Smoking

[Wayne Goodwin]

Do you think it’s fair to have cigarette smoking as a deal-breaker in a relationship?

What Ya Think ?

[Karin M Fichtner]

All four of the men in my life have been smokers.  (only 3 were husbands.)  So I guess I've inhaled my quota of second hand smoke. So far, so good.  I smoked off and on when I was younger.  I quit in '95 completely. I was very concerned when my last husband was diagnosed with cancer.  I asked him to quit his 3 pack a day habit.  He went 10 days in the hospital without smoking, and lasted about 2 more weeks at home.  But then he started sneaking cigarettes behind my back, and I caught him.  As was stated earlier....it wasn't the smoking....it was the lying about it.  Nowadays, I prefer any man I am with not to smoke....at least around me. 

[AmerikinWmn]

It would be a deal breaker for me, I smoked for over 35 yrs, most of the time like a fiend but quit in '99, along with my husband. I can be around it as far as in someone else's home who smokes, and even in some bars where the owners let patrons smoke (if it isn't too hazy and  thick). Even then, I leave my coat out in the breezeway when I come home and throw my clothes in the hamper immediately. If I'm around it too much, it kills my lungs. No, smoker's breath and stinky clothes are not sexy to me. 

[frenchy]

well not to point that fickle finger of fate at anyone who smokes ( because i too smoked on and off from my early 20's till my early 40's ) but i have to say , there ain't one good thing i can say about smokin .. i remember back in the early 80's i was a warehouse manager and i had to open and close the place everyday so i put in a lot of hours .. and at the end of the day my ass would be draggin sometimes .. and i had a really hot girlfriend and i remember one nite she called me after i just got home from work and wanted me to come over .. i told her nahh .. i really do want to but there's no gas left in my tank .. i'm gonna take a shower and go to sleep .. and she said awww .. really ?? are you sure ..if you come over tonite i'll do anything you want .. ANYTHING ..  and again i said nahh .... hmmph ..WELL OK THEN CLICK. .. so i took my shower and got all set for bed and i looked and saw i only had 2 ciggarettes left so i got dressed and went out into the icy cold 18 degree nite to get a pack of smokes .. and then it hit me .. WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE ?? so that was one of the times i just up and quit then and there .. there were others .. maybe not quite so profound .. but everytime i quit it was a bitch .. but i did it so i thought i can quit again if i have to .. each time it got harder tho . and i never really wanted to smoke .. for me it started cause i'd go out and poke some smot with this other hippie and if we got asked what we were up to we'd say we're havin a smoke .. which of course we were but for me the ciggarettes were just a cover .. till they weren't anymore .. and i started with them menthols .. after a joint anything tasted good and a menthol smoke was just fantastic .. ok so i got off track a little bit .. back to the question .. a deal breaker ?? well now that i been smoke free for over 15 years it does bug me .. i won't let anyone smoke in my house .. so that might piss them off .. but i'm pretty strict about that rule .. and i know i'd try to help them quit if they really wanted to .. but you can't help someone quit if they don't really wanna so don't waste your time ... so , no , it wouldn't be a deal breaker so long as they respected my space but i'm sure there would be times we'd probably talk about it .. 

[Wayne Goodwin]

Seemed back in the early years it was just cook to smoke . Sort of a hip thing . Now a days more and more are giving up the smoke . Maybe the cost of money is helping some quit .

I had an Uncle . Fred only had one lung . My Aunt Julia would buy them for him in the last years of his life . Doctor repeatedly told him to quit . There at the end . He was put on Oxygen . He would beg his wife for a smoke and she couldn't stand the begging and kept giving him his smoke . He finally passed away with a smoke in his mouth . If she had kept to the Doctors orders . He may have lived a few more years .

[Kim]

I guess its totally up to the person. Smoking effects people in different ways. I have been around smokers my whole life, although my ex smoked outside and I only encountered smoking at family parties or the occassional times we went out. (MY ex quit about 20 years ago) Although my MOM smokes, she NEVER smoke in my presense or my brother's growing up...always in the bathroom. IN the early years as an adult and I would visit her and her husnband in Florida for a week, a strange thing happened. They were chain smokers and smoked in the house and we would all 3 sit and talk for hours and hours! For about the first 4 days, I would be EXTREMELY nauseated, KEEP a migraine headache and my insides would cramp up in sharp pains. I never mentioned this and just suffered with it. After that, the next 3 days or so, I was feeling  alittle better or completely fine. EVERY time, I visited them, this happened. ABout 6 years ago, they moved a couple blocks from me she made a NO SMOKING in the house policy but would sit on her porch. I was ok with that but if we EVER went together in the car, I would suffer all that pain again. VERY STRANGE, i think. EVER man I have ever dated or married has been a smoker EXCEPT the one I am NOW dating. He has 5 brothers and a sister with spouses and grown children and NONE of them smoke which I find amazing because I have ALWAYS been surrounded by smokers.

[Mickchick]

I think it's absolutely fair.  If the non-smoker is bothered by smoke and it's going to be an issue for the entire relationship, better it be a deal breaker up front than make each other miserable. 

On the other hand, I, who have said it's a deal breaker ever since my divorce from my first husand in 1989, am now dating a smoker. When he told me he smoked, I thought to myself - oh, no, that's a deal breaker for me, but I didn't tell him that.  HE, however, upon learning that I am a non-smoker, promptly announced that he would quit.  I told him I wasn't asking him to, let alone telling him to, because I don't think that's MY right, and I don't want to hear about it down the road, but he said he had quit for 25 years, picked it up a little over a year ago, that he thought it was stupid that he had and knew that he should stop for his own health, and that he was going to quit for himself, and use me as his inspiration to quit.  It's taken him awhile, but he used his birthday as his quit cold turkey date, and I think he actually stopped a couple of days before that...

In the  meantime, I'm sticking to my guns of not bitchin' about it.  I knew he was a smoker and decided to see him despite my "deal breaker" rule, so ... it was my decision and I've got to keep my mouth shut about it.  Luckily, we live in Florida, he never smokes in the car or inside my condo and has always been very considerate of smoking around me, making sure he's downwind if we're outside...

And yes, I think he's a very special person or it would have still been a deal breaker - NONE of my other friends smoke any more, and I watched my step dad go through lung cancer, COPD, and oral cancer as a reslt of his smoking.  He died from the COPD and it was like watching him slowly drown.