A bit of background. My current au pair arrived last week. He had put that he was a non smoker on his form, but then told me that he felt that coming to england was a good chance to stop smoking and that he hadn't craved a cigarette since he'd been here. He's now been out socially a few times, which is great, but has been smoking.
Earlier this week he came to me one evening to ask if he could smoke outside and although we had put 'no' to this on our application forms, I agreed, saying that once the children were in bed I supposed that it was ok. The following day (one of his days off) he approached me at about 5 pm to say he was going outside for a cigarette and I said that I wasn't happy about it, so he pulled a bit of a sulky face and said he wouldn't, then.
So yesterday, I sat down with him and explained that we and the children like him, but that the smoking is a real issue, as if we had known he was a smoker, we would not have considered him. He couldn't understand what the problem was, and said surely on his free day he could smoke outside if the children weren't around? I said again that I wasn't very happy about it. I also said that he had put that he was a non smoker on his form and he gave a sort of 'so what?' shrug. The trouble is, there is now a definite atmosphere in the house and I'm angry, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe this should be in AIBU?, but I would appreciate other peoples views on this situation as I really need to get over it if this au pair is going to work out. I think I am most upset by his complete lack of respect for my opinion when I was telling him why I was upset - he said 'BUt I came to ask you, because I wanted to be honest about it' which is true, but then if he'd been honest on his form, we wouldn;t be in this situation now! I HATE confrontations!