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Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend of two years has asked me to marry him. The one thing I can't handle is his smoking (which he began one month after we started dating). He says he wants to quit, and he's even doing some therapy to discover why he's afraid to try. I've told him I would say yes if he really stops smoking with a program to support new habits to replace the old. I also know (and he's acknowledged) that he hides from feelings by numbing himself with smoking. (In the past, he was an alcoholic, but he's been sober for seven years now.) Am I being unrealistic and too controlling? I've been patient for two years now, but I'm beginning to wonder if he'll always be a smoker and if I should just face it and decide if I can't live with that.

--Madhuri

Dear Madhuri,

Sure, many people manage -- and for some it's easier than others -- but take as a given here that quitting smoking is unimaginably hard. (My empathetic analogy: I'd have to go into therapy to discover why I'd be afraid to try therapy to discover why I'd be afraid to quit coffee.) Kicking butts is harder than quitting drugs, they say, as smoking is legal, available, an all-day event with lots of constant everyday triggers (eg fresh air). (And I really don't know for a fact, but there might be something about recovered alcoholics being predisposed?)

Not that I don't completely understand why the smoke itself might truly bother you, why you felt compelled to issue that tough-love ultimatum. Yeah, smoking's gross and stinky and annoying and it makes him go on extra errands and get up from the table when everyone's having fun and all that stuff. Oh, and your lungs are people too.

But I'm wondering if the smoke itself is, if you will, a secondary problem. For starters, is there a question nagging around here somewhere about why he started when he did? More important: do I smell an "if you loved me, you would..." floating in the air? And more than a few wisps of self-righteousness? Home-therapize him all you want, but consider that -- at least past a certain pretty early point -- people smoke because they're addicted. 'Cause chemistry -- not psychology -- says NOW. "Numb," schmumb; we're talking nicotine.

So: as Belleruth and I cautioned Worry Wart: you also need to quit this power struggle before you get married -- especially because it sounds like this guy's really trying (trying to try, anyway). You could also learn from the example set by the Weinlicks' mixed (smoker/asthmatic) marriage (more Weinlickia here). Perhaps above all, tell yourself the truth about whether this isn't a smokescreen for some bigger resistance to marrying Sensitive Marlboro Man. Otherwise, take a deep breath and say yes.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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