AIBU dh smoking

[OneTwinklyBird]

So my husband is from a family of smokers. He started smoking at 11 and all of his immediate family smoke.

I hate smoking. Lost 3 grandparents to lung cancer and hate the culture of having to go outside for a cigarette, have a cigarette before leaving, the smell, the atmosphere ... I hate it.

Before we ever started dating, in the initial talking to each other stages I told him I did not want to date a smoker. It was a hard line for me and I couldn't be with a smoker. I do not want any future children exposed to it an I really had an aversion to it. He said he had been trying to give up anyway, agreed with my views regarding children and wanted to be with me so this was the push he needed.

1.5 years later I walked outside at his sisters wedding and his mum tried to intercept me, then tried to block my view of him. I stepped around her and there he was smoking. His mum said it was a one off and his sisters wedding, I was being unreasonable not to understand etc. I spoke with him again and said it was fine if he wanted to smoke, I understand it's an addiction etc but I could not be with a smoker so he needed to tell me now so we could both move on. He said it was a lapse on a special occasion etc.

Fast forward 15 years. We are married, multiple children. He took up vaping many years ago, I hated it but it was a compromise as such so I ignored it. A few instances over the years I thought I have smelt smoke on him and he has denied it profusely. There were cigarette butts in the garden of the house he said they were his mums from when she visited, a few weeks after this I caught him outside smoking with her and he said she'd just bought him one packet as he was stressed.

A year ago we went through a very stressful period and he is now smoking fully again. Money is really tight but he always finds money for cigarettes. At first because of my strong feelings he would ensure he washed his hands after being outside and showered before he got into bed. This has stopped completely. The smell means I don't want to kiss him or lie next to him.

i understand it is his body and his choice but I feel like I have been tricked and gaslit for years about this and now forced into accepting it because we have children and are married and it is his choice whether he smokes or not.

AIBU to be so angry and bitter about this?

Addictions and lying are two sides of the same coin. For every lie he's told you about smoking he'll have told himself a hundred. "I'm just having a stressful time at the moment", "I'll stop after Christmas", "I'll make this pack last two days", "ok I'll make the next pack last two days", "if I vape and smoke at the same time then I'll wean myself off the cigarettes over the next few weeks"...

Fish live in water, koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, addicts lie about their addictions. It's just what they do. He's not smoking because he's chosen cigarettes over you, he's smoking because he's chosen cigarettes over himself.

YANBU, but you have shown him you will tolerate it - years of slip ups and probably accurate suspicions and vaping – so there is no incentive for him to change, no consequences for disregarding your boundaries so profoundly. All he knows is that he can have his cake and eat it too.

I also could not be with a smoker. I don’t know what I’d do in your position, because it’s never as simple as LTB, is it? However, do bear in mind that the resentment will eat you up across the years. Sounds like it already is. That’s not a marriage, that’s an arrangement.

Living with a smoker is really bad for your children and puts them at risk of respiratory illnesses. This is the case even if he doesn't smoke in the house as it will be on his clothes, skin and hair.

I've just looked at the price of 20 cigarettes and the prices range from £13.50 to £19.50 for a pack of 20. If he smokes 20 a day, he could be spending nearly £140 per week on cigarettes. The smell is disgusting and I assume you share a bed with him.

It would be a total deal-breaker for me. He needs to stop smoking or move out.

His Mother is trying to manipulate you! His family sound awful.

Only you can decide if you can learn to live with having a partner who smokes. It would bother me but also the years of lies would
bother me.

I don’t think you are unreasonable if you choose to leave the relationship over this.

For some time I have been pondering the way we differentiate between addiction to drugs, alcoholism and smoking. They are all substance abuse and all very hard to quit. We say people are a recovering alcoholic, acknowledging that they will always be an alcoholic whether they drink again or not. But we don’t say the same about nicotine and other drugs. We also know that nothing will induce an addict to quit other than their own unwavering desire to do so.

I think it’s fair to say that someone who has stopped smoking is a recovering smoker. As with alcoholics, there is a chance they will relapse every day and the events of some days are more likely to make that happen. Their promises carry no more weight than an alcoholic’s.

If you see any truth in that, then maybe you can adjust your expectations or decide your relationship is over.

You're still plenty young enough to build a new life, possibly meet someone else op.

Alternatively you can stay and resign yourself to probably being his nursemaid as he loses the ability to breathe through COPD or lobectomy's or worse.

I agree with the pp, he knows he's he able to just ignore you and doesn't give a fuck. You've given him no reason to listen. He's put your wishes at the bottom of the pile and will carry on doing so.

If you kick him out, you don't do so because of 'a few cigarettes'. You do so because of his repeated lying to you and the fact that he's not stuck to the agreements made in marriage counselling. The arguements, the upset and the irreconcilable differences.

DH used to smoke, never in the house but he always smelt of it. I was suffering from chronic sinusitis and it wasn't until I saw an ENT Consultant that he asked if I or my partner smoked... so DH was banned from the bedroom overnight and packed off to the spare room. In under a month I was breathing clearly and able to come off antibiotics for the first time in years, and I made it very clear that he was staying there if he chose to carry on smoking. I was furious that his habit was making ME unwell and thankfully he opted to give up rather than sleep alone for the rest of our marriage! It's a revolting habit and you're well within your rights to say you don't want to be married to a smoker.

