She's STILL Lying to me!!!!!!!!

[Martoch]

Ok, I will try to keep this short (for tonight anyway) because I'm tired and she thinks I'm burning a CD for a friend.

Well I guess if you want to get a little history you can breeze through this thread:
http://www.techimo.com/forum/tid3613...pn1/index.html

Well here's the deal since then...

We moved into a new house (renting) and I thought the smoking and lying were a thing of the past...so I thought.

There have been quite a few instances where I could swear I smell smoke on her breath (covered by the Binaca/breath mints/gum that she keeps in her car 24/7...strange if she didn't smoke right?), but I dismissed any chances that she actually was smoking.

About 3 weeks ago I come home from the mall to find her just coming in from our back deck, it was in the 40's which is freezing for us Floridians...so I ask what she was doing out there (I smelled smoke BIG time) and she says she was stretching outside because she just ran on the treadmill and was sweating so much she couldn't feel how cold it was. (blah blah blah)
Soooooooo, while I'm taking out the trash about 10 minutes later, I just happen to have a flashlight with me and I peek around by the deck...of course I find fresh ashes. I ask her if she was smoking and she denies it. I mention the fresh ashes and she says they're not hers...so I say, "are you telling me the neighbors are smoking on our deck?".
(We have a privacy fence BTW, so this was definite sarcasm)
She says, "no the neighbors aren't smoking here". So again I ask if she was smoking...she denies it again and even denies that she smokes at all. I leave it be, "trusting" her once again.

So tonight she comes home from Karate with a definite odor of smoke on her breath...well I "suddenly" remember that her car doors needed oiled because they were sqeaky so I start putting on warm clothes. When I tell her that I'm going to oil her doors (she's been asking me to do this for a few weeks now) she gets all nervous and says that she'll do it and that I don't have to go outside. I insist of course...so she kind of hurries ahead of me out the door...well not to be left behind I run right behind her.
To make a long story short, I see a lighter by her breath mints in the center console and cigarettes in the driver side door...the only reason I looked there is because she was REALLY insisting that she'll do her side of the car.

Needless to say I'm very disappointed/hurt/angry/frustrated/etc...I don't know what do say or do. I've told her in the past before the first time she lied to me that I DO NOT want to spend my life/get married to a smoker and that's not going to change or flex in any fashion...yet the lies continue.

I'll take ANY advice/suggestion/remarks/whatever you guys/gals wanna give me...the "CD I'm burning" is just about finished now, so I gotta get going.

I'll check back tomorrow...thanks so much TechIMO family, this means a lot to me.

Mike

[daveleau]

I'm sorry, Mike. I wish I had something good to say, but I don't. I will leave it at that because I don't know the entire situation. If you are serious about her, then I would advise seeing professional help, either in secular or church counseling, with the latter being the one I would lean towards myself.

I hope things turn out well. Don't do anything in anger (no rash decisions) and try and get a clear head to think about things.

Dave

[Knothead]

Mike, I am sorry to hear that you are going though the horror of loving an addict...yes, I said addict...

The facts are as follows:

a) She is a smoker. A tobacco addict.

b) You cannot deal with tobacco smokers. Therefore...

c) She must lie to you, in an attempt to hide her addiction, the addiction that you will not tolerate.

Nobody can lie like an addict, and no-one will lie to you (or even to themselves) like an addict.

I'm sorry to say, but you must make a decision... either:

1) Learn to live with her tobacco addiction (maybe with the hope that she will quit), or:

2) Leave the relationship, if you cannot deal with the tobacco.

I wish I could offer more options, but for the life of me, I can't think of any. Mike, you have run up against a really nasty one, and I sympathise fully. I lost a big love to addiction too.

[xenon200]

I'm saying this under the assumption that you haven't always played the part of the "overly suspicious cop", and have actually tried to have meaningful discussions with her in the past about why this bothers you so much.

