What’s it like being married to a smoker?
I can’t give you a simple answer. I guess if I tried, the overwhelming answer that drowns out all the other thoughts in my head is: sad. It is heartbreaking to be married to a smoker. It is also annoying, frustrating, and painful. To be married to a smoker is to have a daily reminder that your partner in life has another partner: his addiction. And that partner is a nasty, selfish, life-sucking bitch.
When we met, I was twenty-three. With the careless irreverence that twenty-somethings have for mortality, I smoked then. Parliament Lights was the brand I preferred. He smoked Parliament regulars. Two kids raised in the world of aggressive, relentless marketing, we bonded over our brand loyalty. We were both paying the same undertaker. Death is free and guaranteed to all, yet there we were, paying extra to speed up the process.
Time passed, one thing led to another, and before we knew it, I was pregnant. In the very instant I read the positive sign on that pregnancy test, my mind and body were done with cigarettes. Unfortunately for all involved, his mind and body did not have the same instinctual reaction. In the eight years that have passed since that day, there has been promises, fights, tears, and resentment, but there has been no quitting.
Eight years and three kids later, I am still married to a smoker. It hurts to write that. Our two boys, they idolize their dad; and our little baby girl finds him fascinating. Of course, they do; he is truly a phenomenal father. He’s affectionate, loving, and patient. He plays with them and teaches them how to do things I still haven’t mastered, like using a hammer. He makes them feel important, and he listens to them. He plays the best music to get our daughter to fall asleep in his arms. I am so painfully aware of how lucky we are to have this great guy in our lives.
That’s what makes it all so fucking hard.
I could never replace this guy. I couldn’t even come close. The possibility of me as a single mom? Terrifying. I can be impatient and easily overwhelmed. The boys would never again watch action movies or play video games because I hate those things. I don’t understand baseball or hockey. God help them if any of them ever wants to learn how to drive. My fixing skills are mediocre at best, improved only from the years spent with a man who can fix almost anything. I know these thoughts are morbid, but welcome to life being married to a smoker with a family history of smoking-related disease and deaths.
What’s it like being married to a wonderful man and knowing that his fatal flaw is actually, usually fatal? It’s devastating. Over the course of nearly a decade, it is this that has caused pain, tears, and heartbreak more than anything over the span of my entire life; because it is a repeated heartbreak. There is no consolation, nor will there be until the addiction is gone for good. There is a constant fear that lurks around every corner of our happy home; one that grows with each passing year. Am afraid that his children will endure an unrecoverable loss, and that an avoidable tragedy will alter their lives.
Then there’s the guilt. Eventually, the non-smoking spouse turns into the bad guy: the judgmental, nagging jerk that wants to deprive you of every last ounce of joyful release in your life. You work, you fix, you help with the kids, you read bedtime stories, and deal with extended visits from the in-laws. Can’t a guy have one last little method of escaping all to himself? So I have somehow morphed to fill that role of controlling, selfish wife. He gives everything to our family, but it’s not enough for me. I want more. At least that’s the vibe I have received over our years of conversations. There goes the resentment, growing on both sides.
Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I don’t ever want to deal with the grief, anger, and unimaginable pain of children who lose a parent to a self-induced death. Maybe I do not ever want to have to navigate the complicated world of dating again, older and with children. I was never really all that good at dating the first time through. Nor do I want to be lonely and sad for the rest of my life. Maybe I just really don’t want to have to bury my husband. Not now, not in twenty years as we’re just getting our lives back from the tentacles of parenting, not from such an unnatural cause.
I am aware we are not in control of our destiny. No one can manipulate their expiration date. I am sitting here today but could be gone tomorrow in a terrible and untimely accident. And he would have to deal with all of the horrific consequences.
However, there are some things we do to help out our odds: we wear seat belts, we do not run across busy freeways, play Russian roulette, or jump into the tiger exhibit at the zoo. I could run across the freeway or jump into the tiger exhibit and not die, but the risk doesn't outweigh the benefits for me.
You want to know the raw and dark feelings that come from being married to a smoker? Anger, occasional rage, and a crushing sadness that wants and reemerges every time he comes in smelling like smoke.
Helplessness. I feel like I’m being cheated on every day. It is like I know about the other “woman” and that he knows that I know. I have begged, cried, screamed, and demanded. I have calmly tried to be understanding and supportive. And I have been rejected every single time. It is his escape; he likes it, he cannot think of another way to relieve stress. If it was a person and not an addiction I was just describing, there is a good chance we would be in some intensive couples therapy or not together at all.
Not me, not the beautiful and precious faces of his children, not the pleas of his parents who have watched their own parents and siblings die and endure cancer treatments all due to the same seductive addiction -- none of us can inspire him to give it up. Only he can, and I am afraid that he does not know how, nor is willing to ask for help in figuring it out.
I know it must be hard to be so brilliant and caring, and yet to have such a blind spot to self-care. I know it must be tough to have those habits so deeply entrenched: searching for a pack and a lighter in his pocket, a moment alone, the buzz of nicotine. Just one more time. Always one more time.
I know the pull of addiction: the undercurrent that runs under all else and grips and pulls hard in moments of weakness. It’s so much more peaceful just to give in, to slide under and lose sight of the shore. Thrashing and kicking and fighting to stay afloat is painful, and we are all going to give into the peaceful depths eventually, anyways.
You never even have to look back at the ones you left behind, still fighting for you, frantically searching for a way to save you. It is your life, in the end. It belongs to no one else; and if you want it, you are the only one who can fight for it.