Up In Smoke
Help! My marriage is going up in smoke. I need words of wisdom from my friends.Dramatic enough beginning? Maybe I over-utilized the hyperbole but I do need some advice.Do any of you smoke? Because I don't. But my husband does. And I have begun (and by begun I mean long since past) to lose my patience with the habit.Part of me says this is not new, he has always been a smoker. That same part says that I don't have this addiction and I can't understand.But then there is the other part.The part of me that is over it! The part of me that is sick of the smell. The part of me that is sick of coming up with excuses to give my children when he sneaks out (because to his credit, he has never smoked in front of the children). Yes, it is me that is coming up with the lies! The part of me that is tired of paying more and more to help my husband shorten his life.For years, I was patient. For years, I knew I couldn't make him quit. For years, I decided that patient understanding would lead him to health.Well it has been sixteen years of marriage! And now we have children. And he has promised me time after time that he is quitting. That this is the last pack. That he will no longer spend "our" money on the dreadful things.And promise after promise has been broken. But still I was patient. Until he had a moped accident six weeks ago and all my patience drove off with the ambulance that took him to the ER.Because when I saw him in that ambulance, I saw my life without him. As my children sat in the back seat of the car chatting with a police officer, I saw my husband lain out on a stretcher. And something in me clicked.Click. I don't want to live without my husband.Click. I don't want my children to lose their father before they have their own children. (If he were to die at the age his father did last year from smoking, he will likely never meet his grandchildren.)Click. I am sick of watching my husband commit suicide a little bit every day.So I have become cigarette police. I have begged. I have pleaded. I have cried to him. I have cried alone. And I have gotten angry.Which is NOT helpful. I know. You don't have to tell me because I know. I still know that it is an addiction. I know that it has been his chief coping device of more than half his life. I know. I know. I know.But right now, I just don't care. I want it to stop. Now. This minute. Today. No, yesterday.So, my friends, help me. I need your advice and support because I am being a passive aggressive witch worthy of Dorothy and her Yellow Brick Road. This is not me! But I am not letting go. I am a dog with a bone. And I am not liking the sound my voice now makes every time I see him head for the back door.How do I help him without harming my marriage? How do I accept something that is fundamentally hurting my husband without hurting our relationship? How do I stop being a b$&*h?So, if you are a smoker, tell me what he is facing and what would help you. If you are not a smoker but have a spouse/partner/friend that does, tell me what you have done. And if you are neither, but you have an idea, tell me. PLEASE.Before I go up in smoke.P.S. For whatever reason, Wordpress has randomly decided that all comments (including mine) require approval. I don't know how to change it but it is annoying. Almost as annoying as the 200 spams I get everyday. But if you are a WP expert and know how to change this, I obviously need your help, as well.