I need a new car. My teen daughter totaled my car in an accident over a month ago. Fortunately, she was uninjured.

I have been without a car now for over a month. During this time, I have set a budget for a car and researched various makes and models with safety, reliability and affordability as my paramount criteria. I have tried to enage my wife in this processm, but she has fixated on trying to get me to buy a luxury car (for her) that I have told her I cannot afford and that I do not think is an appropriate car for my teen daughter to drive. My wife remains adamament. I have been more than reasonable, and have given her all the numbers on five year cost to own etc. for my top three choices vs her luxury vehicle. She will not budge. I am getting to the point where I may just have to make an executive decision and buy the best car for me and my daughter.

I know that the POJA says neither of us should do something or make a decision without the enthusiasitc support of the other, but frankly I am at my wit's end. I feel - and have expressed this to my wife - that I have been more than reasonable, yet she seems to refues to want to meet me at the halfway point. What else should I do other than show up in the driveway with a new car.

FYI, my budget is not more than $15K and she wants me to spend almost twice that, telling me that I am being cheap and unconcerned about her and my daugher's safety. This is all her take speaking, but she appears to have shut down the giver in her on this issue and I do not know what to do.

Do you POJA everything with your DW?

You need to read up on the POJA. It is subtle and very, very clever. Nothing could be further from a POJA solution than 'a half way point' and, if you want to stay married I suggest you not show up in the driveway with a new car. My XH did that once and I sold it the next day.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find that your decisions are better than you can possibly now imagine. Would you like some help in getting started?

I want to ask the same question as Brainy asks above. You have had an acrimonious marriage during which your wife has had 3 affairs. You don't appear to have ever used MB in your marriage. Have you begun to use it now, or is it only over the issue of the car that you would like to POJA? You have posted to this board over a long period, but you don't seem to have ever ever used the programme.

I ask because Dr Harley suggests that we should not start POJA with big decisions. We need to get into the practice of develop solutions about which spouses are both enthusiastic - but in an acrimonious marriage, we need to start with much smaller things. As you know, buying a car is a big decision, and if you are unused to using POJA it is not surprising that you are not applying it successfully to this decision.

Having said that, you do need to make a decision about the car, but I don't see any evidence in your post that you have tried to appreciate your wife's point of view, and even to see whether it might be the better decision to make. You use terms to describe her such as "fixated" and "adamant", which make her sound unreasonable and make you sound obviously correct, calm and logical. Nobody could fail to agree with you and see that she is in the wrong.

However, it seems to me that you are just as fixated and adamant. You say "I have been more than reasonable", thus defining your reasoning process as correct and hers as irrational. You say "FYI, my budget is not more than $15K and she wants me to spend almost twice that, telling me that I am being cheap and unconcerned about her and my daugher's safety. This is all her take speaking, but she appears to have shut down the giver in her on this issue and I do not know what to do." - without recognising that this might have nothing to do with her taker; she says she is making the decision based on the wish for your daughter to be safe, but you have redefined her approach as being dominated by her "taker". You are basically calling her selfish. How is thinking about your daughter's safety her "taker" speaking? It is not a selfish decision being made for her own benefit - at least, not using the logic that she has used. I must say that I can see her side in this. It might be a folly to skimp on spending today, if the car you does not have the safety features of more expensive cars, and perhaps costs more to maintain, or does not last as long.

If doing nothing is not an option for the long - or even the short - term, Dr Harley recommends that you seriously look at her argument and try to see the sense in it. To do that, you could begin by asking her to go through your joint budget. I noticed that you said "my budget is not more than $15K" - but shouldn't that be "our budget"? Do you treat the budget for everything spent as equally hers to decide? It does not sound as if you do. Ask her to explain how the money could be found, and if it has to be borrowed, how you could afford to pay it back. Don't use a challenging tone when you do that; the goal is not to back her into a corner and show her how silly she is, but to genuinely try and see whether there is any possibility of making her solution work.

