The struggles we've overcome: Yubo's smoking.

Mochi's version.
I'll try my best to not write a history book about this. Yubo's smoking was our most difficult struggle to date. Who knows if we'll face something worse, but this one nearly ended us.

I really surprised myself, and probably a lot of other people, when I started getting involved with Yubo. I was very firm about not dating anyone that drank or smoked. So what did I do? Started dating someone that drank and smoked. The logic? None.

I won't get too much into the drinking. Let's say I eventually got to the point where I recognized that I only had a problem with drunkenness, not drinking.

Back to the smoking. When we first started dating, I didn't realize just how much he smoked because we didn't spend entire days together. He probably also made it more of a point to freshen up before hanging out with me.

When he moved out of his parents' to live with Joe, I spent more time with him in his habitat. The reality of his smoking became more apparent when I started seeing him more than once a week or for longer than a few hours. When we moved up here, he made a promise that he would quit when we arrived in WA. Obviously, that didn't happen.

The next couple of years were filled with lies and broken promises. I lost nearly all trust and faith in him. I became paranoid and controlling. I really hated him for it. I felt that killing himself was more precious to him than living a long life with me. I thought, If he really loved me, he'd try harder to quit.

The resentment I built towards his lack of quitting ruined our intimacy. I didn't hold his hand as often because it would make my hand smell like smoke. I refused hugs because the smoke that clung to his clothes would cling to mine. I stopped kissing him because it really was like licking an ashtray. It got to the point where I didn't even want any intimacy with him anymore. It was just too much work for something as simple as holding his hand. I made him Febreze himself before entering the house. If he forgot, I made a big deal out of Febrezing the whole house.

He tried the patch, detoxing with Vitamin C, chewing gum, cinnamon, keeping busy. Nothing worked. It was especially frustrating when he would have a cigarette right before putting a patch on. And keeping busy meant spending less time with me, so I felt neglected.

I tried playing the victim, encouraging him, controlling him. Everything I could think of that might help in some way. I started a rewards program for him (although, lucky me, he never redeemed his reward). He was doing really great. He went from around 10 cigarettes a day to about 2-5, I think. I was really proud of him! But then it spiked up again. I would've slept at a friend's house if I had a close enough friend to crash with at the time. Then I gave him an ultimatum. First I told him that if he was still smoking when he asked me to marry him, I would say no. Eventually, that turned into our kinda trade-off ultimatum, if you will. He wouldn't marry me if I wasn't Christian, and I wouldn't marry him if he was smoking. I took it further by putting a time limit on it. Mmm... biological clock. I gave him until our 4-year anniversary. Actually, three months before, because he had to be smoke-free for 3 consecutive months. Otherwise I would go back to California. In my head, that gave me enough time to find and marry someone else in time to have the two kids that I want before 30. We spread the word to the people at church for more accountability.

So I became a Christian, but he was still smoking. I was asking him to pray about it, but he confessed that he could never bring himself to really pray about it. He was scared. "Getting cancer is a good way to get me to quit." I tried my best to be consistent about praying for him. Frustrating thing about this technique was I stopped him at the door one night, held his hands and prayed with him. He didn't even try to stay in. He said he already had his mind set on having one. Ugh. If I had a gun, I'd've shot him. Not really, but that's how upset I was about it.

We finally had a talk about it. We recognized that we were ruining ourselves. It was really hurting him that I had no trust in him. I told him that it hurt me too, but he wasn't giving me anything to trust. The talk ended with a lot of realizations on my part. I was being ridiculously unfair in many ways. He said one thing that really changed the situation: What if God doesn't want you to have children? I'd never thought of that. I wanted children so badly, I was willing to leave the man that I really loved to find some sperm donor just to have kids.

I recommitted myself to him, that I would stick by him no matter what, and love him unconditionally. The lack of trust was making it really hard for him because he felt that nothing was ever enough for me. I made our relationship so fragile that he wasn't walking on eggshells... he couldn't even move.

Soon after that, he quit. I was blaming him for our not being engaged already, but it was my fault too. If I would have been able to trust him sooner, and let him know that I really was supporting him, I think that his quitting would have happened much sooner. Of course, if he hadn't lied to me so many times, it would've been that much easier for me to trust him. No matter. Both of our faults. But now it's over.

I don't know what I'm going to do if he ever starts smoking again. We've had some scares, which made my paranoia creep back up. I suppose I'll just have to deal with it if it comes, and pray like crazy that it never does.

Yubo's version.
He tells me that he's really going to start blogging. We'll see.