Your partner doesn't drive, does it bother you?

PeonySugar

Edit: to elaborate, i allowed him to get a months insurance on my car in which I would teach him as much as I could on the understanding straight after he would book some lessons so it's not another gap again, but he hasn't, due to his anxiety. He has his theory. And to clarify for certain reasons I cannot go to his house so whenever I see him which is multiple times a week, really it's a 2 hour journey from mine to his, his to mine, mine to his, his to mine every time. He just says he'll get taxis but it's expensive and he's supposed to be catching up to what I have saved for a house deposit. We both didn't drive when we met but I had my license. I then bought a car and started driving. I have anxiety so I can understand how he feels, but it's draining me and making my anxiety worse, I feel like all I do is drive drive drive.

SavingPennies_2

Wow, I'm quite surprised by the negativity towards non/ unwilling drivers! I didn't realise it was such an issue for so many people. I'm a non-driver (yes I'm scared but also I live in a city with good transport links), but it does not mean I'm dependent on other people, lazy, unambitious nor do I feel I limit myself in life. Unless someone is using you as a free taxi, which would be unfair, then what the big deal is, we all have something in life we don't like/want to do.

BigAunty

PeonySugar wrote: »

Edit: to elaborate, i allowed him to get a months insurance on my car in which I would teach him as much as I could on the understanding straight after he would book some lessons so it's not another gap again, but he hasn't, due to his anxiety. ...I feel like all I do is drive drive drive.

Then you have to perhaps be firm that you expect him to deal swiftly with his anxiety about driving or confront his fear and book professional lessons because of the impact his stalling is having on you.

Does his anxiety extend to other areas or is it solely nervousness around driving?

sulkisu

As he is prepared to use taxis, you should let him do that and let him worry about the expense. You can't really complain if he says that he will, but you decide to drive to save him money. I don't drive but I don't expect anyone to go out of their way to accommodate me in this respect (i.e. to drive me round, pick me up etc). Nor has it affected my career progression or social life.

barbarawright

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I'm biased because I didn't learn to drive until I was 50 but it never made me dependent on anybody - you can afford a lot of taxis if you don't run a car.

Indeed. I don't drive and can literally count on the fingers of one had the number of times anyone has gone out of their way to give me a lift in the last few years. There's this marvellous invention called public transport that renders most car journeys in cities completely unnecessary

Buzzybee90

Well that's fine if you never want to leave the city.

Spendless

I could drive but didn't have a car when I started dating my husband. He lived in a different county an hours drive away. He drove to see me, we stayed in my area (we both had our own properties). Sometimes he'd pick me up from my workplace on a Friday, which was halfway between our 2 homes for me to spend the weekend at his and take me back on Sunday. Occasionally I caught public transport to him.

What seems to be the issue with you, is you are driving to his place to pick him up and take him back to yours meaning 2 hours worth of driving for you. Change this, if he's happy to get a taxi let him, or if he can do public transport halfway pick up from there, or if you are going out to the cinema/meal etc do it at 'his' side of town

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

I said indicative of a personality type.

In general, someone who has an illogical fear, and self limits their life by making themselves dependent upon others, is not the personality type I look for in a partner. YMMV.

Is being carried out of a wreck with their head sticky taped to a stretcher because they've broken their neck (due to the so called 'good drivers' with 'life skills' drove like dicks and eventually in to one another) an illogical reason? Or a damn good one, especially when it took eight years to be able to stand on one leg without falling over afterwards?

It's why I don't drive.

One ex said he'd leave me if I didn't learn. So I tried. Until I ran out of money. At one point, I remember him screaming at me in an old mini in the pouring rain, windows closed and steamed up, kids in the back and trying to navigate a seven way junction. I got through it, pulled up near a bus stop, stopped, switched off, handed him the keys and went to wait for the bus.

Another one probably wanted me to pass my test so I'd pay to run his car for him. One wince when he carved up another car at about 64 in a 30 zone and he started yelling at me that he'd show me what driving was about and proceeded to hurl it around at over a ton. I told him that if he didnt let me out immediately I'd phone the police and tell them I had been taken prisoner. After a few last minute swerves when aiming directly at trees, bridges, etc, he handbrake turned into a train station.

I called the police on the train and said I thought he had been drinking. Which was very possible. After all, he was another one who said he was a good driver and was better than everybody else even drunk. The police did nothing. One more near miss when I let myself be convinced to get in a car with him, plus his fury when I got out to help the elderly person he'd almost hit and had fallen over, and he was history.

My first boyfriend caused and accident by three pointing on a blind bend in the rain. A bunch of teenagers sped round the corner and hit a wall avoiding him. Another one, as soon as he passed his test started tailgating and following women he felt weren't good drivers.

I disliked it intensely and froze on my one and only driving test. Considering I'd ridden motorbikes for years and had no problems with irrational fears, the thought that I could somehow meet so many people who drove like utter morons led me to conclude that they can't be the only ones on the road - and I don't want to be there when they come thundering round the corner on the wrong side.

The OH is fine with this. He can drive but doesn't. We can't afford it.

If it's a problem for someone, they obviously don't like the other person enough. You wouldn't dump somebody because they couldn't swim (also stated to be an essential life skill) so why driving?

74jax

I wouldn't date someone who couldn't drive. No right or wrong here I think, it's one of those questions where it would either bother someone or not.

duchy

Buzzybee90 wrote: »

Well that's fine if you never want to leave the city.

What a daft thing to say.

I drove from the age of nineteen.Always had a car except when I was travelling although as I worked in central London it seemed a bit of a waste of money sometimes
When I was in my forties we moved house and for various good reasons my son stayed at his primary school in the old town for his final year and we commuted each day for that year , anything up to 2 hours each way by car via the M25. About a year later the car died and I wasn't in a position to comfortably replace it for a couple of months so I decided with a town centre on my doorstep with buses and a railway station I'd try an experiment and do without a car for a year.

I didn't miss it at all ! As someone else said taxis are always possible -and if I needed to do a long trip that was easier by road than train carhire is cheap too. At the end of the year I costed out how much it would be to get and run a car- and realized it was a mug's game and as I hadn't missed it (and was single at the time with a good social life) I'd be daft to replace it. I also never had parking ticket stress as a bonus

Although I drive now I share a car with my fiance and it's rare we need it for different things at the same time - and if it is we work it out - eg I went to visit a friend for a couple of days so he got the train to work - He offered to buy me a car when we moved house but I said wait and see if we need a second one- and we never have.

I see it as freedom from the tyrany of parking tickets, traffic jams and insurance costs and when people who live in non rural settings tell me they can't understand how we manage -I think they are not very resourceful and lacking in "drive" (sorry) and imagination.

Not having a car doesn't limit you unless you let it or can't navigate anywhere without a satnav