Husband throwing tantrum about cars..

[MouseDeMuir]

Hello lovely people of mumsnet.

I need some help.
My husband and I have been together 10 years.
We have a 3 year old and I'm currently 8 weeks pregnant.
We both work, me part time very close to home and him full time, but his commute is 280 miles a week.
We have 2 cars. One very small 2 door car, that's very economical and does 80mpg, and one bigger estate car that can fit car seats and dogs and is much newer but only does around 40mpg.
My husband had a hard up bringing, and on the whole is a very kind and caring person, but he's very materialistic. He worries about what people think if he drives a small or old car. I honestly couldn't care less about how things look, as long as they work!
Until now, he has used the 'new ' big car to commute to work, while I take our son and dogs to my mother's house every day in the little old car. It's fine but it does mean I struggle to put everyone in and It would be easier in a 5 door car..

Anyway.. at the end of every month my husband has no money left. He claims it all goes on fuel.
We pay equally into our mortgage and bills, and I pay for the food shopping, despite earning around £500 a month less than him as I work part time, but he still ends up borrowing money from me to get by until the end of the month.

So.. I suggested we swap cars..

To me this makes sense because:

1. We bought the car half and half each.
2. The little car would be cheaper to run him Commute.
3. It would put less miles on a newer car, hence preserving the value better.
4. I have the children and dogs to take and collect daily, so wouldn't it make more sense for me to use the 'family' car.

But he just says he hates the other car, it's too slow and looks shit.
He says I'll make the other car dirty with the dogs and the kids, and won't treat it with respect..
Since this conversation he hasn't spoken to me.. won't look at me. Just sulks.

I honestly don't know where to go from here..
It sounds daft to consider breaking up over a car, but honestly this is how he is with anything materialistic.. he's all about image and I really can't live like this anymore..

Am I being a hormonal crazy lady ?

What cars are they? Some smaller cars are massively uncomfortable, especially if you’re taller than average.

Can the smaller car be upgraded to something more practical and then suits both parties.

And then stop paying for the fuel on the larger car. If he can’t afford to run it he shouldn’t have it.

You're basically asking him to cut off his own penis.

You earn less money but pay £500 more into the family pot but when you want your practical necessities to take precedence over his vanity he sulks. Ffs.
He needs to recognise that his self image is out of whack with his reality and have a word with himself. Christ on a bike, sorry you are tied to this manchild.

He needs to grow up and start paying his half of the food shopping.

The first thing to do is stop giving him money at the end of the month. If he can't afford it, he can't have it.

@bungaloid that's what I thought too. Manbaby!

His self image is not completely out of whack with his reality as there is a nice car in the family, and aren't alot of people who are into nice cars into them partly for their image?

He can't afford to run the nice car, it isn't as fuel efficient and he ends up borrowing money from op to make ends meet. So yes his image is out of whack

The combination of selfishness, sulking, prioritising image over finances and stubborn, unreasonable thinking when you are trying to be reasonable and open yourself is hard to deal with. If he’s like this on other topics, you’re going to get worn down. The fact he hasn’t even proposed a compromise here would make me particularly angry.

If it were me I think I’d say very calmly (or send a text if he really won’t engage) saying that you’d like to set some time aside to discuss the car as you do need to be able to use the bigger one, and since you own it too this is very reasonable.

If that yields results you could think about whether counselling may help. If it doesn’t, I’m afraid I would be thinking about breaking up. Life is difficult enough without having to deal with this.

Taking money off you at the end of the month
You having to pay more than him despite earning less
Sulking
Happy for you to struggle with the dogs/kids every day

• all of the above would be a dealbreaker for me

He cares more about his image than the comfort of his whole family.

He's being a complete tosspot.

I get that having to do a long commute in a shitty car isn't fun but I would definitely raise an eyebrow at someone who would place their own pride over the wellbeing of his family. This is what happens when you have kids, dogs etc. They take up room and money, so something has to give.

Selfishness is not attractive. If he wants to get the shit car upgraded, then he needs to suck it up for a few months and save (fuel costs!) in order to do so. If there is any extra money in the family pot, without depriving everyone, then that could potentially be used too.

