But love has brought him to a painful crossroads. His girlfriend Emily, whose reckless driving has already left a trail of wrecks and near disasters, now wants to take the wheel of his prized possession. The fear and frustration simmer beneath the surface, threatening to shatter not just the car, but the fragile balance of trust between them.
So I (24M) recently bought my first “nice” car—a 2019 Mazda 3. It’s not a luxury car or anything, but I worked my ass off for it. I saved for years, drove beaters while I worked two jobs, and when I finally got this car, it felt like a reward for all my effort.
I take care of it, too—I wash it every weekend, never let it get below half a tank, and park away from everyone else in parking lots like a total dork.
Here’s the issue: my girlfriend, Emily (24F), wants to drive it. I love Emily, but she is the single worst driver I’ve ever met. And I’m not exaggerating:
1. She’s totaled two cars in the past two years.
The first was because she “misjudged” the distance while merging on the highway. The second? She reversed into a light pole in an empty parking lot.
2. She tailgates like crazy. I’ve had to tell her multiple times to back off the car in front of her when I’m in the passenger seat because it feels like we’re going to die.
3.
She’s admitted she “doesn’t like paying attention” while driving because “it’s boring.” I wish I were kidding.
I’ve let her drive my old car once before (a 15-year-old Civic I wasn’t super attached to), and she managed to scrape it pulling into a gas station. After that, I said I’d never let her drive my car again, and we both kind of laughed it off.
Well, now I have this car, and she keeps asking to drive it. At first, it was playful—stuff like, “Let me take it for a spin!”—and I just said no with a laugh. But recently, she’s been getting more annoyed about it.
She says stuff like, “You act like I’m going to crash it or something.” And, well… yeah.
The other day, we were driving to dinner (me driving, obviously), and she brought it up again. She said it’s “weird” that I won’t let my own girlfriend drive my car and that it makes her feel like I don’t trust her.
I told her straight up: “It’s not that I don’t trust you—it’s that I’ve seen you drive, and I can’t afford to have this car wrecked.” She got quiet and didn’t say much for the rest of the night.
Later, she told me I embarrassed her and made her feel like she’s incompetent. I said I wasn’t trying to embarrass her, but she has totaled two cars. She said I should “get over it” because accidents happen, and that I’m being controlling.
Now she doesn’t even let me use her pc because “i may break it” when there has never been such an issue before. I think it’s just childish.
AITA?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) faces a direct conflict between protecting a significant financial asset they worked hard for and maintaining the emotional comfort and perceived trust of their girlfriend, Emily. The OP feels justified in refusing to let Emily drive the new car due to her documented history of severe driving errors, while Emily perceives this refusal as a personal slight, a lack of trust, and grounds for retaliatory behavior regarding her own property.
Given the OP’s concrete evidence of Emily’s past accidents versus Emily’s feelings of being untrusted and embarrassed, is the OP’s decision to protect their property valid, or does the need to uphold trust and avoid damaging the relationship outweigh the risk to the vehicle? Should the OP maintain their boundary regarding the car, or is the current dynamic creating an unsustainable level of relationship tension?
Here’s how people reacted:
But someone who’s only 24, who has already totalled two cars in two years, as well as had other accidents??? I don’t think I’d lend her a car at all, ever, although I suppose if you wanted to, you could say, well, if you take and pass one of those defensive driving courses, and then have a period of several years driving your own car with no accidents and no bad driving, I might consider lending you mine.
But she wouldn’t agree because she apparently thinks she’s not an incompetent driver! I was going to say I don’t think any of my close friends and relatives ever totalled even one car, but I remembered an uncle who, in something like 50 or 60 years of driving what must have been an incredible number of kilometres, totalled a car once when he lost control trying to avoid a dog running across a road.
She’s clearly completely incompetent. That’s not something for OP to get over; it’s something he has to consider. He shouldn’t let her near the driver’s seat of his car.
It’s okay to not trust someone to do something they don’t respect and practice carefully at. If my wife asks for a chisel, she’s going to get a harbor freight chisel I keep in the toolbox and not a nice chisel I keep in my workbench next to my hand planes. I’m sure she doesn’t trust me with a bunch of her stuff, too. I expect that and so does she. I DO trust her enough to know that if she did need one of the nice chisels that she would use an abundance of care and respect for it until she put it back. I would never know if she took it, just like she would never know I used her nice tweezers… I mean, if I ever used her nice tweezers.
There’s more than one thing about a person that you might trust. You can trust someone’s motives, their judgment, and their ability. Unfortunately, people *act* like you distrust their motives when you really, for example, distrust their ability.
Look at it this way: you would be *insane* to trust me to perform surgery on you. That doesn’t mean I’m an untrustworthy person, but someone who hadn’t thought all this through might disagree with that.
(NTA)
If she doesn’t like that and continues to be childish, saying you can’t use her stuff because you’ll break it, I’d tell her you have better things to do than to play games and just break up with her.
She’s admitted she “doesn’t like paying attention” while driving because “it’s boring.” – this says everything about her. Absolutely immature person, who must not be driving any car ever on the public roads.
She is an A\`hole. And yes, she is incompetent. Those were not accidents, those were the results of her being terrible driver so you don\`t want to take that risk.
I’ve seen enough of these stories to know at some point she’s going to take your car without your permission. Then what if she gets in an accident and she’s not insured?
As drastic as this sounds, you may want to consider breaking up with her, as other commenters have suggested.
You mind that baby.
She shows herself to be incompetent driver and unable to take responsibility for her own actions.
The pettiness of retaliating by not letting you use her PC also doesn’t speak well of her character.
NTA.
Your car
Take care of your own vehicle
A good car outlasts even a good girlfriend in my experience and I’m OLD