Why Do I Sit in My Car When I Get Home?

You pull into the driveway and turn the engine off. Then you don't get out.

You built something. A business, a crew, a list of clients, a name people call when things go wrong. Today was full of those calls. Now the house is thirty feet away, the kitchen light is on, and you're still sitting there with your hands on the wheel.

Maybe it's two minutes. Maybe it's twenty. Some nights you scroll the phone so it looks like you're doing something. Some nights you don't even do that. You just sit.

And at some point you start to wonder about it. Why do I sit in my car when I get home? Why don't I want to go in?

If you typed some version of that into a search bar, this page is for you. It won't tell you what you are. It looks at what the sitting is often doing, and one small thing to try tonight.

What the car gives you

Think about who needed something from you today.

The customer who wanted it sooner. The employee who wanted an answer. The supplier, the bank, the partner, the phone. From the first alarm to the last call, most of the day was other people's needs arriving one after another, and you meeting them. That's the job.

Inside the house, there will be more. Not bad ones. Ordinary ones. A question about the weekend. A kid with homework. Dinner. Someone who missed you and wants some of your attention. That's a good thing to be wanted for. It's still one more thing.

The car sits between those two places. The work is behind you and the house is in front of you, and for a few minutes nobody can reach you unless you let them.

It may be the only stretch of the whole day when nobody needs anything from you.

So of course you sit there. It isn't strange. It may be the quietest room you have.

The driveway may be the only place all day where nobody is waiting on you.

Why judging it doesn't help

Once you notice it, the usual move is to be hard on yourself. A good husband would want to go in. A good father would already be through the door. So you make yourself get out sooner, and you walk in tight, and the evening goes the way tight evenings go.

Or you go the other way and wave it off. It's a few minutes. Everybody needs a break. Leave it alone.

Both of those end the looking. One says the sitting is a failure. The other says there's nothing there. Neither one asks the more useful question.

Not “why am I like this?” Instead: what is this protecting?

What it might be protecting

Only you can answer that, and the answer can change from one night to the next. But a few are common enough to name.

Sometimes it's protecting the day. A call went badly. A decision is still open. A number won't leave you alone. The car is where you finish the day in your head, so you don't carry it into the kitchen half done.

Sometimes it's protecting a little room for you. When every hour belongs to somebody, a few minutes that belong to nobody can feel like the only thing that's yours.

Sometimes it's protecting you from something inside. A conversation that keeps not happening. A quiet that has settled in between you and her. A part of the evening you already know is going to go badly, and you're putting off the first minute of it.

And sometimes it's protecting the people inside from you. You know what kind of mood you're in, and you're waiting for it to pass before anyone has to meet it.

None of those is a verdict on you as a husband or a father. They tell you something. The sitting is pointing at something real, and it's worth seeing what.

Noticing that you sit there is a better place to start than guilt.

One plain line, because it matters. If the dread about walking in is because you don't feel safe in your home, or because you've been thinking about harming yourself, that isn't a coaching matter. In the US, call or text 988 any time. If anyone is in danger right now, call 911.

One thing to try tonight

Don't try to stop sitting. Keep the minutes. Just make them yours on purpose, instead of something you slip into and feel bad about later.

Tonight, when you pull in and turn the engine off, put the phone face down on the passenger seat. Not one more email. Not the scores.

Take the time. One minute, five, whatever you'd take anyway. No guilt in it.

Then, before you open the door, ask yourself one question: what am I keeping out here?

Name one thing. The call that went badly. The talk you keep putting off. The mood you're in. Just the one. You're not solving it in the driveway. You're saying it, so it's something you know you're carrying instead of something that walks in with you.

Then go in, and before you say anything about your day, ask her one question about hers.

That's the whole thing. Phone down. One question to yourself in the car. One question to her at the door.

If you've read why you come home and snap, this is the same minute in the car. There, it's how you set the day down before it comes in with you. Here, it's also a chance to see what the minute has been for.

Keep a scrap of paper in the glove box. Each night, before you open the door, write down the one thing you named. A word or two is enough.

At the end of the week, read the scrap. If the same thing shows up most nights, that's the one worth looking at. It may not be the one you'd have guessed.

Some nights you'll forget, and end up on the phone in the driveway for twenty minutes. That's fine. You're not trying to get it right every night. You're trying to see, once, what you've been keeping out there.

Patterns in this essay: Always the Strong One, Quick to React