AIBU / Ridiculous re putting extra mileage on my car

[MileageWoes]

DH works from home, I work full time in the office. He is having major car trouble and will be without a car for the next few weeks. Obviously he doesn't need a car for work but he has a hobby that he travels to so is using my car morning and evening to do this. It's a 40 mile round trip, twice a day so means that he's putting over 500 miles extra on my car every week! I think he should cut back to once a day until he gets his own car back and he thinks I am being very unreasonable as it will only be for 3/4 weeks.

I WILL NOT BE DISCLOSING WHAT THE HOBBY IS! (I don't want to out myself and it's really really not relevant to my question)

Totally agree. A fair few people do seem to think we're still in the 70s, when small cars were diabolically bad and any car was on borrowed time after 5 years and 50k miles. Our family bus has circa 170k on it and will not be going anywhere (figuratively speaking), until we've wrung well north of 200k out of it. Until recently our runabout was a 2009 Yaris with 140k on the clock, which is still going strong in the hands of my nephew and which I would have no problem whatsoever doing 500 miles a week in. They're cars not driveway ornaments so I really don't get this notion of 'I don't want to wear it out by using it for it's exact purpose'.

I think horses too. We loan one at a stables which is a 30 mile round trip. Fortunately it’s just a couple of times a week & the stables will help us out but if you own one & it’s twice a day this is easy to do!

however, I couldn’t get upset about my husband using my car. We have 2 cars but aren’t overly precious about who drives them.

If you’ve got an older car hanging on by a thread then yes he should cut down.

Also propose the question if it was a friends car or another family member’s car would he still be wanting to do 2k miles for jolly’s while borrowing it.

I don’t understand all this “his car, my car” when you are married.

We have 2 cars, they are both “our cars” and we just drive whichever one the other isn’t using. One day I might use “the big car”, another day I might use “the small car”.

What do you do if you are going out in a car together? Do you charge a taxi fee or mileage to your DH and vice versa?

I’m sorry, but YABVU and petty to begrudge him the use of a car.

Your husband has an unreasonable carbon footprint resulting from that hobby!

Couldn’t get worried over mileage on a car really, that’s what they are for and it’s pretty short term. As to the hobby, we’ve got a hobby that is all consuming. Luckily ours is outside the back door but takes up a huge amount of time, is every day, twice a day as a minimum, and a lot of weekend time too. I’m female by the way, and the DH is/was often on his own when returning from work, and at 8 or 9 pm we wander in and wonder what we might have for supper. In fairness, it’s his interest too though less so actively these days, more mine and DD s thing now. Never been any issue in our marriage or relationship, it’s who we are and always have been. No surprises, endless joy!

JFC - IT'S NOT HORSES. The OP has said it is NOT HORSES. HORSES IT IS NOT. It is SOMETHING OTHER THAN HORSES.

It’s fight club 😉 that’s why op can’t say. Not meant to talk about it. Shhh 🤫

i was very happily married until I was widowed but we always chose our own cars and had "my car" and "his car" He used to use mine sometimes with my permission but I never used his because I hated it.

It'll be kayaking or something where he has to drive to a lake or such.

Is he driving to a swimming pool? Or a velodrome for cycling, or courts for racquet sports?
Surely twice a day ( omg! the fuel costs) every day, is a professional level of sport, rather than a hobby. I’ve known 2 different men who swam twice daily like this, & had to drive to pools each time.

That is bizarre. Twice a day and it's far away. He must be a coach for some sports team and there are two teams, one in the day, one in the evening?

🐴

What, not even lovely ones?

And is OP definite that her DH travels so much and is genuinely far away when he does his hobby; or is he just small?

How are you getting to work while he does this hobby? How is he doing all this travel twice a day and working?

You’re married so it’s not really ‘your’ car, it’s a shared household car. Presumably when you need to replace it this will be from shared household finances anyway? If you aren’t seeing yourself as one unit within a shared household and instead view everything as ‘yours’ or ‘his’ what was the point of marriage?

500 miles a week is roughly what I do for work so that is standard for me but I would be more concerned he is driving twice a day to do this hobby along with working and clearly never home with yuo anyway.

I reckon he loves nothing more than going out in the sea in his trusty old speedboat that he won on Bullseye many years ago, except they live in the Midlands.

I hear you OP. My partner's car was hit by the London charge, so he borrowed my 18 year old mini 4 times a week until he bought himself a new car. My mini was so loved by me, but it was on it's last legs. His driving so much and he drives badly, pretty much finished my car off. It because so craggy to drive I had to get rid of it. I still smart over it!!

Ordinarily I'd have no problem but an old car, nobody wants the cost of having to buy a replacement.

The usual benefit of WFH is the reduction in travel time. In this case it seems to be the increase of travel time.
Very interesting.

I suppose I stand corrected then but I do think yours sounds like a potential family activity and your DH is always (?) invited and if not him, joy with DD. OPs DH seems to just disappear for a few hours a day. His hobby could be a secret family down the road where he’s pretending he has two jobs so only needs to go before and after.

I agree. If he's going twice a day, it seems odd to describe it as a hobby, that would be competition level surely? Or if he's not competing, perhaps he's chosen the wrong sport and he should pick something he's better at?

Is he the regional tiddlywinks champion and he has to travel to a regulation tiddlywinks 'arena'?

ETA. I made up tiddlywinks as something that seems ridiculous but having googled, I've now learned that competition level tiddlywinks players are called winkers and there is a website all about serious tiddlywinks playing called winkipedia.

I recommend that you do not go there if you want to get anything done this afternoon as it has internet rabbit hole written all over it.

An additional 500/wrrk for a hobby is utterly unreasonable. He needs to curb it until his car is back in the road.

Quite honestly if he is doing that every single day he would be my exh. I am all for hobbies and individual interests but that is massively excessive. There is no way you are getting to opt out of mum life for the same aniubt of time.

He is a dick.

Twice a day seems like a lot, if it's an activity that your DH could conceivably cut back on. If our finances were arranged so that I was the one paying for maintenance, I might be pissed off that things like services and tyre replacement would come around that much faster. Don't worry about the insurance limit, though. I had to call our insurance company recently because it looked as if we were on target to exceed our existing limit of 18,000 miles a year if we didn't keep the car on the drive for the next 3 months. They added on a small supplement for the renewal quote, but couldn't have been less bothered otherwise. But do let them know.

And fgs, spell it right if you do!! 😁