Your Wife's Ride

The following post might not be serious, but then again maybe it is. Maybe it is something from a guy who knows exactly what he is talking about or maybe it’s something from a husband who has been well trained by a woman who just might be smarter than he. Either way it’s definitely something worth considering.

Most married couples have at least two cars. If the couple has children then most of the time the car that the wife drives will also be considered the family car, and the vehicle that the husband drives is the commuter special. Any combination of vehicles is possible. Sometimes the wife drives the family minivan and husband drives a pickup truck. One vehicle is for hauling kids around which is the duty that often falls to the wife, so the minivan is her most practical choice out of the two vehicles. The truck is driven by the husband because it is used for making a run to the home improvement store on the weekend, or it gets used to haul the husband’s toys around. Regardless of who drives what, the one thing that is certain is that if the wife is driving the older, or the junkier of the two vehicles, then the husband needs to work on his husbanding skills.

Is this your wife's car?

Just about everyone knows a married couple out there where the husband drives the nice new truck or car, and the wife drives the whatever is left over, or whatever can be afforded after making the payments on the husbands ride. The husband might drive a big 4x4 pickup or SUV and the wife gets a 12 year old minivan, or some old little sedan with peeling paint, bald tires, and a chronically illuminated check engine light. The husband has a $40k sports car while the wife drives a rusty SUV from the mid nineties that leaks oil like the Exxon Valdez.

Is this your wife's car?

If you are this husband then you need to stop and think long and hard about your relationship. If you are now thinking to yourself that your wife indeed drives that old beater minivan from 1994, but you drive the Chrysler K car from 1986 then this doesn’t apply to you. Or, if you are thinking to yourself that the new corvette that you drive may seem excessive, but your wife seems pretty happy in her brand new Escalade then this doesn’t apply to you either (unless she is forbidden to ever drive the Corvette, but that’s a topic for another day). Nothing is a bigger sign of a bad husband than the one that drives a nicer car than his wife. If you think that your wife likes what she drives, and she doesn’t care that your car is nicer, it doesn’t matter, the fact remains that you are a bad husband and you need to change your ways.

Maybe this is your wife's car?

Your wife deserves the best car and here are a few reasons why. First of all she is your queen and you should treat her as such. She deserves to drive the vehicle that is going to be the most reliable, and the nicest looking. She is the mother of your children, which means she will play chauffer to them on a regular basis. The last thing you want as the father is to have your family break-down on the freeway in heavy traffic, or have an old worn out tire blow out in the middle of nowhere when you are not there to change it. Even if she knows how, and is perfectly capable of changing a tire herself, a gentlemanly husband will perish the thought of his wife performing a task such as this all alone with the kids packed in the car, screaming about the things that kids scream about. Your wife’s car must remain free of mechanical troubles. Do you want your wife to have to get out and push her broken down car out of a busy intersection? Your wife’s car should be in tip top shape, with all services up to date. Once, while working as an automotive technician, I heard a customer say that the car he had brought to the shop only needed the cheapest tires because it was the car that his wife drove, and the car that she shuttled the kids around in. Are you kidding me! This man is an embarrassment to loving husbands and father’s everywhere.

This should be your wife's car, but only if she likes it.

The other reason for you to get rid of your nicer car and get an older one is that it will give you the chance to fix it on a regular basis. Women like a man that can fix things, and they especially like it when their own husband works on one of the cars in the family stable. This is one of the easiest ways to turn your wife on and get her to notice how manly you can be. If you are not skilled as a mechanic it won’t matter. You will be working on your car and not hers, so you can botch the repair and she won’t notice because she’s not the one who will have to jack the car up on the freeway to try and put the wheel back on after it falls off because you forgot to tighten the lug nuts.

Just think how good your wife would look driving this.

My wife’s car is 6 years newer than mine and has 60,000 fewer miles on the odometer. She and the kids are much more comfortable in her car than they are in my car. My wife knows that she has the choice of any vehicle that we have or that we could afford and she chooses the vehicle that she has. I’m happy knowing that she’s happy, but even more realistically I’m happy because she’s happy. A husband, who drives a nicer car than his wife, is probably the same man who is not totally happy in his marriage, or; he is the same man who is married to a woman that is not totally happy in her marriage. Either way they are both missing out on something, and its likely something that is more important and more meaningful than a nice ride.