DP has lied about smoking….again

[Yupppp]

I’m kind of at the end of my tether here. After several lies about cigarettes over the years, DP promised me faithfully he would smoke just one cigarette a day, when he gets home from work. Turns out he also smokes on his way into work in the morning (I deduced this from a conversation he had on social media with someone today, I won’t boringly explain here).
So I asked him when he got home tonight and he was able to lie to my face for 10 minutes, and even get impatient with me for not believing him, before I told him to start giving me some effing respect and tell the truth, and he admitted that yes he has also been smoking at work.
it’s about the smoking but it’s also about his ability to lie insistently to me. There’s no sign that he’s lied to me about more sinister stuff over the years but it still leaves me with the question of whether I am actually sharing my life with a slippery bastard. Any thoughts are very welcome.

It's a relationship not a dictatorship? You can't control him. You can just choose to leave if you don't like it

I feel for you OP. I am a smoker also and an ex was very controlling about quitting despite liking a joint himself.

The telling lies is a form of gaslighting in my opinion I have a thread here about catching most recent ex in a full blown cocaine relapse and blatantly lying to my face, telling me it was in my head, threatening if I kept accusing him of being on it (he was) he’d go and buy a bag. Went on for months and was like torture. It’s like managing a toddler.

As others have said if you can’t trust him maybe you need to move on..

I think you are getting a hard time here OP, however that might because I could have written this post 30 years ago.

i agree with a previous poster who said that you should just be really honest, with him and yourself, and be upfront that you don’t want to be with a smoker. The lying is a by product of the addiction. I remember saying the same myself, that it was the lying not the smoking, but actually I wouldn’t have been happy if he had said that he’d carry on and just not hide it.

i had opened up to him at the start of our relationship about how much I hated smoking. I had seen several relatives die as a result of it and spent the 1970s stuggling as an asthmatic child in rooms full of chain smoking relatives. He promised he would give up, then it would be when we married, then when we had a child etc etc.

i don’t what the other issues are that you hint at, however even though I was very naive when we first got together, there were elements that should have been red flags even then. He had a completely different attitude to risk in life, both in relation to his own health and other things like financial security.

it’s easy to look back and say I should have left but I just didn’t have the maturity or strength, and I loved him very much and always hoped things would change. Sadly his risky behaviour caught up with him in the end and he died 15 years ago.

with my new DP, I was on alert from the start about any addiction or cavalier attitude to his health right from the start and things wouldn’t have progressed if I had any doubts.

You have a decision to make - firstly be honest with yourself about what the real issue and then decide if you can stay with him or not.

He can/could but I can also decide not to get into a relationship with Someone who may be likely to need support with their health issues due to smoking.
In my case he lied and then lied some more

You’re his partner, not his mother. If he wants to smoke, he’s a grown ass adult

It's not ok but he is lieing because you are trying to control how many cigarettes he smokes despite him being an addict. You would probably lie to him in similar circumstances because it's practically impossible to only smoke one a day. He's lieing for an easier life, which isn't ok but is arguably understandable.

I'd back off and stop telling him how many he can or can't smoke. If the smoking bothers you ask him to not do it around you, that's all you can do really. If you carry on insisting he promises to only smoke one a day he'll carry on smoking and lieing because he is an addict who isn't ready to quit unfortunately

I would tell him you are backing off and he can smoke what he likes without you moaning about it or getting annoyed with him about it on the condition he doesn't like to you about it anymore.

Thanks for your empathy. I am not pitching for the sympathy vote I do feel if people knew the full story of the relationship and of my history they’d understand that it’s more complex than a sleeping with the enemy scenario of me making controlling demands. But I can’t expect people to grasp all this from one post about one issue.
I am sorry you went through that and am glad that you’re now in a healthy relationship. I guess I do have a decision to make, but you know yourself, when you start thinking of the upheaval and the financial ruin and the heartbroken family it is very hard to end it rather than just admit I’ve lost the battle and he can go smoke himself into oblivion.
thanks again.

I'm sorry if this smoking is the tip of the iceberg re your relationship. But we can only go on the facts you you choose to present.

Absolutely, that’s why I said: “But I can’t expect people to grasp all this from one post about one issue.”
It’s not that the relationship is a complete shit show, there’s a lot of good in it, but there are complexities. I guess that’s the problem with seeking advice through this route, the human complexities can be lost and it becomes a dichotomy of controller and controlled.