If this is so, then I'll have to agree with Knothead on this one. Learn to live with it, or leave the relationship. Because if she has heard your most sincere feelings on it, yet continues to blatantly lie about it - then she obviously has absolutely no intentions on quitting.

Either that, or she has tried to quit - and his just been horribly difficult for her. But could it really be that difficult for her to quit if she was able to bear in mind your true feelings on the topic? I dunno. Definately something to ponder.

Hope that helps.

~x2

[Brainchild]

Sorry to say Mike, I have to totally agree with Knothead, there is only those two choices given the fact that you are not willing to flex on this issue.But let me assure you that quitting isn't the easiest of things to do.I was gonna do it for several years before I actually did.

Just bear in mind that once your mind is set,and the choice made, it may not be possible to go back

Good luck

[ILC]

I am really sorry, Mike. I believe you should think long and hard about her. Don't get me wrong, we all have to give and take in order to make any relationship work, however, if she is willing to repeatedly and blatantly lie because you may not like something – even after you have confronted her – than her trustworthiness is seriously questionable. Un-trustworthy relationships never last.

ILC

[Knothead]

Originally posted by ILC
if she is willing to repeatedly and blatantly lie because you may not like something – even after you have confronted her – than her trustworthiness is seriously questionable. Un-trustworthy relationships never last.

ILC

Well, yes...true, as far as that goes... but what we're talking about here is addiction.

Doesn't matter what it is, tobacco, methamphetamines, sexual addiction, an addiction is an addiction... with all that that implies.

May I repeat---Nobody can lie like an addict, and no-one will lie to you (or even to themselves) like an addict.

After you've seen what real addiction is, then you can understand it better.

Until you do, it's almost impossible for a "normal" person to understand. It's just the way it is.

[fritz the cat]

She obviously loves you, to put up with your pigheaded refusal to see beyond your personal desires/demands. The only reason she is lying to you is because she doesn't want this relationship to end. She lies because you give her no alternative. She needs love and support to beat an addiction, and she's NOT getting that from you. YOU need profesional help to get off this high horse of yours. A relationship is made up of give and take, compromise, and working TOGETHER. If you approch a relationship with the attitude of "my way or the highway" (which IMHO you are doing),
the relationship will never blossom into the lifelong union it could be. It will take both of you working together with love and understanding to beat her addiction. You cannot just demand that she doesn't smoke anymore. If it were that easy, people wouldn't be spending millions of dollars a year trying to quit.

[MDS]

Go get a box of NicodermCQ and lay it out in plain site for her to see when she gets home. If she can't quit then you have some decisions to make as Knot has said. I quit after getting lung cancer and I would hate to see you posting sometime down the line that she gets it also. Best of luck to you and your GF and hope things work out whichever way for the best of the 2 of you.

[RedFury]

I'd have to concur with Knot. However, although not knowing you personally, nor your GF I would have to say this...

My wife and I have been together for 8+ years, married for 2. The 6 years up to marriage....a lot of them were downright awful.
Seriously. I don't really know what kept us together through some of it, but in whole I think it had to do with the fact that we had weathered a storm together and figured we could ride out the others that would/did come. We saw something in each other that we didn't want to let go of. Hey, I quit smoking. She still does. I'd love for her to quit, but I want her to quit for herself, not for me because if she doesn't do it for herself....what's the point really? The last 2 times I quit was when we had our babies. We quit for them, not for us. This time I QUIT FOR ME! Haven't turned back. She'll quit when the time is right for her, I just have a sneaky suspicion about it

I guess with all that said, you really need to take a hard look at yourself and your relationship and see if you want to be there 5, 10 years from now. Will you be happy? If her not smoking is that important to you, then you need to know how important it truly is is to her. Obviously she is hiding the smoking from you because she knows how you feel, but I get the feeling that she still wants to smoke. If she were truely trying to quit, I would think that she would confess to you that she slipped/ had a hard day *insert excuse here*