It feels a bit OTT the way you seem so angry with him about smoking. Plenty of people smoke. It's not healthy and it's expensive but it's not illegal. It's not like it's mind altering or makes you act like an arsehole.

Some people really struggle to give up, no matter how much they try. He's not doing it to piss you off.

I honestly think you just have to either accept it's just a personal habit that while not great, isn't the end of the world. Or you leave him.

Smoking is absolutely revolting. My husband smoked when we first met, and he knew my feelings. Gave up then and when he did, he never smoked around me. He can’t believe he ever did it

Deal breaker for me. I’d be ending the marriage over this.

He comes from a horrible emotionally manipulative family who are all enmeshed.

lying is normal for him because that’s the culture he was raised in. His family seem to think accountability is optional.

Addiction is addiction (often found in people with ADHD but not exclusively), even thought cigarettes seem less harmful than alcohol or hard drugs.

he says he will stop not because he means it, but because he needs you to stop asking him to do something he can’t do. His brain sees the short-term solution - if he says yes to your request, then you stop pestering his brain with the request. You hear, “yes I will stop smoking. I understand why I must.” But his intention is simply to protect his immediate wellbeing which can’t cope with the idea of his brain even knowing what to do to stop and be consistent.

i think your only option is to end the relationship. You will not change him. He clearly has massive issues with even knowing how to stop. His family approve of his behaviour so he has absolutely no example of accountability.

It might be an addiction, but his family are actually feeding this addiction!

So I guess the only solution is no contact with his family whatsoever, as that's the only way he will be able to beat the addiction.

You made it clear from the start that you hate smoking, and made it very clear that you were happy to walk away from the relationship if he felt the smoking was important to him. He chose to not smoke.

So addiction or not, he needs to make a choice. You and the kids, or his mother and cigarettes.

I've put YABU but not because I'm taking his side. You are absolutely reasonable to not want to be with a smoker, but you chose to marry and have children with him. This is what happens. He isn't going to change, and his family enable him so your only choice is divorce.

YABU in the sense that you didn't enforce your boundary. You've sucked up his crap about it and carried on. You are the wife to be feared and everyone will cover for him from your abusive control.

Your only choices are to suck it up or leave.

That's it. He's not going to stop. He was to want it for himself.

It's not the smoking that makes me angry with him.

its the lying and the manipulation and the fact my choice was taken away.

now my choice is deal with him smoking or leave him and deal with all that entails.

Is the line about you are the wife to be feared and protect him from my abusive control sarcasm or your genuine take on our relationship from this one issue?

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all and this is coming from a now ex smoker who gave up after 37 years but hated that it had me hooked for at least the last decade of that. Really really tough but I had to do it primarily because it is at the end of the day one of the most selfish addictions. In the end I did the Allen Carr online seminar and thank goodness I did.

I get it. But the fact is he smokes. That wouldn't make me love someone any less personally. He shouldn't need to sneak about and lie about it. He obviously felt the need to as he knows you don't like it. That obviously was the wrong decision on his part.

But for me it wouldn't be something I'd end a long term relationship over.

He will never go no contact with his family, ever.

i am no contact with my family, due in part to their reactions towards spouses and in-laws. Not just him, all of my siblings spouses and in laws as well.

his mother accuses me of all sorts - having affairs, being controlling, will come into my house and rearrange cupboards etc. and I have told him how I feel about this and I do not see her anymore but he will not go no contact and that is his choice

I tried to edit my post but that doesn’t seem to be available.

Also, addicts invariably lie about their addiction. If that is the only thing he lies to you about then maybe you could see it as a very specific flaw in an otherwise honest person and good marriage

This sounds like a really awful relationship.

He needs to decide if he is married to you or his mother.

We begged our parents to stop smoking. My Dad did stop, do you know why? Because my Mum was diagnosed with lung cancer and he had to take her to her chemotherapy appointments and he said if he continued he felt like he was just ensuring he would be here for his own lung cancer. He watched all her hair fall out, even her pubic hair, bloat from all the drugs they pumped into her to try to save her.

She died from it, just 4 months after being diagnosed and myself and my siblings are still really angry at her even after all these years.

I couldn't be with a smoker so on that alone I would be asking him to leave. Smokers love other smokers hence his Mum and sister pulling him into "secretly" smoking with them.

I wonder how much money he has spent on smoking behind your back? You told him from the start you wouldn't be with a smoker, so stop being with one. This cannot be a shock for him.

As I said I lost 3 grandparents due to lung cancer who were all life long smokers. I didn't want children who may suffer that.

he started smoking at 11 and his parents bought them for him regularly at 13, I didn't want that normalisation of something that is so bad for your health to be normalised for any children I had.

i understand for him and for you and for many others its not a big deal but for me it is

Do you not think lying about one thing makes it easier to lie about others?

and makes a culture of distrust and uncertainty?

But it isn't the easier option.... its a lifetime of further hatred. Your "hard line" wasn't hard... its just been easier for him to tell you he quit then have to listen to you go on about it for years. He probably thought you'd never leave him (like even now you are trying to find a way around it) so it was just easier to lie (for him).

It's shit behaviour on his part. Your choice now is to live with a smoker, or leave.