At 40mpg and 280 miles a week commute it doesn't make sense that he's running out of fuel money! We do more than that in our big nice car (a 5 seater 4x4 to give an idea of size of car) and it's maybe £250-300 per month on diesel. If you're already paying all the food at £500pm and he earns more than you, I'd be asking for fuel receipts! 280 miles at 40mpg is about £45 a week, based on diesel at £1.43. So only £180 a month! You can use online calculators to check, but I suspect another issue is taking the majority of the money here.

Yuck. My mother was a sulker. It wasn’t called sulking though, it was reframed as “being so hurt over your selfishness and inconsideration that I can’t even look at or talk to you”. This was over similar situations to yours, for which it was totally reasonable to want to discuss a way forward.

Is there sulking in his family? My mothers was learned behaviour from her own mother (who had no power in her own relationship in the 1930’s except to sulk).

Yeah, he's spending his money elsewhere.

Sulky fucker is full of shit.

@BeetleyCarapace

These sums don’t really add up. 280 miles a week isn’t an enormous commute, it seems odd that he’s claiming to spend all his money on fuel. It just doesn’t stack up and I wonder if it’s actually going elsewhere.

It also sounds like you need a slightly bigger car, regardless of what he drives.

But I agree with pp, the cars are a red herring here.

This

Yes, we never had his n her cars, we just used the one most appropriate for the day, so that usually meant I had the big car. DH was doing more miles, so the more economical car made more sense, and I had the family to cart about.

I do understand his concerns about appearances, due to his background. It's very easy not to care about what others think when you know you're comfortably off, harder when you've had a lifetime of feeling inferior. I'm not sure why it's OK for is wife to be driving a poor car though, if that's his concern.

DH's small car was newish and reliable though, but by no means luxurious or fast.

If you're finding it easy to manage on your share of the family cash and he isn't, what's he spending it on? Or does he genuinely have higher expenses and the division needs reviewing?

What everyone else said.

Plus 280 miles a week isn't a massive commute that requires a big comfortable car and it makes absolute sense that the person who travels the further distance alone uses the small car and the person who carts round groceries, dogs, pushchairs etc uses the car that fits all these things in.

But you/he need to dig deeper into his and your joint finances to see what's in the black hole that he appears to be chucking his money into. Because it's not fuel, based on how much more money he has than you to start with = £500 + cost of groceries + cost of your fuel - cost of his fuel, which has got to be at least around £700 pm plus whatever else you have spare.

stop lending him money.
Look at the balance of who pays for what
Decide what car you want that you can afford.

Christ, I think we see why he runs out of money, he has no sense at all.

Mind you, my ex was also similarly selfish - he preferred to have me turf out with toddler and baby and pick him up to/from the station twice a day (taking about an hour each time) until I basically told him that it was get a bike or get a small car. So he got a small car.

It's honestly insane for you to be using a tiny 3 door when there is an estate sitting there most of the day, even without the massive savings in fuel consumption.

I agree with everyone though - this isn't about the car, it's about the general attitude, and it won't improve, so you need to just decide if you're at the point when it's time to end it. I did (although only after some horrendous behaviour I discovered) and after a month or two of absolute terror at how I was going to manage it, it turns out that life is actually a darn site easier without him dragging us all down and holding us back!

I can't stand your husband.

The smaller car costs half as much as the big car to do the same trip, it makes total sense to swap and he is being an absolute child about it.

What the fuck is he spending all his money on? 280 miles a week is not such a long commute that it should be costing him more than about £200 a month in fuel.

The car is a red herring here. Maybe he's sulking because he knows if you swap cars you'll realise he's actually spending money on something else.

So likely lying to you about where the money is going, contributes less despite earning more, pathetically concerned with his image, happy for you to struggle with the kids/dog and top it off also a sulker. He sounds charming. If he’d just said the small car isn’t comfortable for a long commute then I’d totally be with him but this really isn’t about the car, it’s about his behaviour which is quite frankly horrible.

280 miles a week is only 56 miles a day. It’s a short commute. 28 miles each way - he needs an economical small car.

During term time I do that commute on country roads - it did cost me about that in fuel, but it was in a ridiculous car (chosen by ex. Since got rid of for something that gets me much, much better mileage, and is way more practical with the kids)

It's not a big commute. Even on mine, where the narrow roads mean I don't go above 50mph it takes me less than 30 mins each way. For one person, it's insanity to do it in a big car rather than a little one.