What the Check Engine Light Taught Me about Myself, My Finances, and My Relationship With My Wife

Dashboard

Image courtesy of Jomphong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“I’m not happy with you, by the way,” Vonnie stated in a matter of fact tone. “You can’t keep things from me like that. You know that.”

Driving north through Iowa on our way home from St. Louis, the check engine light remained illuminated on the dashboard of our rental car, reminding me of my mistake.

It started a few days earlier during our 4 day trip to St. Louis when we had asked the valet at our hotel to retrieve our rental car so we could get some paperwork out of the car. I sat down in the drivers seat, grabbed the information out of the center console, and noticed that the check engine light was on. Obviously this was a cause for concern, as eventually we would be driving the vehicle seven hours on our return trip home.

In a split second decision, I made the decision that I was not going to share this information with my wife.

We were in St. Louis for a conference, and it was the first time we had been away without the kids for quite some time. We were already dealing with a broken water heater remotely while we were away, but we were having a fantastic time and I didn’t want to give her an additional thing to stress about. I remembered that we had passed by a branch of our rental car company just a few miles from our hotel, and decided that on our way home we could just stop by and take care of the issue.

The next morning I was laying in bed staring at the ceiling when I realized that there was gigantic hole in my plan. We were driving home on Sunday, and the rental car place was likely not open. I told Vonnie what I had observed the previous day, and suggested that we needed to call the rental car company and get it taken care of that day since we had some time available in the afternoon during a break in the conference activities.

When I got out of the shower, she was on the phone with the rental car company. The representative told her that if the light wasn’t flashing it meant the car’s computer had detected an emissions anomaly, but there wasn’t anything mechanically wrong with the vehicle. They offered to have us come in and exchange the vehicle, but it was certainly safe to drive.

My wife’s words echoed in my head, and reminded me that I had acted exactly the way I did for the first thirteen years of our marriage. I didn’t tell Vonnie the full extent of our growing mountain of credit card debt. I just found ways to juggle things around to allow us to continue living the same lifestyle. I wanted to find a solution and take care of things to protect her from having to worry.

There was a gigantic hole in that plan as well. In the short term, keeping our growing debt from her kept her from worrying about our financial state. Doing so, however, allowed our debt to grow out of control, sacrificed long time financial stability and undermined the very trust that a marriage should be built upon.

It wasn’t worth it.

Keeping the fact that the engine light was on kept her from worrying in the short term. But at what cost? Had there really been something mechanically wrong with the car, and if the rental car branch wasn’t open on Sunday we may have hit the road with a car that was doomed to breakdown in an unfamiliar place.

The check engine light warns a driver that there is a condition with the vehicle that needs attention. Staring at that light during the seven hour drive home, I found it an ironic indicator of the state of my relationship with my wife. We have worked extremely hard over the last four and half years to improve how we communicate regarding our finances. This incident reveals that my issue is much more fundamental than finances, and that I have a lot of work yet to do.

Just as my logic regarding how I handled our debt the first thirteen years of our marriage seems asinine now, so does my reasoning to keep from her the situation with our rental car. I’m so very lucky to have Vonnie as my partner in life. I do not understand why I cannot get it through my thick skull that we work better as a team than as individuals.

Every now and again, a person needs a little kick in the pants to keep working to improve, to try a little harder, to be a little better. I hope that one day I’ll look back at our rental car engine light adventure and see it as one of those kicks.

Until then, every time I start up my engine for the day I’ll look at my internal dashboard to make sure that engine light is off.

So far so good, today’s off to a great start.

Is YOUR check engine light on?

PS: Understanding spending habits is very similar to health-conscious people keeping an eye on eating habits.  You have to set up the right regimen and schedule in order to ensure success.  A great first step in a financial process like this is gaining the proper education.

About Travis

24 Responses to “What the Check Engine Light Taught Me about Myself, My Finances, and My Relationship With My Wife”

Read below or add a comment...

  1. Our check engine light’s been on since April. If my wife’s noticed, she hasn’t said anything. 🙂

    • Travis says:

      LOL, Kurt – hope there isn’t anything mechanically wrong with your car. 🙂 Have you ever had your personal internal engine light come on??

  2. I’m glad we’re not the only ones who have bumps in the road when it comes to communication regarding finances! My husband and I had a rough start to the week-end because of highly irritated money talk. I think that you and your wife resolved things with more grace than we did, but there is strange comfort in knowing that tense moments will happen with every couple on the road to debt-elimination.

    • Travis says:

      I just read your latest blog post this evening, Prudence. This one was handled pretty gracefully, but only because my wife was pretty darned understanding – she deserved to be pissed and she decided to cut me a break. I dunno what I did to deserve her, but I thank God every night for having her in my life. 🙂 Those bumpy times will happen, and sometimes they’ll be easily resolved, and other times they won’t. But like I mentioned in my comment in your blog post, I’m learning to believe that the more we talk about money, the less we fight about money. I’ll take having a civil and productive conversation about finances every. day. of. the. week. if it will prevent an argument. Thanks for reading and commenting, Prudence!!