The solution to this could be that she should meet you in the middle - but it doesn't have to be. Not everything has a "middle". Your preference is not necessarily any more correct for your circumstances than hers. You could end up persuading her to see the sense in your argument, or vice versa, or to meet in the middle, or something else altogether - such as getting your daughter to get a job to help pay for a better car. You won't know unless you stop clinging to your decision as the only rational one and hers as excessive, and unless you brainstorm with abandon.

I take it that you wife has run a household for many years and knows about budgets and debts? She is not stupid, so please don't imply that she is incapable of making a rational decision about this.

You are both extremely disrespectful to each other and clearly don't use the MB program. Both of you have pre-formed opinions walking into negotitaitons which means the negotiation is dead before you even start. You need to put aside your own demands and negotiate a solution that makes you both happy. And stop telling your wife she is "unreasonable!"


You and your wife should make that decision using the POJA.

Use the program! That is what it is there for.

In choosing a new car, I provided a list of the safest cars as determined by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety pluse the reliability ratings in Consumer Reports and Car and Driver. I told her based that I wanted to work on choosing a car from this list. I told her that my budget for a car is $15K and that if she wanted to spend more, she would need to add in money from her earnings. She does not want to do this. I feel at this point it is not fair for me to go without a car b/c DW is basically holding a veto over this unless she gets the car she wants. Hint: She wants a fancy new German vehicle that retails for more than $40K. It is simply not going to happen. It is like this in all other areas of our marriage. She does not come up with a list of criteria such as safety, affordability, etc. but fixates on the name brand. This goes the same for decisions regarding my career, which moves us from city to city from time to time. Rather than thinking about things such as schools, career opportunities for her, etc., she says I want New York or San Francisco or Paris, but not Moscow, Warsaw or Berlin. She recently told me she was willing, for example to quit her job and uproot our daughter to go to Helsinki of four years, but not to Warsaw. It makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

Even if your wife's preferences have nothing to do with "logic" as you would judge necessary, they are still acceptable preferences. Please stop judging her and see if there's a way to get HER a car that SHE would be happy to drive.

After reading this, it would seem better titled,
My Wife Needs a Car
or
We Need Help Getting a Car for my Wife.

Good job posting here for help.

And I should add, with you being happy as well.

I posted that based on an assumption that your wife wants you to drive her current car and upgrade hers.

Is that correct?

You are not obligated to agree to her solution.

You don't have an intergrated marriage. POJA will be very difficult if things are "his" and "hers". You even went from calling your daughter, "my daughter" to "our daughter"...I thought this was maybe a blended family and the girl was not a COM.

Last you posted, you were separated and saying D was on the table. What has changed that you took her back?

This is kinda the point I failed miserably at making. This stood out to me also.

In addition to, that "is simply not happening." OUCH!

Is your W living by EPs and transparency?

Have you listened to any of our responses? All you have done here is state wanted you stated in your first post, but harder.

If you're looking for this forum to tell you either that your wife is wrong and so you should force her to see that, or that your wife is wrong, but since she won't see that, you should go ahead and buy the car you want...that isn't going to happen, no matter how hard you state your case.

This makes "absolutely no sense" to you at all? Seriously?

It sounds to me as if you haven't had interested discussions in which you try to find out more about your wife and what makes her tick.

Just a hint: the name brand, for her, might wrap up a number of features, such as attractiveness, safety, and long-term market value, in one. I'm not saying this because I like them (I don't, particularly), and I don't want to insult the US car industry, but "fancy German vehicles" generally have a high reputation for build quality, reliability and market value. You seem to be dismissing her point of view out of hand, when you should be trying to see things from her point of view.

And as for what cities to live in: what gives you the right to say that her choices are irrational? You are very offensive in the way you talk about her preferences. She has to make a life for herself in these cities when your career "moves you from city to city from time to time". I hope she enthusiastically agrees to your working in a career that moves you around (as if a career is a force of its own). And, once again, you need to see this from her point of view. Relocating and settling in a new city and even country can be much harder on a woman, who relies on a neighbourhood and a network of friends for herself and her children, than for the man who is happy in his career and with the opportunities offered by moving. Why shouldn't she prefer New York, San Francisco or Paris to Moscow, Warsaw or Berlin? She has reasons for her preferences, and they are just as valid as yours! I prefer Paris to Warsaw. Why shouldn't anyone prefer one city to another?

it's YOU who is coming across and irrational and unbalanced. How can you live with your wife and have a genuine interest in her point of view, and yet have no idea why she would prefer to live in one country over another?

