Smoking in your 70s

YANBU. He did break his word to you about giving up vaping within six months, and he must know his smoking affects your health. It sounds like he is in denial, so an ultimatum just might help, if it brought him out of denial. You would have to mean it, though. Only you can know which seems better to you, living with him and the smoke and its health consequences, or without him and in different circumstances (but not caring for him if he becomes more ill).

Well you either live with him or you don't. No one is perfect, we all have faults. He's not going to stop so either accept him or not (I wonder what your faults are?)

PS As othes have said, the chances are that he will end up disabled by a smoking-related illness - strokes, vascular illnesses including brain damage, vascular dementia, heart disease, lung cancer (and cancers in general are more common amongst smokers). He will, of course, expect you to become his carer. How will you feel about your life being taken over by his needs when you have pleaded with him for so long to give up smoking? You need to come to a decision now, not when it happens. For a list of the health risks of smoking, this is eye opening - not only for the smoker but passive smokers too www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/lifestyle/what-are-the-health-risks-of-smoking/

Yes, it's an addiction - so what?? People give up cigarettes EVERY DAY - it's not easy but it is possible (and there's lots of help available on the NHS). You find it unpleasant. Your doctor has told you not to live with a smoker. The nicotine will linger on him and around him, even when he's not smoking - so you could easily be inhaling it. If he doesn't love you enough to stop, then you have to make some tough decisions. (My Dad smoked all his life; even after Mum was diagnosed with asthma; he then "only" smoked in the garden or the garage in winter, but after he finally gave up - after a stroke - we all noticed that her asthma got a lot better; the house smelt a lot better too). Stop fooling yourself. You either care about your health or you don't. He clearly doesn't.

I’m in the process of trying to support a friend who was widowed 8 months ago. She is an addicted smoker and in the 2 hours I’m there with her she manages to smoke 4 ciggies! She insists that she smokes only 100 per week….. or 5 packs , which is rubbish , as I know she buys a hundred on Fridays and is first in queue on a tues/wed for a 100 more….I figure that at roughly £12 per pack to be about 8-9 packs a week! That equates to £100 per week! She will constantly deny this. She has £157 pension per week….. she doesn’t eat , only one ready meal per day , and if I go up ….usually 2-3 times a week., I take in some lunch ( home made sandwich usually) which she pounces on. Smokers are in total denial about their habits and you’ll never change them. Not one of my family smokes NOW, I never did, so I’m lucky. My son is the only one in my family smokes…… I have begged….. bribed…… cried…… thrown a mum tantrum…. to try at 41 to get him to stop! He lives alone and he isn’t a heavy smoker , but it’s a worry. I go to his flat and it NEVER smells of cigs…. he or his clothes never smell of cigs either! I do not know how you stand it! I have reluctantly given my widowed friend an ultimatum …. stop smoking while I’m there with her or I stop going to her house!! She’s ‘thinking ‘ about it!

If he's right for you in every other way, perhaps you need to go to "Relate" and have it out with a third party present to rationalise it all for you both. (Not sure if Relate still exists, but a marriage guidance counsellor is what I mean as this situation needs resolving).

NanaChirley, I was a smoker for nearly fifty years. Tried everything to give up. Then I developed asthma and knew I had to do something so I signed up to a no smoking course at my GPS and was prescribed Champix. It was a revelation. You continue to smoke for a week whilst at the same time taking the tablets but at the end of that week you stop smoking but continue with the tablets. I stopped wanting a cigarette before the week was up. The course lasts twelve weeks and you visit the surgery every two weeks for a chat and a carbon monoxide test. I’ve never wanted a cigarette in the six years since. It’s worth getting your partner to try this and tell him it’s his last chance or it’s over between you. Good luck.

If he can afford it hypnotherapy works. My brother was struggling to give up - 2 hours and £240 later he has stopped. He says it's like he has never ever smoked and isn't the slightest bit tempted. You can DM me if you want the contact details.

NannaChirley, do you think you'll want to care for this man, when (as seems likely) he becomes completely disabled by illness, due to his smoking? If not, then maybe it's time to end the relationship?

I smoked from the age of about 14 or 15 years. Cigarettes were almost a 'fashion accessory' back then. As I grew older I wanted to stop - and did so - every morning until about midday when I started again!!!!

I did stop each time I was pregnant, but when my third baby was born, I decided to stay a non-smoker. Yes, it was tough - no help back then. But each time I fancied a ciggie, I looked at my small children and they were incentive enough for me not to light up.

15 years later I was extremely ill in ITU following surgery. My teenage children were told to say 'Goodbye' to me each time they left the hospital. My oldest daughter (just turned 18 yrs old), was the one having to sign forms for me to have further surgery, etc. She was told by the ITU Consultant that it was very fortunate that I was (by then) a non-smoker - as if I was one, that would have been the final straw and there would have been little chance of me surviving.

