HELP!! Rift because of smoking

[speirshannah]

Hi,
I really need some help/advice. My partner and I recently have been sorting out a lot of our issues (we have just got back together after a year apart for "thinking time"). We are doing SO much better and very much enjoying each other and the relationship.
Because we're a lot more relaxed now and the trust has built up again between us, he has taken the opportunity to admit to me that he smokes and he has asked for me to help him quit. I really appreciate that he feels he can trust me in this way and I want to help him in any way I can - of course. There's one snag, I have a serious aversion to smoking and I can't explain why, I know it's totally irrational. In the past I've told him he can smoke if he wants to but that I don't want to see it or smell it ever, almost like pretending it isn't happening. Until now I had no idea he smokes.
Of course I didn't react in a negatively emotional way, thanking him for telling me and saying that i'll do anything to help him quit. However, I have a suspicion that his confession was more about him coming clean with me, rather than asking for help - either way, I'm glad he's involved me.

So there two things I'd like advice for really: firstly - I'd like to understand my irrational hate for him smoking and try and get over it in order to support him better, but knowing that I don't have to have smoking in my life because he chooses to have it in his. Secondly - I'd like some advice on how best to support him and interact with him. This has/is causing a rift between us and at this stage I would hate for our relationship to be negatively impacted because of something seemingly small. My partner knows how much I hate it and I think he's been very brave to tell me about this, but I think he's withdrawing from me because "it's too much hassle" and I know any problem in a relationship should be faced by both people working together - I feel like he's alone in this because I can't understand it from his side, and I feel very alone in this because I don't feel he understands my side and I'm just 'controlling' his life and making him unhappy.

PLEASE HELP. I don't know what to do.

[Wakeup]

You've told him how you feel about smoking now you have to shut up and let him quit on his own. You cannot "help" him to quit. Your nagging will not make him stop. He's likely withdrawing from you because he can't smoke around you and so his addiction is keeping him away from you so that he can indulge.

If I were you, I'd google "tips on how to quit smoking" then print it out and give it to him to show him that you're willing to support his efforts, that you know you can't "help" him to quit though but perhaps this information will be able to help him and that he knows how you feel about smoking so it would be great when it's finally out of his system. Then you stop trying to control this and you leave him to do it on his own. If he won't quit, then you have a decision to make. You decide to stay with him while he smokes outside and away from you or you leave him and find a non-smoker. PERIOD.

[speirshannah]

Yeah, I think you're right. It's hard, I have to trust him to quit of his own accord. I'd like to address my own irrational attitude towards it though as well, because that IS something I can control. I just don't know how to let it go.

[Wakeup]

Its about control and how you're not able to accept when you lose it. I think it's also about you being afraid that if he doesn't stop, you'll have to make a decision to leave him or stay and since you want to stay, you'll have to give up your adversion to his habit which is making you forsake your own personal boundary/deal breaker so you push to get what you want.

Google "How to get over wanting to control" and read some of the links. I think that will help you to relax while you wait and see if he's convicted enough to want to save his own health. Once YOU let go, you'll not be so irrational in attitude towards what HE'S doing.

Good luck.

[reeba]

Supporting to help him stop smoking????

When my friends stopped smoking they were suppose to not do things that were part of their smoking habit - sitting in a certain chair after dinner where they normally smoked, stop drinking since they smoked when they drank, bypassing the morning coffee at the kitchen table since they normally smoked then too.

Ask him if he normally smokes after sex? LOL

[speirshannah]

Thank you so much...you talk a lot of sense. I've been giving myself "a talking to" and given myself a 'tag line' to keep repeating to myself for encouragement and motivation which is "love him unconditionally, have no expectations". I realise neither of those things are actually ever fully achievable but by striving for them I have already found that it is alot easier to relax, let it go, and just enjoy his company and everything that I love about him, not holding on to the things I don't like. This is a steady, ongoing process that hopefully will get easier the further along the journey I go.

I really appreciate your help and support. Thank you

[Wakeup]

:o) Good luck hannah.