Dating a Smoker
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| Wed, 04-25-2007 - 5:21pm |
At age 17, I had to watch my grandfather die a horrible death from lung cancer/emphysema, and in addition, I also have asthma, so being around smokers is a BIG NO-NO in my book. I even refused to marry my ex-husband until he quit smoking.
Well, I met a great guy 2 weeks ago, and we're getting along great...but he smokes like a freight train. As in, about a cigarette every hour when he's with me. IT KILLS ME. I start to get all congested and feeling nasty, and that's with him going outside and smoking, but just bringing it back in on his clothes and body.
He came to visit me today right after he got off work, and he'd only smoked a few all day long, and I could barely smell it, and it was so nice to hug/kiss him without gagging.
I've told him how I feel about smoking, but he's such a heavy smoker that it's really not much of an option for him to quit for someone he just met...but I don't know if i can continue to see him with this cloud hanging over our heads!
I'm starting to debate whether this should be a dealbreaker, because he's great otherwise...
Your thoughts?

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For me, someone who smokes that much, it would probably be a dealbreaker. I absolutely cannot stand cigarettes, they make everything stink, and I have never smoked and never will. The person I was just with would have a cigarette on a very rare occasion (and only when he had been drinking all evening) and I wouldn't kiss him until he brushed his teeth.
I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but I would just tell him why you are so against smoking, but I just don't understand why, when everyone knows how bad smoking is for you, people still do it.
ETA: You wouldn't marry your ex-husband until he quit, so what makes this guy any different? Stick to your guns!
Edited 4/25/2007 5:53 pm ET by rebainmi
That's a tough one. I, too, hate cigarettes and the smoke that goes with them. I grew up in a house where my mother was smoking constantly. My grandmother used to smoke, too, and when we'd go visit her, I can remember sitting between them at the table and getting the smoke from either side of me. Then, for years, I hung out a lot with my brother and his then-wife, and they smoked a lot.
Well, when I moved out on my own and lived in a smoke-free environment, and now that Massachusetts bars and restaurants are all non-smoking (state law), when I'm around smoke, it REALLY bothers me. It causes me to get sinus infections sometimes. :(
However, if I meet a guy and really like him and find out he smokes, I can't bring myself to not date him. My last boyfriend did not smoke when I started dating him - he chewed tobacco, which was really nasty, too, but at least it didn't cause smoke. He was a former smoker, though, and eventually, he started smoking again: cigarettes AND cigars. (YUCK!)
And my current boyfriend smokes, too, but luckily, the apartment he lives in is a non-smoking complex, so he has to go outside to smoke, and he doesn't smoke all that often. I can tell when he's been smoking all day at work, though - it's all over his hands. Luckily for me, though, he doesn't get that "ash tray breath" my ex did (not yet, anyway). I smell it more on his hands than in his face.
I always said I'd never date a smoker, and I can TOTALLY understand why ANYONE else would feel the same way. But my problem is, if I meet someone and really like him, I can't make myself not date him because of the smoke. I knew my boyfriend smoked before I even spoke to him for the first time: I saw him go outside the bar to have a cigarette a few times. But he's SO NICE and SO SWEET - I just sort of made myself overlook the smoking. And he does want to quit - he just has a hard time every time he tries to. But the fact that he wants to quit tells me maybe someday he will (unlike someone like my brother, who has the "I'll never quit, even if I get lung cancer" mentality). And, again, he doesn't smoke nearly as much as other people I know, so I can live with it.
It's a total dealbreaker for me, because I'm an exsmoker who wishes she could still smoke and would if it weren't so bad for you. So I just can't be around people who are smoking--it's too tempting to join in. In fact, just reading/thinking about it is making me crave a cigarette and it's been a LONG time since I've had one.
Sheri
It's a total dealbreaker for me.
Smile,
Deirdre
As a guy, one of the biggest criteria I had was that she could not be a smoker. I tried the "trying to quit" a few times and their idea of "trying to quit" was maybe in a yr or so.
With that said, I said to self -- Self, we will not consider a smoker of any type again... so me, myself and I have not gotten involved with a non-smoker. My SO used to smoke yrs ago and now she has issues with her throat if she is around smoke too much - it hurts her to swallow. She never smoked heavy -- even her sisters said that too -- but she did start when she was 16.
When I was in college the hospital next to campus was smoke-free and the nurses had to come to campus to smoke. There they'd be 20 feet away from the hospital parking lot huddled in the snow puffing away. Its a ridiculous addiction. I understand how hard it is to quit I'm not unsympathetic to that but I would not do it.
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