Q: My girlfriend and I made a pact about three months ago to quit smoking. I’ve completely stopped, but she hasn’t even tried to reduce how much she smokes. Now her habit is becoming gross to me. How should I deal with this?
A: You have already done the right thing by staying off her case. But since God gave us free will, she will do what she wants to do. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what our significant others think. That’s the sad part.
Assuming she’s noticed you’ve quit, she probably feels guilty that she isn’t following your lead. She could need a stronger dose of influence or more patches or gum than what you needed to quit. It could be that smoking was a fixation that brought you two together in the first place. Realize that even though you have changed, she doesn’t deserve ridicule for not staying on track with your goal.
Take the first step by telling her that her rather disgusting habit is disturbing to you. You can also let her know that lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in both men and women according to the American Cancer Society.
If she agreed to quit smoking, she needs to put that promise into action. Since you have stopped blackening your lungs you have dramatically decreased your chances of getting lung cancer. She needs to respect that fact and not light up around you.
She may not have the same motivation as you. Maybe she only agreed to stop smoking to make you temporarily happy. In that case, she probably had no plans of quitting in the first place, thinking you would never go through with it.
Whether you want to stick around is up to you, but your girlfriend is a grown woman. As long as you make it known that you won’t stay around much longer if she doesn’t stop smoking, then she has no choice but to stop and be with you. That, or she could look forward to an early death.
Q: I was with my boyfriend one afternoon when he opened his trunk to get something out and a picture of his ex-girlfriend was sitting there. It made me insanely jealous and mad that he still had a picture of her. He says it’s not a big deal, but to me it is. Why didn’t he just throw it away?
A: Beware: a guy’s trunk is likely where he keeps his most valuable keepsakes. Just kidding. Think a little more before you go berserk next time.
Everyone owns pictures of his or her ex. No matter how much it gets on your nerves, it’s a fact of life. Chances are he forgot it was even there. And above all, your boyfriend has the same right to keep his memories as you.
Odds are you also own at least one picture of an ex. It’s not a mystery that you keep them in your closet, or under your bed or in some special box hidden in your room.
The good part is that the picture of his ex was in his trunk. Aren’t you glad it’s not on his nightstand? He probably wouldn’t have remembered where it was in the first place had he wanted to fish it out. Wouldn’t the photo be in a climate-controlled special box with all of his other ex-girlfriends if he really cared for its storage? Thankfully he wasn’t trying to hide it.
Try not to sweat it next time you come across a similar situation. At least you know where your picture will end up if you two don’t work out.
Just be thanking your lucky stars you didn’t open the trunk to find his ex posing nude in the picture instead.
Crystal will answer readers” questions. E-mail questions to [email protected].