere with a dodgy hand. And I'd reuse to get in the car while he was being a twunt about it

Gillian1980 · 31/05/2017 21:51

We take turns or just see who feels more like driving at the time.

We have a car each but are both named on each other's policies and regularly drive each other's cars if we're all out together.

I would find it quite offensive if my dh wouldn't be a passenger with me driving.

TestTubeTeen · 31/05/2017 22:04

Ah well, you'll get your turn when he gets banned.

You don't even know where he keeps two cars? Do you have access to the keys? How come he has access to the keys to your car? I would just keep the keys and spares hidden.

No way would I let him drive the kids about with his hand in a splint.

He sounds like a testosterone fuelled twat around cars and bikes.

DancingLedge · 31/05/2017 22:06

Nah, the course is what you get offered in place of your first lot of points.Sort of a chance to learn by your mistake? Get more ,no course, reach 12, you're banned.

Sounds like not a great person to be driven by, a lot of the time. Hurts your neck? ??

The insurance may well be currently invalidated by his injury. To be clear, should he owe someone money following an accident, the insurance may be very reluctant to pay out, and he could be personally liable. Plus get done for driving without insurance.

TestTubeTeen · 31/05/2017 22:11

Oh, and Speed Awareness Courses are generally offered for first offences, or where there hasn't been an offence in 3 years. 12 points within 3 years and he could easily be banned.

Splodgeinc · 31/05/2017 22:18

Wont let you???????

Next time your going somewhere get the keys, unlock car and sit in drivers seat. If he wont get in. Drive off and leave him if needs be.

Be like the Queen...

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/queen-elizabeth-king-abdullah-driving-story_n_6533236.html

ElinoristhenewEnid · 31/05/2017 22:29

Fortunately for me my dh always encouraged me to drive even put me on the insurance as a friend before we were in a relationship. He is late 70s in age and gave up driving through ill health many years ago. His encouragement meant that i was used to driving on motorways etc before I became the sole driver.

I have friends who never drive beyond the supermarket because their dh does all the driving together because according to them of course he is the better driver😈😈😈!!
Have much older friends who are now widowed and stuck because their husbands never allowed them to learn to drive because it was always HIS car!!

PunjanaTea · 01/06/2017 09:22

OP your DH sounds like a sexist twat and a terrible driver.

Personally I would refuse to get in the car with him even if it meant taking two cars everywhere we went. I would also remove him from the insurance on my car.

RainbowPastel · 01/06/2017 10:02

He shouldn't be driving with an injured hand. Has he notified DVLA? I am the main driver here. I enjoy driving but my DH drives because he has to. Your DH sounds like a chauvinist and your terminology says it all 'let' you drive.

singme · 01/06/2017 10:13

I think things have changed since the days when neither of my grandmothers held a driving licence. Even my mum and MIL don't drive if my dad/FIL is in the car. In my parents case my mum passed her test at 17 and my dad at 27, so she was the main driver for 10 years, then had me and stopped.

I would say my DH drives 70% of the time though. It depends if he wants to mess around on his phone checking football scores in which case I drive or if he wants to get a parking space right in the middle of a massive tourist attraction in which case I leave him to it.

Mexxi · 01/06/2017 10:19

We share it. Why wouldn't we? We are going out today. He'll drive there and I'll drive back. It is utterly preposterous that this question has even been asked in 2017. Confused

caoraich · 01/06/2017 10:23

DP and I share the driving probably 50/50 - depending on who has been driving the most and needs a break. We both drive my car, but I hate driving his enormous car with lots of boot space so he usually drives if we're going to e.g. Ikea.

I do actually prefer it when he drives on longer journeys- mainly because when I'm driving he just plays reads "important articles" on his phone and I get bored, at least when he's driving he has to chat!

user1495707114 · 01/06/2017 10:41

I don't like being a passenger. I'm a woman. I think you either like driving or you don't. Obviously with friends, I don't have any choice. With my own DH, we drive our own cars.

Not sure what all the fuss is about.

PaintingByNumbers · 01/06/2017 10:51

I do most of the driving as dh is a shit driver. your dh sounds a shit driver too. I tell him he is a shit driver, provide proof in the form of points on licence and scrapes to car, then insist I am driving. he doesnt like it. male ego

CoteDAzur · 01/06/2017 11:02

"won't let me drive him in "my" car"

He... what? Hmm

"Will your DH ever let you drive a car...?"

Again... He what?

You are clearly old enough to get married and have children. Why do you think you need to face your husband's permission to drive your own car?

Just sit in the driver's seat and tell him you are driving today. If he protests, stare him down. What do you think he will do? Divorce you on the spot?

RubbishRobotFromTheDawnOfTime · 01/06/2017 11:12

My parents are like this, always have been. They wouldn't admit it but they think it's demeaning for a man to be driven by a woman. Unless he's incapacitated in some way! My dad criticises/directs my mum's driving constantly if she ever does drive him. She's too scared to do it when he's there now and is a nervous driver when she's on her own.

He does it to me on the rare occasion he'll agree to let me take my car when we're going somewhere together. I just offer to pull over and let him out if he'd prefer to find alternative transport, then he just tuts to himself for the rest of the journey instead.

Original poster
Diam0nd7 · 01/06/2017 12:48

Well it seems like its just him that's like this then Blush
It's not that I desperately want to drive him. I'm like taxi service with the kids anyway, so I'm not that bothered and maybe that's why I never really noticed before that he won't let me drive him. I suppose if I got in the driver's seat and refused to get out there's not a lot he could do, but it shouldn't really need to come to that. Then he would probably go into silent /irritable mode, which is probably why I don't push things with him unless I am really annoyed. He is very good to me on a general level so I suppose I pick my battles. But he is revealing himself as an awkward git about this.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 01/06/2017 12:55

"He is very good to me on a general level so I suppose I pick my battles"

I'm sorry- but that's two more red flags...........

NoLoveofMine · 01/06/2017 13:36

He is very good to me on a general level

Being very good to your partner on all levels should be a given. It's not praiseworthy in my opinion. The fact he won't "let" you drive him or even thinks he has the right to decide what you may do is controlling in my mind. It's certainly beyond being "awkward".

SisyphusDad · 01/06/2017 13:44

The ones that get me are when the man drives the woman to the station, gets out and goes for the train and the woman then switches from passenger to driver to drive the car home.

Just why?

fiverabbits · 01/06/2017 13:49

I learnt to drive aged 22 when I was first married. My husband had a thing about women driving but I did drive him sometimes. After having the children my husband would only let me drive with the children if he was in the car but he would make comments like doesn't Mummy make the car do kangaroo hops. I had to stop driving aged 39 due to medical problems. Now aged 65 my husband who is retired never offers to take me out even though going in the car is the only way I can go out. He always says to my daughter, Mum wants to go out, take her but he never says he doesn't want to drive if he is going shopping etc. This attitude affects my life.

PickleSarnie · 01/06/2017 13:55

There's someone like that at my station Sisyphus! The woman has driven to the carpark (just next to the station) but is sitting in the passenger seat. Her partner (male) gets off the same train as me and gets in the drivers seat and drives off. It's weird.

My husband isn't a good passenger. He generally drives. But if I was picking him up from the station there's no way I'd be swapping seats.

I enjoy driving but not when he's in the passenger seat. Unless he's over the limit and therefore not allowed to drive and he has to put up and shut up. He constantly has an eye on the speedometer and points out ridiculously obvious things in a really patronising way.

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