Let me add some nuance here beyond the car issue, but I think it will illustrate the challenges we face that are unique to us and my career. We may share some similarities with military couples.

I am in the Foreign Service. We move every 3 - 4 years. We have been doing this for 17. We have served (note the emphasis on served) in Moscow, Kiev, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Seoul and St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida). Our first assignment to Addis Ababa was directed. After that, we have had some say in where we go, but there are never guarantees as the "needs of the service" always will take precedence.

My approach to bidding on assignments is to look at the list and the requirements for bidding. These requirements are generally as follows: 1) you must bid 4 assignments at your current rank (so-called core bids); 2) you may bid on up to another 4 assignments one step below or one step above your rank; 3) you may bid on one two grade (two ranks above you stretch); 4) if you have not served in a hardship post w/in the last eight years, you must bid on a hardship post (defined as any post with a hardship differential).

I then come up with priorities. Do we want a good school? What is the housing like? Is it dangerous? If so, how dangerous? Is the danger level something we are willing to risk? What are the spousal employment opportunities, etc. What is the work like? Who will I be working for? What are my chances of promotion? (Hint: Hardships produced more promotions, and some hardships really aren't so hard)

I have had two experiences with this with my wife that illustrate either she doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand how the system works.

Several years back, we both sat down together and put together our list. Before submitting the list to my CDO (Career Development Officer), I asked my wife whether there was any post on the list where she could not see herself living for three to four years. If there was, I would remove it. The list was as follows:

1. Cairo; 2. Nairobi; 3; Tirana; 4) Johannesburg; 5) Belgrade; 6) Dar - es - Salaam; 7) Moscow; 8) Kiev.

We received our number two bid. After receiving it, my wife declared she would not go to Nairobi and I should demand a new assignment. Of course, I did not do this because we had jointly agreed to the list that was submitted.

Fast forward to last year. I wanted to stay in Washington, DC after four years in St. Petersburg, Russia without my family. I bid my list top heavy with Washington assignments (there were only four), and my fifth assignment was Warsaw. My wife kept telling me NOT to put Warsaw on the list even though I HAD to put four core bids on the list, and the actual number of bids available at core was limited. Other posts available were truly evil places like Lagos (although I would go there for the $$$$). So, I feel given the requirements for bidding it was not reasonable for her to ask me NOT to put Warsaw on the list as this was not possible. That is what I mean by reasonable vs. unreasonalbe.

The same goes of the car. Safe, reliable and affordable. There is a limited budget. Addiitionally, I strongly feel that a German luxury car is not an appropriate car for a teen driver, as my car will be shared with my daughter. The IIHS list provided plenty of safe cars. Initially, I fixated on a VW Jetta, but after my wife pushed back, I did more research and settled on a used Volvo S40. My wife wants a Mercedes Benz GLK SUV. It is twice the price, not as reliable by any measure and not an appropriate car for a teen driver.

Maybe you need a new job.

Well, I don't have a job, it's more of a lifestyle. Frankly, I could not see myself in some office job day in and day out. It would drive me nuts. I am in language training now.

I am also way too far in with vacation, retirement and pension. Changing jobs would mean losing 20 days vacation per year, truncated pension, etc. I can retire in ten years. I will be 55.

Plus, I love serving my country. There is an immense swell of pride in representing the USA overseas. I come from a long line of soldiers and diplomats and we have always been taught that duty, honor and country come first.

And I did change jobs once already for my wife and nothing changed.

I don't have much advice to offer. Your lifestyle does not seem like it is integrated and conducive to a happy marriage...and I'm not sure why you took your WW back after saying you were going to divorce her in you last posts (before today).

Maybe you can spend lesser money on two cars; one for you and one for DD. Howver, if there isn't a problem about a car it will be something else and the two of you don't use POJA so you will keep going round and round.