Competing With Another Woman, or at Least a Voice - Modern Love ON a romantic trip through the English countryside, my husband fell in love with another woman. He met her at a car rental agency on the outskirts of London, where she arrived with the upgrade package. Nervous about driving on the opposite side of the road, he was eager to pay for her escort services, and before I knew it, she was with me in the front seat. By the time we had reached the first motorway, I was ready to toss her from the car. But as the voice of our GPS unit, she'd cleverly embedded herself in it. My husband nicknamed her Emma, after Mrs. Emma Peel, the beautiful spy in the TV show "The Avengers." With her genius I.Q. and martial-arts ability, Mrs. Peel was a feminist superhero, racing around England in a sexy Lotus Elan convertible. The new Emma navigated a more mundane Audi, but with 32 satellites at her disposal, she was a whiz at directions. When she uttered, "Your route guidance will now begin," you knew you were in capable hands, even if she didn't have any. The only time we took a wrong turn we wound up at a spectacular hidden garden that my husband proclaimed his favorite spot of the entire trip. Since we had planned the vacation to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary, my husband's infatuation with an invisible woman didn't say a lot for where we were heading. He wasn't alone in channeling a juvenile fantasy. I had organized our vacation around a much-anticipated rendezvous with my adolescent crush: Heathcliff of "Wuthering Heights." I had fallen for him in 1970 after seeing the film version of Emily Brontë"s novel at my childhood cineplex in Peabody, Mass. It starred Timothy Dalton, who in his pre-Bond days stalked the rain-swept moors howling for his beloved Cathy. So what if he was sadistic and probably psychotic? This was a man who would love you until the end of time, or at least the end of the credits. I tried to explain their convoluted romance to my husband over Emma's excessive chattering, but he was in thrall to her British accent and computerized lisp. "Isn't she amazing?" he said as she navigated another mazelike roundabout. I was telling you about Heathcliff. He sounds nuts. "At least he's real," I replied, which technically wasn't true, but in comparison to Emma's disembodied voice, he held a slight edge. Can't we please turn her off? She's giving me a headache. Then you drive. It was a low blow, and he knew it. I don't drive unless I have to, which in our marriage is hardly ever. Forty-two years ago, on my maiden voyage in the family car with my mother in the passenger seat, I accidentally hit a dog. On Easter Sunday. The dog was knocked down, yet escaped without a scratch, but its owner, along with his two little girls, began screaming "murderer, murderer," and in the commotion the girls" Easter bunny jumped out of its straw basket and hopped into the woods. A hawk swooped down. You can imagine the rest. From then on, whenever I got behind the wheel, my mother would remind me not to "kill any animals," which had the expected inhibitory effect. To compensate for my fear of driving, I concocted a theory that in every successful relationship there's a driver and a passenger, which exactly describes my husband and me. I'm the idea person who plans the itinerary, while he's the steady navigator who gets us places. We're living proof that opposites attract. He's in finance; I'm a writer. He's quiet; I'm a talker. The list is so long that the minister who married us insisted we fill out an extensive compatibility, which we flunked. "It seems like you're heading in different directions," he said. Patricia Morrisroe, who lives in New York City, is the author of "Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia." Follow Modern Love on Facebook for reader and editorial commentary: facebook.com/modernlove.