Yes, I know it’s not a decision I can make for him, but is there anything I could do to make it easier?
I’ve been really good about it so far, and haven’t laid on the guilt because he said it would just piss him off and make him want to quit less, but this weekend we hung out after not seeing each other for two months and the smell of smoke on his breath nearly made me vomit. I’m sick of him ruining his health like this when he knows damn well it’s not good for him, and I’m sick of his stupid excuses for not quitting:
“I need something to do with my hands in the car.”
“I can’t help it when I’m in a smoky bar.”
“I’ve cut back - I only smoked four cigarettes today.”
“I know it may take years off my life, but it feels good now.”
I’ve almost reached my breaking point over this, and have gotten really close to ripping the damn pack out of his hands and crying, not to make him feel bad, but just because I’m so frustrated every time he lights up. So what the hell am I supposed to do at this point? Anyone?
Buy him Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking. It worked for me. I can’t recommend this book too highly. It changed my life 7 years ago and I’ve been happily smoke-free ever since.
Yes, I’m aware “easy” and “way” are two separate words. Apparently, nobody told Allen Carr.
If you don’t like him more than you hate his smoking, then leave. Even if (and it’s a huge if) he stops smoking for you, he’ll grow to resent you for it. He won’t stop smoking until he wants to. All you can do is decide if you want to be around it or not.
No, it was for me. But I really care about her and I wanted (and still want) the relationship more than I wanted to smoke. So I decided that I won’t smoke as long as we’re together. It was really a commitment that I made to myself, and I’ve kept it for over two years now. I still crave a smoke now and then, but less often as time goes by and I just have to remind myself of which I’d rather have, her or the smoke.
She didn’t ask, by the way.
If he knows you don’t like it (you must be very explicit about this) and he still chooses to smoke, you have to understand that you are in second place. Then you have to decide if that is good enough for you.
And this, my friends, is why smokers and emphatic non-smokers really shouldn’t date.
Is there anything that he can say or do to make you embrace his smoking and acknowledge that although it may take years off of his life, it is -his- life and his body?
Both my husband and I smoke, but I have a serious addiction to junk food and a weight problem that my husband does not have. If he cried when I ate a candy bar, I think I would lock myself in a room and eat until I passed out.
In my experience a smoker can’t quit until he really wants to.
I smoked and my wife made it really clear that she didn’t like it. I didn’t promise to quit, but I said I would really try. Finally I got serious and quit, but it was because I was ready.
If he does quit be prepared for him to get really cranky for a while. Also, if he quits stay out of situations where he would normally smoke for a bit: no more smokey bars until he’s established he won’t smoke (that could be months). He’s an addict and will behave like one going through withdrawals when he quits.
I’ve been in your position, tsarina (but as a male with a female SO who smokes), and it’s a tough one. As others have said, he must want to do it for himself, or it isn’t going to work. If he does it for you, he’ll resent you (as WhyNot said) if you do stay together, but he’ll resent you even more if he gives up the cigarettes and you later initiate a breakup for other reasons; he may look back on the “potential smoking time” he “wasted” trying to please you.
Your road is even tougher if your relationship is limited to the occasional weekend together every couple of months (I can’t tell from the OP whether or not that’s typical), since he spends much more time with cigarettes than with you.
Reading your OP, I’m struck by your language: “the smell of smoke on his breath nearly made me vomit” … “stupid excuses”. You don’t give the impression in the OP that you had a good time together at all (you hated his smoking, and I’ll bet he didn’t like being put on the defensive). Long-distance relationships are hard enough, but especially so when the short times spent together aren’t enjoyable.
I don’t know you IRL, and forgive me if I’m projecting, but is it possible that you’ve subconsciously made up your mind to move on anyway, and this thread is looking for validation from the SDMB? If I’m wrong I apologize, but if there’s a hint of truth you’ll need to work through that first, otherwise the hurt of the breakup will be greater than if it’s just about smoking. Can you say that you’d commit to a non-long-distance relationship with him even if he gave up smoking? Because IMHO if you can’t, you’re probably not the best person to get him to quit.
I’m saying pretty much No man has ever said: “Hmm, she smokes now but what I’ll do is start dating her THEN get her to quit once I have a good firm grip on her.”
Most guys will say one of two things:
“Nasty! That girl smokes, I want nothing to do with her”
Or
“Hey! She’s female and she has a pulse. I’m not complaining…”
Point being:
If the OP knew she was dating a smoker from day one; She would be out of place trying to get him to quit.
I can sympathize. My boyfriend (2 years this summer) just quit within the last 2 months, and I’m happy about it.
When we first got together, we talked about it. I made it clear that I would prefer to date a non-smoker, but it was by no means a deal breaker. He thought it over and decided that before we would live together, he would quit, and would start then to (very) slowly cut down to make it easier. We really didn’t talk about it at all since then, except me asking every now and then (I think I asked him maybe 3 times in the 2 years) how the cutting back was going.
About 2 months ago, he announced that he was quitting that weekend, and that was that. All I did was make my feelings known at the start and leave it up to him from there. That’s all anyone can really do when it comes to an addiction.
Cigarette smoke smells bad. It makes you smell bad, your breath, your hair, your skin, your clothes…
No one wants their lover to smell bad, right?
So if your boyfriend/girlfriend had a bad habit which resulted in them stinking (let’s say, not bathing and not brushing their teeth), it would certainly not be out of line for their SO to want them to change their behavior, right?
Add on top of that the fact that smoking is far worse for your health than bad dental and personal hygiene…
If the guy wants to be with her and if he truly loves her, he wouldn’t want her to be disgusted and feel like vomiting whenever she caught a whiff of him. If he doesn’t love her enough to quit, then she is better off (and he is an insensitive stinky ass).
Speaking from personal experience (I smoke and SO would like me to quit), a smoker will not quit until they truly want to. I keep saying I’ll stop and then a couple days later straight back on it. As Oscar Wilde said: “Stopping smoking is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
I would broach the subject of your partner quitting, detailing all the negative things mentioned above, plus second the Allen Carr book. (Yep I tried it, and will try again, but thats a different story). But most importantly, if your partner agrees to quit or even just cut down, encourage him and feed those happy thoughts.
Anecdotally, just for SHAKES, my sister smokes and my brother-in-law hates it. It’s a constant source of friction for them, even though she smoked when they met, was honest about it, and accomodates his wishes to the point of going outside her own home to have a cigarette. Yes, he knowingly married a smoker, not someone who hid it or promised to quit or anything, and yet the past four years have been digs about how she obviously can’t be a good parent since she is planning to get lung cancer and orphan their child, how much money she wastes on her habit regardless of his own money wasting habits, how weak-willed and disgusting she is, etc. Certainly not a gender-specific deal.
tsarina can ask that he not smoke in the same room as her, and can offer him breath fresheners or gum, but there’s not much that’s going to help him quit. There’s plenty of information out there about how difficult quitting is, there’s a reason they call it an addiction, and browbeating or guilting someone into doing something they don’t want to do is rarely successful.
My wife and I both smoked when we were married. I quit 5 years ago and she still smokes. I have made it very clear that I don’t like it, but as an ex-smoker I know that you won’t quit unless you really want to.
I’m with SHAKES: You knew he was a smoker when you started dating him, and unless he told you early on that he was planning to quit you have no right to expect him to do so (and he has every right to be pissed if you nag him about it). As others have said, if the smoking bothers you that much just break up with him and go date a nonsmoker.