I am the Bitch

The other day my husband snuck off to have a cigarette with a friend and I said, "I'll nag you about this later." The friend said, "Get off his back!"

I was stunned the friend would say something like that to me. Here is someone I like -- and he was judging me for not wanting my husband to smoke!

As I thought about it over the next few days, I realized that I am the Bitch.

My husband doesn't go to the "smoking lounge" at the local pub with his friends when I'm with him, and everyone knows it's because of me. I am the Bitch preventing him from being social. He doesn't smoke in our house and sneaks out to the garage, because I am the Bitch. At the recent dart tournament, he didn't go out to hang out with his friends to smoke because I am the Bitch.

He has quit smoking several times, and I even bragged how proud I was of him only to find out he had been sneaking cigarettes behind my back and everyone knew but me, because I am the Bitch.

Let's set the record straight about this Bitch:

• Before we even talked about getting married, I made it very clear I would NEVER be married to a smoker. He had quit smoking before we were engaged.
• When he first started smoking again, AFTER we were married, it was because of a major stress in our lives and he assured me it would be temporary. It wasn't.
• He said he would quit when our daughter was born. He didn't. I had to make him not smoke in the car with her or in the same room with her!
• My mom started smoking when she was 16. Before she died, she had COPD and emphysema, and could barely walk. She needed oxygen and had had several small strokes. It was horrible watching her suffer. It was horrible watching her continue smoking. She had a severe stroke that did not kill her, but paralyzed her, and she had to be in a nursing home. It was horrible! I do NOT want that in my life!
• My grandparents all died of smoking related illnesses. I do not want that in my life.

Over the years he did quit a couple of different times, but it never took. He even quit for his 40th birthday, which was the last time I saw him with a cigarette in his hand. I think that lasted a month.

Fast forward to now.
This year he had a blood clot behind his knee that could have killed him if it had gotten loose. He said it scared him to death! Yet, it did not scare him enough to remove one of the causes of blood clots. (All of our "smoking" friends defend him. Smoking isn't the only cause of blood clots, they say.)

He is getting the phlegmmy cough in the morning, the one people with bad lungs end up with. 

I do NOT want to be pushing him around in a wheelchair because he can't walk 10 feet. I don't want to have to worry about his oxygen tanks. I don't want to worry about strokes or cancer or emphysema...

All I want is for my husband to have a long and healthy life -- with me!

And if that makes me a Bitch -- well, I'm proud to be that Bitch.