Am I completely crazy?

[Shellybobbins]

I genuinely think I have lost the plot.... DH and I have together for 12 years and I recently found out he has been hiding the fact he smokes from me for 4 months. Not the end of the world I know, but the fact he hid it from me really hurt. We talked about it, and things have been really bad with his job, and it's his way of coping with the stress.
I have now got to the point where I am checking his pockets and even checked the car to see if he had hidden anything else for me, which he swears he hasn't. I don't like that I have turned into this crazy, suspicious paranoid person and feel like it's going to tear us apart. Am I over reacting, am I really crazy? Help!

Has he smoked before?

Maybe he's lied about it to you because he's disappointed in himself and you knowing would make it more 'true'.

I don't honestly think this would be indicative of other lying, unless there are real problems in your relationship?

He smokes fags? Nothing else?

You've not smelled anything before now?

It's usually rank and most powerful smell.

My dh smokes when stressed and I can smell it a mile off. It's vile. I smoked 20 a day for 10 years so I am the worst kind of vigilante!

I would leave the fags to him tbh. Make rules. Never at home even in the garden. No sex if he smells bad. Definitely no contact with babies.

You can't do much else really apart from preserve your own fag free space.

It's very peculiar to suddenly take up smoking after all this time. Presumably he's had stress before? Are you sure it's just a recent thing?

Ask him if he will read Allen Carr's The Easy Way To Stop Smoking so that he appreciates what a dead end it is, and try to have a calm discussion about how to manage stress.

You're over-reacting.

Like I said it's not the end of the world. He used to do at uni, it's not something he does every day, it's occasional. And TBH if that's what he feels he needs to to help I don't mind it! I would rather he didn't, but I'm not going to stop him.
I know he is not proud of it, and doesn't like to admit to it. But the fact he hid it for so long freaks me out, and worries me. :(

4 months isn't that long if it's only occasional. I do think you're over reacting a bit.

Cigarettes drag you down, but they give you a bit of relief every time you smoke. Smokers just credit the cigarettes with the relief and ignore the drag down. In reality cigarettes can only help with stress they themselves cause.
One great analogy that Allen Carr mentions in his book is that the act of lighting a cigarette is like taking off a pair of shoes that are painfully tight. It’s a relief to take them off, you feel good and you can now relax. However, if you didn’t wear tight shoes, you wouldn’t have a problem that now needs to be relieved.
Smoking does not relax or calm you down – smoking merely relieves the problem that it created in the first place – the need for nicotine.

I would say he hid it because he was ashamed of having 'cracked' and started smoking again; there was probably an internal battle going on, and telling you would have made it seem more 'real' and permanent somehow; maybe he was always hoping he could quit again before you found out? In other words, it reflects his internal demons rather than any wish to keep important things hidden from you.

It's out in the open now, the sky hasn't fallen in for him, hopefully you are understanding (while setting the 'boundaries' laid out above re location & timing!) and hopefully he'll have a supportive wife when he's ready to try to quit.

Smell -wise, has he considered e-cigs?

How can he have hid it from you??? It would be on his clothes!! If you don't smoke yourself, people absolutely honk if they have smoked! On his clothes, his hair etc. I hate getting in lifts/buses when smokers sit next to me. They may have stubbed it out before boarding but christ they smell. Even hours later.