Back Behind the Wheel
Divorce means you can no longer be the passenger.
A friend gave me a GPS after I got divorced so I'd stop getting lost. I've never been good with directions or maps or telling north from south, but that didn't much matter when I had a husband who did most of the driving. He drove the short and long distances even though his inner compass wasn't much better than mine. I never thought about it. That was our natural and unspoken division of labor, as it is for many couples.
After we split up, I found myself getting lost everywhere. I'd go to meet friends for dinner and not know how to get to places I'd been to dozens of times but had never driven to on my own. Twenty-five years as a passenger and I'd lost my bearings. Was it because I was suddenly traveling solo? Or because the perspective is different when you're in the driver's seat?
It's not like I gave up my driver's license when I got my marriage license. I drove to work and the supermarket and ferried kids for years. I was in charge of my life. But if my husband was in the car, he drove.
A report several years ago said that men drive 78 percent of the time when couples travel together. Men do most of the driving despite the fact that many women consider themselves to be better drivers than their partners and despite the statistics, which show that men are more apt than women to drive aggressively, take risks, and go over the speed limit.
My father-in-law was blind in one eye, couldn't see at night, and was nine years older than my mother-in-law, who had a car of her own. But he did all the driving even when he was close to 80 and something of a hazard on the road. Why is that? "It's about control," a married friend told me when I asked him why he's the driver and his wife's the passenger in their car couple. She exerts her control in other ways, he says, "like by commenting on my driving. First she tells me to slow down. Then she tells me to go faster."
Driving yourself. For women, it's one of the big adjustments following divorce. It's a constant, daily reminder that you're on your own - that you're both the pilot and copilot of your life. Not only are you responsible for making sure the car works, but you also have to find your way to where you're going every day, whether it's sunny or snowy, whether you're driving near or far. It took me months to adjust to the idea that if I wanted to go someplace - to see my son who's in school out of state or my cousins up north - I had to make it happen by myself. I had to pack up the car, map out the route, and, the hardest part, drive back home alone.
Like everything else about divorce, it's been an adjustment. But the more miles I log, the easier it is being back in the driver's seat. I still avoid parking garages at night, and always will, but I'm no longer afraid to drive after dark to the train station or airport. Friends have taught me how to check the pressure in my tires, put the bike rack on by myself, and refill the windshield fluid. I now know how to get back home from most anywhere in the city, and if I do get lost, my assistant helps me out. All I have to do is touch "Where to?" on the console.
I've also learned that men lose their way just as often as women do, although they won't always admit it. (I know this anecdotally and also from reading "Lost in America," a report by AAA.) Whether you're a woman or a man, traveling alone or with someone, GPS helps you orient yourself. It's no substitute for the perfect mate. But for me, it's not a bad stand-in. We never argue about my driving, and when my GPS talks, I listen up. "Make a U-turn," he'll tell me when I'm going the wrong way, and I correct my course. "Recalculating," he says, and on we go. Now if only I could get him to sound like Harrison Ford.
Marianne Jacobbi is a writer in Cambridge. Send comments to coupling@globe.com.
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