His daily pot and cigarette smoking drives me nuts! Posted October 27th, 2007 in Dr Thatslife Advice

 Sarah, 24 from Alexandria writes…

“My fiancé and I recently moved in together and everything is great except for one thing. I cannot stand the fact that he always smokes “cigarettes and pot”. Everyday it is like he cannot live without it. This has been going on for 8 years now and it makes me insane to think about what it is doing to his lungs. I have talked to him but he say’s to quit nagging him about it all of the time.”

 Dr Thatslife has this to say…

Welcome to the world of pot and cigarette smokers! You’ve known him for a long time, so it’s not as if you didn’t know what you were getting into. I hope you weren’t thinking he would be more considerate, or stop after you had a conversation with him about it. Noooo way! Pot smokers are quite diligent with their habit and other people’s issues with it aren’t generally a concern to them from my experiences. When you approached him about it, and he basically told you to piss off, that about sums it up on how much he cares about your concerns. So as a side note, also look at other aspects of your relationship to see if this attitude is a trend in other things as well. It may give you a good insight as to what you will get to deal with over the many years of marriage ahead with him.

You probably didn’t care too much when you weren’t living with him what his habits were, now that you are, they do matter! This should be pretty interesting, because if two people move in together, although they are accommodating to each other, they also want to keep their ground and not be bullied around. He may perceive your attempts to get him to calm down on the smoke factor, as a way of controlling him.

It’s driving you insane about what it’s doing to his lungs? What about YOURS Sarah?  Don’t worry about his body, he knows very well what he’s doing to himself, and you for that matter. His lack of care about your body gives out some clear signals, don’t you think? He just doesn’t give a shit. There is a MAJOR lack of respect going on here. You’re just the nag reminding him of it every day, which for some people is encouragement to do it even more! Smokers are famous for lighting up even more because people are hounding them about it. You need to look after yourself.

Soooooo…. What can you do? I guess there are two roads you can take, depending on how much this bothers you. One, you can come to a compromise and meet him somewhere in the middle ground. Or two, the full force approach and tell him that unless this crap stops, you will act accordingly. Both have their pros and cons. An example of compromise would be that he does it all outside instead of in the house. Although this will help you breathe better, it doesn’t help the fact that you have an addict for a fiancé. An example of full force, would be telling him if this habit doesn’t come to a grinding halt, you don’t think the living arrangement is going to work out and its time to move on.

My advice, take a second look at the relationship on a bigger picture and ask how much you think he cares about you. As for the issue at hand, this is a gross habit, you shouldn’t have to deal with it. Compromise was only an option because I knew you went into this knowing of his addiction, but full force is the real answer to a problem like this.

That’s Life!