A Marriage That Can Survive Back-Seat Driving Can Survive Anything

Show me a marriage that can survive the perils of back-seat driving; I’ll show you a marriage that will last for eternity. Let’s face it, back-seat driving is the biggest threat known to wedded bliss.

There are, of course, the obvious problems which arise between couples when one is being informed by the other on how bad one’s driving is. But there is also a backlash from back-seat driving which can occur. I’m reminded of an incident when I was in the fourth grade.

My dad had been letting us (my mom, my siblings, and me) know, under no uncertain terms, that he had all of the back-seat driving from us that he was going to take. One day, while at the supermarket, Dad decided to back our humongous station wagon into a chosen parking spot. Mom had already gotten out of the car to fetch a shopping cart when she spied Dad backing into a parked car located directly opposite of us. CRUNCH!

As Dad and my younger brother and I observed the damage done to both vehicles, Mom walked up and informed Dad that she saw it (the collision) coming.

“Well, why didn’t you say something?” was Dad’s reply.

“Because,” Mom laughed, “you said not to tell you how to drive anymore.”

As a result, my dad's been a little more open to suggestions when behind the wheel of a vehicle, and my parents have been married now for over 50 years.

My grandparent’s marriage also survived the perils of back-seat driving. No matter where they’d go on a trip, they usually wound up not speaking to each other (mainly due to Gramps taking one of his infamous short cuts) by the time they reached their destination.

One time my family and my grandparents went on a trip to San Francisco, California back in the late 1960s. We took our car while Grandma and Grandpa drove their camper and toted a trailer behind them.

Not long before we entered the city limits of San Francisco, we noticed the camper was no longer following our car. In fact, my grandparents were nowhere in sight. Dad pulled the car into a gas station and we waited for my grandparents. We waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Finally, just about the time Mom and Dad had decided to file a missing persons report, here came the camper scampering down road. Gramps was behind the wheel, driving, but Grandma no longer sitting beside him—she was in the camper, lying on the upper bed, peering out of the window. From the expression on their faces, we knew what had happened; Gramps had, true to form, taken one of his short cuts, and they had gotten lost. Both had a look on their faces that would have made Adolf Hitler shiver with fear, yet, when Gramps departed this life they’d been married over 60 years.

Perhaps back-seat driving was the ruin of my marriage. The former Mrs. Bagley was so paranoid about my driving that I had to threaten to tape her eyelids shut when I was behind the wheel.

You don’t suppose it had something to do with the fact that every single piece of damage inflicted upon our vehicles happened when I was the driver? Hey, none of them were my fault including that darn light pole that jumped in front of the truck as I pulled forward out of my parking spot at the shopping center.