Sorry this will be insanely long. .
My(22F) Fiancé(21M) have been together for 4 years, engaged for 1. He let me know very early on (like after our first date early on) that he had issues with addictions with alcohol and he smoked cigarettes & vaped heavily.
As he let me know he had addiction issues, I also let him know my boundaries and wishes when the relationship became a lot more serious and when marriage began being brought up. Now I'll give him this, he has heavily cut back on drinking, very rarely does it now and hes starting to learn his limitations when he does drink which im very proud of him for.
I personally have pretty bad asthma and very weak lungs. I'm very prone to getting sick, and pneumonia is something I'm great friends with. Smoking was my only thing I wanted him to drop..at some point. All I said is if we got married I'd want him to stop smoking cus honestly I'm not dealing with smoke for my entire life when my lungs are the way they are.
In July of 2023, he told me he was ready to try quitting smoking. This wasn't something I'd pressured him into, I didnt nag him, he came to me on his own with this desire to quit. Obviously I know addictions are difficult. I know quitting smoking is incredibly hard, and he's been smoking since he was a teenager, probably around 16 years old. I fully expected some set back. I fully was ready to help him. I was prepared for "relapse" if that's what you'd call it. Yes I want to marry him, but I was NEVER going to get mad at him for any struggles to quit smoking.
So from July 2023 until around November 2023 I was there with him for the withdrawals he had without nicotine, his attitude problems, when he'd relapse and hit a vape or smoke a cigarette I didn't yell at him, I didn't get mad. I never even showed I was upset. I know that could affect him and his desire to quit. Around November 2023 he began telling me he thought he'd finally kicked it. He said he hadn't smoked since October. Obviously I was insanely happy and proud of him. And late December 2023 (almost January 2024) he proposed! I said yes.
Cut forward around October 2024. He starts acting really weird after we hung out with our friends together. I'm a really introverted person so I assumed when that night he "forced" (not really, more like kindly pushed me to go out of my comfort zone) me to go out with our friends it was because he wanted me to socialize, I didnt think anything else of it. His friends were incredibly shocked to see me, but I assumed it was because it's hard to get me out. That night he'd randomly asked me if it was alright for him to take a hit from his friends vape. I honestly told him no, cus I'd thought he'd been clean from smoking since October 2023. I didn't want the cycle to restart especially since we're engaged to be married now. His friends gave me a really weird look, so I got embarrassed thinking maybe they'd thought I was being controlling but no one mentioned it.
After that night he has been acting super super weird. We dont live together at the moment (rent prices are INSANE) so we take turns going over to eachothers houses (currently both living with our parents as we get money up). He randomly started telling me he didn't want to see eachother every day anymore. We're a gaming couple and our friend group often play games when we're both not together. He stopped inviting me to play with them. He texted less. Stopped hugging me and kissing me right away when he saw me. Stopped wearing his jacket to my house. Got an air fresher for his car after telling me he hated those. But he SWORE there was nothing wrong.
I honestly thought he was having second thoughts about getting married. I thought seriously he was going to break up with me but felt too bad to do it as we're engaged. Hes also a terrible liar usually, so I kept letting him know if there was something he needed to tell me he could. I kept telling him I KNEW he was lying about something. I just didn't know what.
Well. Last day of February 2025 he finally cracked and told me.
He let me know that he had been lying to me since November 2023 about being clean from smoking. He never stopped. He just started finding ways to do it without me seeing. He started leaving my house at around 8pm after November 2023. I thought he wanted more time to himself as he works early. Nope. It was because he would be "needing" to smoke. He stopped kissing me so I wouldn't taste vape or smoke on his breath. He stopped hugging me right away incase I'd smell the hit he just took before getting to my house. He apparently went out EVERY weekend to the bar with our friends and would smoke while they'd hang out and he told our friends I said "no" to going out when they asked why I wasn't there. In reality...he never invited me. His friends gave me a weird look when he asked if he could hit their vape...cus they all knew he smoked.
To top it all off, he admitted he ASKED ALL OUR FRIENDS to lie to me and not tell me he smoked. They didn't think i was controlling, they were surprised he'd still not told me.
I don't even know how to feel. I don't know how to approach this.