Snagger
Explorer
My wife is not happy with the amount of time and emotional involvement I have in my 109 and 95 RRC. She does love driving the 109 (even though the steering is so heavy it has damaged her wrists), but while she is content with the practicality and comfort of the RRC, she's ambivalent about it's character. She's unhappy with how much it costs to keep going, even though I do most repairs myself, and she's not at all convinced that my plan to restore it is good, but she tolerates it. I think I'm lucky, though - we have so many shared interests, including classic British cars, and shared views, with virtually no issues that we disagree on - we're ideally matched and only rarely have to compromise.
What has helped, though, is that with the RRC, which is generally her daily drive for business appointments, the school run and shopping, I gave her the choice recently - we restore it to new standard without cutting corners, and get her a very tidy Lightweight, giving us a "new" classic luxury vehicle and fun toy of her own, or we could get her the new Tdci Defender 90 XS which she really likes and had already been looking at in the dealers. We had a go in such a 90 and it drove really well, but the practicality of the vehicle was poor for a family with two kids and two dogs.
So, we now have three LRs - I get to keep my 109 and RRC (which is still her daily driver), and she now has a really tidy Lightweight, which is even more of a head turner and vastly more fun to drive than a 90 and has the same family practicality. It even means we still have two cars available when one is being worked on, and my son is in line to get the Lightweight when he's old enough to drive, being very keen on them himself. Everybody wins.
The trick is not confrontation or bargaining, but to offer a reasonable choice and let common sense have time to settle the matter - discuss and test the options and set a date of at least a month later for a decision so that all emotion has been removed and clear thinking can occur. You still have to lay out the logic of why keeping your car is reasonable, though - you can present a sided argument, just as she will, as long as it's logical.
Marrying someone who likes you and your interests is always a good start, though - it seems more common for two very different people to marry and then set about trying to change each other. That's why most of my friends and family are divorced.
