Man-splain It To Me

As a precursor, my boyfriend is awesome and identifies as a feminist. One fault or situation of man-splaining does not equate to someone being a bad person or partner. That being said...

My boyfriend has driving issues. When we first started dating, he joked that women "were inherently bad drivers." When I was offended, he explained that his dad drove better than both his mother and his step-mother, so therefore the equivalent must be true for all genders. I told him that his logic was completely sexist and faulty, and we moved on.

Except. really, we didn't move on. Every time I drive, he feels this compulsion to warn me that the speed limit is 35, and I'm going 40. Also there is a stop sign approaching. And a red light. AND DON'T HIT THAT PEDESTRIAN-- THEY HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY.

I find this situation to be especially humorous because when he does this, it's usually when we're driving down Water Street. Which is funny because my house is on Water Street. I drive down that road at least twice every day. I know what the speed limit is. I know where the stop sign is. I know where the red light is. I KNOW WHERE THE SUNNY'S PEOPLE CROSS THE STREET. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE.

Even funnier, he doesn't live in Fredonia. HE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE. He lives in Buffalo, goes to UB, and visits me once a week. But for some odd reason, his ability to know where stop signs, red lights, and pedestrians are is better than mine. What makes this even funnier still is that when we are driving somewhere new or unfamiliar together, I have to read the street signs, because he literally can't see them. He doesn't have glasses; he needs them, but doesn't have them. And yet somehow he knows these stop signs better than I do? 

At first, this trait of his made me feel like I was incompetent at driving. Something I'm doing must be horrifyingly wrong if I'm making him jump out of his seat to tell me about the stop sign that's 500 yards away at the moment. But the problem was I never communicated these feelings until I was beyond frustrated. Once I mentioned them, he'd apologize and promise to work on it. And while he has been working on it, he still does it. But it's gotten to the point where I just have to give him that look and he knows he's doing it. And he apologizes. Which is awesome and shows that he does want to control these things because he knows it's not okay. 

I acknowledge that I am very lucky to be man-splained by someone who loves and cares about me. If not, I may be dealing with the situation Rachel Solnit described, "Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't." My boyfriend cares enough to make sure he both apologizes and works on fixing it. And I may have been dating him for three years now, and I may still be waiting for that change to take full effect, but he's trying. And I just kind of tune it out anyway.