He’s an areshole. Not helpful and extremely judgemental but I feel it needs to be said.
If he is waking at 8 and leaving at 8.30am with your car, it sounds like he does absolutely no parenting in the morning? What about in the evenings? Does he parent your child then?
We’ve only ever had one car. For the first part of our marriage DH either walked to the station and back, or I dropped him and picked him up, or we drove together to the station and parked. I actively disliked driving until recently, so when he did need/want to take the car to work (sometimes he has contracted to be places that are awkward by PT) we often worked it out.
About 6 years back I saw a Dutch cargo bike/bakfiets and decided I wanted it. It was an expensive purchase, cost as much as a small car would have. But we sat down and made the numbers work. DH’s parents bought him a bike for his birthday while it was on the way. That bike became my main mode of transport for 5 years, and I used it for the vast majority of school runs even when that became 4 children plus gear plus dog. It also had capacity for a huge supermarket shop (when only one passenger or none) and because it was easy to park right at the doorway DH also tended to take it when he was doing shopping.
At this point it seems that your DH considers it totally acceptable for you to have no mode of transport while he has 2. His ‘compromise’ is to generously give you one more day with a car. Your car. If he at least asked to borrow it that would acknowledge your right to use it. But he hasn’t done that.
It seems to me that since you do share a home and a child you will need to ‘compromise’. And since he seems incapable of knowing what that word means you will likely have to meet him about 80% of the way.
He has a few ways to get to work - yes?
- He takes your car. It sits at the office unused all day.
- He gets a lift. If this is an option on Thursday, would it equally be an option other days? He can offer to pay towards petrol/parking costs for co-workers car.
- Train. He can cycle ten minutes each side and have both exercise and avoid the horrible weather. Alternatively in bad weather you can drop off or pick up from the station. Or he can walk each way, even in shitty weather many people do actually do that.
- He rides all the way to and from the office. This is what he purportedly bought the very expensive bike for in the first place. On days the weather is particularly awful we’ve identified other options.
- You drive him to and from work. If it’s 15 minutes each way then even if you do both ways and have no other reason to head in the direction of his office, you are at most in the car with child for an hour each day as ‘payment’ for use of the car the rest of the time.
- I can’t come up with another off the top of my head, but you might be able to.
You also sit down together and work out how many transport options are open to both of you right now, and what you would ideally like there to be. Would a cargo bike/trike be an option that is cheaper than a car to run and would meet your needs? Would switching out the expensive but underused bike for a power assist model that goes faster for less effort be worth considering? Would there be one day in your week that not having the car would make little difference because your regular outing is just around the corner, or you and DD enjoy a pj day?
Also consider together, if you can get him to the table, what responsibilities come with having the car - picking up shopping for one. Taking partner/child somewhere before or after going where one needs to go.
It’s your car. Not recognising that is completely unfair. But now it’s the only car your family has access to you will need to ‘share’ more than is fair. Unfortunate fact. But you were not consulted when he decided that you didn’t actually need a car during the day, and from the sound of things that’s meant your winter with your child has been made more difficult. You need to sympathise with him while emphasising that the current situation is unworkable.