  3. Great post, Travis! No more of those days for us, either. Now that we talk about issues when they occur, and not after they’ve gotten out of control, life is SO much happier. We both know where we’re at, and more importantly, where we’re going. 🙂

    • Travis says:

      Good for you, Laurie! I’m so happy to hear that the communication between you and your husband is that good. Kudos to you, and I wish you success in reaching ALL your goals!

  4. Great story, Travis. As a relative newlywed – just over 2 years now – it’s amazing how much effort is needed to properly communicate with your spouse. I definitely have my shortcomings in that area and I think I could easily see myself doing the same thing in your situation, good intentions and all. I think our ‘check engine light’ comes on in many areas, and it’s ironic that the typical response is to ignore it. Whether it’s something health-related, relationship-related, financially-related, or otherwise, it’s always best to address the issue than to ignore it.

  5. I love the analogy! My check engine light comes on and off. I do great sometimes, and sometimes I slip back in old habits. I think that’s just human nature. But at least the times I slip now I don’t go very far. It was so nice to meet and Vonnie at Fincon!

    • Travis says:

      Recognizing that the check engine light is on (and that there’s a problem) is a great step in the right direction, Tonya! I’d bet that you’ll find yourself slipping less and less far as time goes on. It was great to meet you at Fincon as well….keep on running on the beach so I live vicariously through you! 🙂

  6. Great post Travis. What a way to relate the two. My internal check engine light was one for years while I was getting into debt. I didn’t tell my wife for the same reasons. We have only been married for 5 years, but now I am very honest and upfront with my wife. We have great communication now.

    My wife wouldn’t care about a real check engine light though. She knows that I am very mechanically inclined and the majority of the time, check engine lights are giving false positives. They are controlled by a computer and we all know how those have a tendency to malfunction now and again! There would be other things that my wife would be angry about if I didn’t tell her though.

    • Travis says:

      Great to hear you’ve got your internal check engine light figured out, Grayson…..hearing from other people who have gone through a similar experience as my wife and I really help push me to do the best I possibly can.

      I wish I were more mechanically inclined….although I do know enough to take it to Autozone or some other auto parts place that will hook up a tool and tell me what is causing the engine light to flip on. 🙂

  7. Covering up full truths and telling white lies for short term comfort, even for the benefit of someone else, can definitely be a big mistake long term. Great analogy with the check engine light!

    • Travis says:

      Thanks Stefanie – doing something for short term gain by sacrificing for the long term loss is something that’s so easy to do……we can always get a little better, right? Thanks for stopping by, Stefanie!

  8. Great analogy and it can apply to so many facet of life, not just finances. I have not worked out in 2 weeks and my check body light is flashing hard right now. Time to kick myself in the pants and hit it hard today. Thanks for the great reminder.

    • Travis says:

      You’re welcome, Kyle! I just took 5 days off from working out because my body was feeling broken down and tired. It drove me NUTS. I’m hoping that the same thing happens with our finances – keep talking about it, keep practicing working at it – and if we don’t, it will feel WRONG. 🙂

  9. Debt BLAG says:

    In 2013, I don’t know why cars can’t give better information than just that I should “check the engine.” For that matter, it blows my mind that in 2013, cars are still being propelled by explosions from setting long-dead dinosaurs on fire? Come on!

    I understand that this story is a metaphor, but the limits to a few seemingly arbitrary bits of technology just get to me.

    Maybe this is why I can’t focus on my finances…

    • Travis says:

      I agree, Debt BLAG – you would think that instead of just a “check engine” light that you have to take somewhere to have interpreted that they could just display what’s wrong on your dashboard.

      The technology certainly exists – just like we have the ability to create cars that run on something other than gasoline – it’s just not cost effective to do so yet. Maybe some day. 🙂

      It was great to meet you at Thursday’s breakfast at Fincon!

  10. Glen Craig says:

    If only we had a light that showed when there was an issue. Without a visible light I think some of us might choose the issue doesn’t exist. At least with a car that light sits there for anyone to see.

    Great article. I love the honesty.

    • Travis says:

      I think the light is there, Glen….we just have to know how to recognize that it’s on – and that’s the tough part, right? Thanks for stopping by!

  11. This was a very cute message to derive for a mere engine light but a very useful idea when it comes to relationships. I hope your trip is going fine now…

    • Travis says:

      Well, we’re home from our trip, Fehmeen, but no other difficulties were encountered. 🙂 I really enjoy it when something completely unrelated to finances gives me a kick in the shorts to improve our communication an handling of our money. 🙂 thanks for stopping by!

  12. Wow, that’s pretty profound. Handling your money IS like handling your relationships. It’s all about communication, mutual understanding, and hard work.

    • Travis says:

      Spoken like someone that’s learned a lesson or two as well, Christina. It’s taken a long time…a LONG time for me to figure it out. Here’s to hoping that I keep those lines of communication open, otherwise we’ll be doomed to fail again.

Leave a Comment...

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.