To refuse to drive DW to an interview

[QuaintSquid]

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

Yeah, you decided there will be no other opinion than yours. On a public chat forum. 👍🏼

Yep. That's the rule.

Also it's hilarious how different it would be if tge roles were reversed.

It's weaponised incompetence with a healthy dose of unearned demand om his time.

@supportcandle it's LALALALALALALA I can't hear you <sticks fingers in ears>

I have been in that situation too. Found it scary, driving on the wrong (than rest of Europe) side of the road and driver’s seat on the opposite side. No problems driving in my own country where we now live.

And trying to crawl back under the rock again.

It's winter, I'm quite cosy wrapped up on my couch with my tea.

And no I can't hear you luckily but I do have excellent eye sight and can read very well.

Cosy but angry.

Cosy and the definition of unbothered. If I were OP I'd have told her long long ago to jog on.

With you there Snoop.

1.8 litre is quite powerful - I'm used to 1.4 litre or less. Perhaps she could get her own automatic lower powered car?

She...should ask his permission before applying for a job that wouldn't require her to live miles away from civilisation?

My French husband's take is that UK country roads are too narrow, not enough passing places, poor visibility, and people still bomb down them at top speed. He reckons they don't make roads that small in France.

He's not wrong, but they don't bother me because I'm used to them.

Driving in France, on the other hand, where you might have 50cm of slip road to join a motorway, or where you can be on a main road and have to give way to someone hurtling out of a side road from the right, or where you can be on a roundabout and have to give way to people joining, I find quite challenging.

It's just what you're used to.

Yes. It's basic common manners to ask someone if they can accommodate your demands before booking and making a commitment that can only go ahead by them giving up their time and labour for free.

Was there a year that was never the case?

Oh, you're talking specifically about the interview, rather than the bigger issue of whether she's actually going to go and work somewhere an hour away from where they currently live.

Whatever.

If he's going to choose her job interview to start being an arsehole about the driving, frankly that should give her the push she needs to take a taxi to the interview and get a job living somewhere she's happier.

It's not being an arsehole at all!.
The undisputed fact on MN is that lifts are not a God given right in any circumstances
There's countless posts on it.

She's had more than enough chances.

Yea...because another Manor house is going to provide her everything she needs

He literally says that the job she wants to go for would also have accommodation provided.

I'm pretty sure that's why he doesn't want to support her in going for it.

Well duh it puts a two hour commute onto his day. Why on Earth would he jump at that?

It was pretty obvious from the OP’s post that their house is provided for BOTH their pay so not sure why you think OP has caused this problem.

This
I can understand why you feel put on and resentful of this OP. In my experience, I know of non drivers (mostly women IME) who seem to take it for granted that their partners/husbands will drive them but your situation is the extreme! Your wife needs to bite the bullet and start driving. Your relationship will deteriorate and you will become increasingly resentful if the situation continues

Because relationships are about give and take, and living where they currently do is clearly not working for his wife.

What compromises has he made, other than giving her the odd lift and then moaning about it?

What compromises has she made?
Apart from the sexist assumptions pulled from thin air?

The simple answer is she just drives herself around.

Is it? It sounds like if his wife got this job then there would be a choice of two places to live.

Well, clearly if it were that simple she would already be doing it.

But let's pretend it is that simple.

Then what?

She's still stuck living an hour's round trip from the nearest Post Office, with a husband who now has even less incentive to move anywhere else, because his only inconvenience has been resolved, even if hers remain.

She is very selfish to make him drive an hour to drop off a parcel for her.

And so what?
She doesn't get to change the status quo at the click of her fingers.
If she walked into all this oblivious then that's on her.
She wants to leave she can

Again of I were OP I'd be closing the door behind her.