I agree that being a recovered smoker - it is now fifty years ago that I had my last cigarette, does make me more anti-smoking than, maybe, others who have never partaken.

I have left a partner who went back to smoking. It is totally non negotiable with me.
It is affecting your health so why oh why are you putting up with it?

My husband cannot/will not cut down on his smoking and he smokes roughly20 a day. He has COPD and despite being advised not to smoke he continues to do so. I cannot understand this especially as he has a lung problem. He smokes in his bedroom at night and the ash drifts down outside and the windowsill below is scarred with cigarette burns. As has previously been said this is so expensive.

I've never smoked and neither does my husband. Sadly, I agree with Monica. Though knowing what a horrible illness COPD is, Im amazed your husband can stand the vaping! If it is really having an effect on your health, you may need to ask him to move out, or, could you ask your doctor/consultant to talk to him? Explain the damage this is doing? Sorry to hear about your ill health and good luck to both of you. I hope you can find a solution.

This is a huge dilemma if he's lovely in every other way.
Only you know how much you can put up with this, how much before you might think of leaving him.
I know smoking is hard to give up, I had problems when I stopped smoking over 40 years ago. But it is possible, many people do give up, and my opinion is that he could stop if he really wanted to. So I think he is the one being unreasonable, not you.

Yes.
I smoked when I was a civil servant, in a mixed office of smokers and non smokers.
It's hard to believe it now.

I'm thinking about how it was considered quite normal for non smokers, to be subjected to other people's smoke in say the work place, restaurants, cinemas, even on planes heaven forbid . I once shared an office with a woman, who I really, really liked, but boy she was a heavy smoker our room was permanently enveloped in a blue fug and at the end of the day, her cigarette smoke had permeated my hair and clothes, I reeked of it. In retrospect it was quite unacceptable., I'd never put up with that now, so yes I empathise with your dilemma NanaChirley.

Well, considering the man has totally refurbished their home, and they want for nothing, I wouldn't bank on him taking his fags and moving out easily.
It is his home, too.

Sorry NanaChirley forgot to add, no you are definitely not being unreasonable everyone has the right to live in a smoke free environment.

My husband and his ex wife were both smokers, they were of a generation where many people partook. I'm thinking of "Madman" and how Don and Betty Draper would be sitting in bed smoking, one on the go all the time, my thoughts were "hate to be in the room with them their ceiling must be really brown" My ex also smoked when we got together but I often binned his fags when he wasn't looking, so eventually he gave it up. My husband resolved some 40 years ago having smoked his last cigarette over Christmas never to touch them again, true to his word he is far more evangelical about cigarette smoke than I am having never smoked. We sometimes ponder on the fact that all the smokers we knew have now kicked the habit, although we learn from my husband's daughter who also hates cigarette smoke, that her mother has no intention of ever giving up although conscious of other health issues she remains a stalwart smoker this among other issues became a problem in their relationship.

I was pretty annoyed when my kids took up smoking in the foolishness of youth, thankfully it was short lived. One son's partner has such a loathing for cigarettes he gave it up when their relationship started some seven or so years ago, but confessed he found that quite easy as he wasn't really a committed smoker anyway, why start in the first place my thoughts! Other son developed asthma as an adult and on a hospitalization due to that was told unequivocally during his stay to quit right away, which he did and not to be around smokers which he has and that does affect him.

I always marvel at the fact June Brown (Dot Cotton) has made it to the ripe old age she has being such a heavy smoker there is always the odd one who bucks the trend and are then held up as an example with......."see they got away with it!"

I have asthma and I couldn't live with a smoker. Even on clothes it can irritate the lungs.
You have a choice between your health and living with a smoker.

I gave up over 20 years ago but was addicted to Nicorette gum for years!

NanaChirley you have answered your own question, you have been advised by your Dr that a smoking environment is bad for you. Your partner is not going to change that so you need to.

I understand it’s as hard to give up as heroin.
First of all he has to want to stop, then if he does, he needs to seek help.
Time for a frank talk I think! Me or the fags!!

I gave up smoking 20 years ago and have just looked up how much cigarettes cost now
A pack of 20 b&h now costs £13.80

If he's smoking a pack a day (and there's a good chance he is as most smokers lie)
Then thats £90+ per WEEK.

I'd be more annoyed at that than anything else.
You could go on some nice holidays if he saved the money he was wasting on smoking.

The biggest mistake anyone makes - and the one made most often, is the belief that the partner will stop doing something you do not like, once youlive together.

Unless you are remarkably lucky, the chance of anyone giving up smoking, or drinking, controlling their temper or any of those things people do that cause most grief in relationships, once the couple are together, is virtually nil.

So you are in a postion that either have to live with him and his vaping/smoking or live elsewhere without him and his vaping/smoking. I really do not think that there is any alternative.