time sheet and smoking partners
I have done the Time sheet the past couple days but I am not exactly clear on what I am supposed to be getting out of it. Hopefully as I continue reading on the website this will come together. So far I have entries like…
8am getting out of bed calm not a smoking situation warm and happy stay warm and happy
11am read email nervous smoking situation temp. discomfort ignore it
noon read diabetic forum hunger so-so hungry eat
1pm read smoking forum nervous smoking situation thirsty get up and move
I’m just not sure this time sheet thing is going to be of much use to me. I already know that Warren takes over when my hands are idle. When I’m reading or watching tv and my hands are idle, I get the urge to reach for a cigarette. Am I doing this right?
to change my reactions, I have started doing the following…
urge…while working at home on the computer
get up, stretch, deep breath, light a new scented candle. by the time I sit back down, the urge is gone. And my home will soon smell like the bath shop at the mall rather than stale cigs. I cannot light a candle or do this routine when I am in certain situations outside the home….say driving down the road…
urge…while in car
get a piece of sugarless gum. if it’s a long drive, pull over at the next rest stop and get out and walk a bit, stretch, deep breathe…feel how good it feels to be able to smell the fresh air and deep breathe again without hacking. Have a drink of some nice clean cold water. Avoid people who are stopping to have a smoke.
urge…while watching tv
keep hands busy. stand up, deep breathe, get a drink of water and get back to work on that afghan I have been working on. The stretching and deep breathing will also help my shoulders and neck from getting stiff and tense while working on the afghan so they are not sore tomorrow.
What to do at family gatherings…
Stay inside. Don’t go outside with Rita and Kate. You will have plenty of opportunities to visit with them inside when they have finished their cigarettes. Ponder on why Rita, an oncology head nurse certified to do chemo push would start smoking again after having quit for 25 years. Seriously, this one really mystifies me. Maybe I should talk to her and find out what’s up. Rita is my sister in law. We went through nursing school together and we used to be very close before we got busy with kids and working. Maybe she will want a quitting buddy.
Now, the biggest issue I can think of is what to do with my husband. He has no desire to quit. He has it in his head that he is unable to quit. (he’s never tried). He chain smokes when he is not at work. He will not smoke in front of me if I ask him not to. But I have to keep asking him not to. Constantly. Even getting out of the car to walk in the mall…he walks with me and decides he needs a quick puff or two before going in the mall. He didn’t smoke in the car because I asked him not to. But now he is outside so he doesn’t see anything wrong with it.
I have threatened to move in with his parents for a month if he doesn’t quit bringing cigarettes with him. this whole concept of quitting smoking is foreign to him. He doesn’t think I am serious. He even left me a couple Marlboros on my computer desk the other morning when he got home from work and I had already gone to bed. (he gets home at 5am). I love my husband. We have been married almost 30 years and we are still best friends. But I would like to spend time with him sans the cigs.
I need to find a way to be with him, ignore the cigarettes and not be nagging at him about quitting. I know that the more I nag the harder he will hang on to them. so no nagging. His smoking around me has been the major trigger that put me back on to smoking in the past…. i.e. how can I possibly be expected to quit when he won’t quit so I might as well join him… I can no longer accept this logic. I want to quit. I need to quit. I know I can quit and I am going to be successful in this with or without him. His actions are his own, as are his sister Rita’s. If they choose to smoke…they are adults and can make that choice themselves. All I can do is be there to support them if they choose to quit at some point in the future. But I will not succumb to joining them.
Somehow I have to change my reactions to their smoking without changing my reactions to them personally. Avoidance is not an option.
I know that others have had this same problem with a life partner who refuses to quit and enjoys the smoking. I would love to know how they dealt with this problem successfully….I consider success being quit and still happily married to them.
::hugs::
shadoe
July 26th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Hi there: like you a new non-smoker, but I wanted to comment on
your particular problem, by telling you what my husband did for me.
He quit about 5 years ago and never ever pressured me to do the
same. Like your husband, I was convinced I could not give up and
really never tried to, though secretly I wanted to have “the guts”
to do so.
The main thing my husband did was to demonstrate time and time again
what being a non-smoker had done for him - but not in an “in your
face” type of way. It was just because I have been with him so long
I could see the difference. He is more confident, healthier
(obviously), less fearful of doctors, dentists etc, more engaged in
life and the types of things he likes to do by comparison to his
smoking days. And he only has ever said once that he might have a
cigarette. Funny thing was though, he looked at me (through a
drunken haze, I have to say - it was a very special party) and
said “should I be having a cigarette?”. I said “no” and that was
the end of it. It was like he had forgotten whether a cigarette was
part of the occasion, but had a vague thought it might be - now that
is amazing!
The thing this did was to show me that you can be a non-smoker and
be normal! ie you weren’t spending the rest of your life missing
something. Even now, some 10 days into my quit, he sort of assumes
that things are fine whilst at the same time knows “what I am going
through”. Which actually is not bad thanks to the help from this
site and from Allen Carr’s book - more boring than painful (I am
sooooo sick of going through the mental routine - that is my danger
point, low boredom threshhold).
I guess 5 years is a long time to wait for your partner to get the
message, but that is the way it had to be for us at least. I think
if your husband sees you being NORMAL as a non-smoker, that one day
he will lose the panic that comes to every smoker at the thought of
giving up. The best thing you can do is continue to love him and
help him to get over his very normal fears by showing him that there
is really nothing to fear at all!
Marg