ok...maybe i am a little tense with 5-days-a-week school and all...or maybe i am a little anal but i just can't take the smoking anymore.
my wife and i decided to quite smoking over 5-years ago. i was not a big smoker to begin with and i never liked the smell…i never smoked in my car, and would often feel the need to change clothing because of the smell…my friends, harley davidson and the marlboro man group always made fun of me...
so i quit cold turkey and never looked back. my wife stopped for two or three days and stated “this is too hard”…she then concealed her habit by stashing contraband, smoking outside and using body spray.
five years later and some 20 attempts to quit she is still playing the game and i have about had it. she’s 34, and her health is deteriorating…she has a persistent hack, is steadily approaching “overweight” and her doctor has recently made comments about recent labs…ldl off the chart. we are not able to have children after fours years of trying and she is literally aging before my eyes…not the girl i married.
anyway…we agreed that she would not smoke in the house -- so she smokes outside in the backyard and throws here cigarettes everywhere. in the past she used our drinking glasses…she would then leave them all over the house with butts in them. picture walking up to someone’s front porch as seeing beautiful crystal glasses lined up along the banister…no that’s not sweet tea! full with butts! after i threatened to set her stash of marlboros on fire she graduated to a decorative box that she kept on the front porch…the perfect first impression. mmmm yummy…box-o-butts. it’s absolutely disgusting!
there are butts all around the back porch and the stink is unbearable. to add insult to injury my wife smells like an ashtray…i mean i can find her anywhere on the property or in the house by sniffing the air…her cloths stink, her hair stinks and she uses this body spray to cover it up...it makes me nauseous…lavender and marlboro…mmm sexy!
i have gotten to the point whenever she lights up in public i walk away. we went out to dinner one night and she left to “use the ladies room”. our entres arrived and i sat for 10 minutes before searching for her...i found her puffing away with the locals outside because the restaurant did not allow smoking inside. i am tired of waiting for her to finish smoking…
and if all that was not enough…it costs us a little over $200 per month for her habit. i have no patience left…yes she is supportive of my nursing pursuit but i can’t get past this…her response lately is “if you don’t like it divorce me” and “you smoked too”. but the point is we agreed to stop because it is bad for our health...and her health has fallen off. i can run 5 miles and she can barley keep up walking without hacking up a lung.
at this point i am thinking she will die young and i will spend the remainder of my life cleaning up cigarette butts she left behind…and i almost forgot – her famous catch all phrase – “you’re the only one with a problem here – if i don’t see this as a problem then there is no problem” – this is her response to my now relentless pursuit to end the smoking.
i am knee deep in a bsn program…what would you do?
