The way my wife drives is unusual.
She moves the seat all the way to the front. Her legs are not short, so I do not know why she does that. She does a lot of dry steering. She turns the wheel while the car is stopped. It makes me worry about the tires. Her following distance is short. Even waiting at a red light, she sticks close to the car in front. She does not go fast. You could call that safe driving, but she is stepping on the brake all the time. She talks a lot. She talks so much it is noisy. She does not want to get on the expressway.
I have ridden in the passenger seat, with my wife driving like that, for 40 years.
It Was Not Resignation, Not Trust, Not Love
When I think about why I kept riding without complaining, none of the answers fit.
Was it resignation? No. Was it trust? No. Was it love? That is not it either.
Even if I had wanted to, I could not. I had no room to do it. I was saturated with work.
A whole machine would stop. Nobody knew the cause. Even the equipment engineers had no answer. But the work coming from the previous process did not stop. The machines were all old, so that kind of thing happened often. The boss was not the one who fixed it. That was just dumping it all on us. The people on the floor had the hardest time of anyone. I thought there was no point in saying anything, and I got it done somehow. That was the job.
Every nerve I had was focused on work. Twelve-hour shifts. I went to sleep at midnight and got up at six. In a life like that, I had zero room to look after another person. It looked like I was the one in charge, but I was not.
I Was Pushing Things Onto Her Just the Same
I thought I was the one putting up with things in the passenger seat. But now I see it.
My wife managed the money. She looked after the children. She dealt with my mother-in-law. The ties with the neighborhood and the relationship with the school, she handled all of it. I did not mean to, but I left everything to her. I was pushing things onto her just the same. I knew it the whole time. But nothing could be done about it. A person saturated with work has no room.
I Retired, and Now I Am Home Every Day
When I reached retirement age, I started being home every day.
My wife almost never talks about the hard times. Once in a while she mutters something. It is probably because there was never a chance to talk.
There is one story I still remember. On the way home from a company drinking party, I said I would take the train. But I was drunk and I did not know how to buy a ticket. I had hardly ever ridden a train in the first place. It was after hours and there was no staff at the station. There was nothing else to do, so I called and asked her to drive 20 kilometers to pick me up. My wife came without a word. She said, “You told me you were going home by train.” I said, “The way to buy a ticket, well…” She said, “I am speechless. You idiot.” That was the end of it.
She never raises her voice at anyone. She is a good person. A person like that has supported me all this time. I feel nothing but gratitude.
Now we talk about nothing but silly things. The news on TV. The neighborhood. What we are eating today. The kind of talk any household has.
For shopping nearby, or driving to the hospital and back, now it is more often me at the wheel. The driver seat is slowly changing hands too.
For 40 years there was no chance to talk. I was saturated with work, with zero room. What I could finally do after retiring was silly talk. I think that is fine.
I wrote about those 40 years of company life here: Run 100 Meters in 10 Seconds, Seishain! — A Workplace That Ignored Tekizai-Tekisho
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