[Brandon]

Let's start out with the basic background information just so you can get a general understanding about my position.

Firstly, I own a car that was given to me about 4 years ago. It's an 1985 Firebird Trans-AM. Unlike newer cars, it doesn't have ABS, traction control, or anything else. It has power steering, and power windows...but that's about as hi-tech as you're going to get.

I work almost a minimum wage job. As of right now, I make about 200 bucks a week. With my current job, I'm probably not going to make much more than that...in fact, I'll be making less at some point in the future due to hour cuts. 200-210 bucks is my best case scenario right now.

I live with my grandparents so I don't have to pay rent. In a perfect world, I'd have 800 bucks in my bank account by the end of the month.

I pay for my own car insurance. I pay about 500 dollars for 6 months MINIMAL coverage. In other words, if I got into an accident with someone and I was at fault, the other person would be covered and I wouldn't be covered. If I hit a pole, the POLE would be covered...but I wouldn't be covered. Basically, any damage that I do to my car has to come out of my own pocket. I don't have a towing service, or anything else. To get better coverage, I would essentially double the amount from 500 to almost a thousand bucks for 6 months of coverage.

My car has been having to go in the shop a lot the past year, and I've spent a lot of money on gas since my girlfriend lives 30 to an hour away. What it all comes down to is that I don't have the money to afford better insurance.

My girlfriend doesn't have a car, so it puts a lot of strain for me to make things happen. I visit her on the weekends, and lately I've been visiting her on Tuesdays. There's been occasions where I've driven her places, picked her up from places, and I've make a lot of sacrifices to ensure that my girlfriend is well taken care of. As far as I'm concerned, I believe that is what any good boyfriend would do. To help out any chance I get.

My girlfriend hardly ever pays for gas, and that's mostly because she works less hours than I do and because she lives in a dorm. All the food she provides for herself, along with everything else. As I've mentioned, she has no car. She pays for her phone bill as well which is a flat-rate of 60 bucks a month. I don't expect her to help me very much. She cooks food, we both give each other gifts sometimes, but she doesn't really give me money for things. We'll switch and sometimes pay separately at restaurants and movie theaters, but that's about it.

None of this is really a big deal, but there's a huge problem with her not having a car and it's the fact that she doesn't know how to drive. As a boyfriend, it would seem like it's my responsibility to teach her how to drive...after all, I care about her well being, I have a form of transportation to teach her on, and have the time to do so. However, remember that I make 200 dollars a week, I own a car that's not worth more than 3-4,000 dollars, and my insurance only covers other cars involved in the accident but not my own.

I don't trust people with my car because I can't afford to buy another car. I don't have any established credit, so I couldn't get a car loan without a co-signer. Even if I had a co-signer, most loans require a certain amount of income or something so that they'll know you can pay it back (or something like that). Point is that I don't have 5 to 10,000 dollars to buy another car, and don't really have other resources to acquire that 5,000 dollars easily. All I know is that if it came down to my car being totaled and I had to buy another car, I'd probably make a dumb decision that would ruin my credit score and/or someone else's credit score.

My girlfriend has a lot of learning to do, but I have avoided trying to help her learn with the huge risk of something bad happening. This is more than a patience game to me. My girlfriend really wants to learn so that she can get a better job and buy a car, but the pressure has built up to where I feel like a failure. I wish that I had the good type of insurance that would gaurantee if she were to hit someone or something like that hard enough to where it made my car undrivable, we'd be covered. Unfortunately, it's a huge risk taker that I really can't afford right now. Not letting her drive as much as she like is like wearing a condom to me. If I had more money or comfort in knowing that the damage could be fixed and I wouldn't really have to pay anything, then I'd love to do it. But I have limited resources, and therefore I only trust myself. I trust my girlfriend with everything else, but when it comes down to financial things...I really don't know how to make her understand my position or deal with the issue without making both of us happy. Right now, I feel like total shit the way my life has turned out...but I feel like her driving is my responsibility, and I've already got so much shit to deal with as it is and I've been highly stressed out about it. I don't know what to do.