My partner’s smoking habit has me questioning our entire relationship
DEAR DEIDRE: My partner, who is a fitness freak, has taken up smoking once more. It’s triggering for me because I lost my mum to cancer and she smoked all her life.
My partner is 38 and when we met, she told me she used to smoke. I’m 41 and I own a gym so I know how important it is to look after yourself and how bad smoking is - doesn’t everyone? We go running together.
If she’d been a smoker when we met, our relationship wouldn’t have gone the distance but I thought her smoking days were behind her.
She went out with some friends three weeks ago. When she came back, I could smell cigarettes. I called her out on it and she shrugged and said, “I just fancied a cigarette”. She’s now smoking regularly. I’ve seen them in her handbag.
Our sex life has taken a dive because I can’t bear the stench of stale tobacco. Is this the end for us?
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DEIDRE SAYS: It depends on how strongly you feel about her and how committed she is to smoking.
Find a moment when you are both calm and ask her whether anything is worrying or stressing her because you’re concerned she is putting her health at risk.
Tell her you love her and you want to enjoy the intimacy you once shared but her smoking again is changing how you feel about intimacy.
My support pack called Giving Up Smoking will help direct her to organisations that can help her to kick the habit.
