Hey Reddit, I’m in a bit of a situation with my boyfriend and I need some outside opinions. I [23F] and my boyfriend [24M] have been dating two years. So, I’ve been vaping for a while now, and I know it’s not good for me. Honestly, I don’t really want to quit, and it wasn’t a dealbreaker when we first started dating. I did say I’d quit after college, but I still haven’t. Now, my boyfriend has expressed concerns about my health and wants me to have a healthier lifestyle. He’s asked me to quit vaping, and I kinda want to, but it’s really hard. I’m addicted, and it’s not like I can just stop overnight.
This conversation came up because we’re about to move in together, and he wants us to have a healthier lifestyle. For the record, I weigh 130 and I’ve been to all my doctor’s appointments this year, and I have no health problems. When I look in the mirror I sometimes mention that I don’t like how my stomach looks, but he said I’ve done nothing to change it. He grabs at my stomach and it makes me really insecure. I told him that I’m not a gym rat. I agree I could eat a little healthier, but I eat fairly balanced meals daily, and he said that he’s not telling me I need to exercise every day. I told him that I’m willing to cut back on drinking wine (which he also doesn’t like), but vaping is a whole different beast. He thinks my weight has to do with the wine, but I drank more wine in college and I weighed less. I don’t go out much at all anymore because I work, and when I drink wine it’s at home. He doesn’t seem to get that vaping is an addiction and that it takes time and effort to quit. He’s acting like I’m choosing to vape just to spite him or something, and he’s getting frustrated with me. I don’t wanna quit vaping for him; I wanna do it for myself, but idk if I’m ready. I just want support over judgement.
AITA for not being able to quit vaping immediately after he asked me to, and this is all happening as we’re about to move in together?
NTA. Addictions are tough and its gonna take some work but the bigger question is why youre dating someone who grabs your stomach to make you feel insecure. Thats not healthy.
Agreed he’s wack for that
Yeah he sounds cruel and unkind. OP is far too young to be wasting time with a man treating her like that under the guise of her “health” when we all know it’s just about control.
NTA – but quit for you, not your boyfriend. He seems really intent on molding you into the person he wants, instead of wanting the person you are.
Edit to add: I am an addict who has been addicted to several substances in my life. So I have some perspective on this and am not judging you for being an addict.
NTA but honestly this isn’t an “asshole or not asshole” situation. This is a situation where you DECIDE what you want and you DO the thing without making excuses. You cannot quit an addictive substance for ANYONE but yourself or for ANY reason except that it’s what you want. That’s how recovery from addiction works.
It’s your life. I think you are very aware that your habits aren’t good for you and that you will eventually have to give them up if you want to be healthy. You’re just not ready to do it. You can either figure out how to be ready, or you can keep your habits and deal with the fallout.
If you don’t want to quit, tell him you are NOT going to quit and that’s the final word on it. Then it’s up to him to decide whether he wants to stay with you.
If you tell him you’re not quitting and he decides to continue to harass you about it, then it’s up to you to decide whether or not to stay with him.
He’s definitely the asshole for grabbing your stomach if you’ve asked him not to do that.
As for quitting, honestly you CAN just quit. Nothing is stopping you except an addiction. You will not be in danger physically from quitting, and it doesn’t take long for nicotine to clear your system. However, if you want to prolong it or there’s a reason you can’t deal with the emotional issues caused by quitting, then you can get a 0% nicotine juice and mix it with whatever strength you’re using, then wean yourself off until you’re at 0%. Then admit that you’re now only addicted to the hand-to-mouth action and find something else to keep you occupied.
Do not move in with him. Anyone who grabs your stomach to fat shame you is awful. Most cis women have that pouch and that pouch protects internal organs. And although diet and exercise can help with weight control, genetics is the number one determining factor. If your medical care provider is not concerned, your boyfriend absolutely should not be.
As for vaping, it is an addiction. If you genuinely want to quit, you do need to take ownership and try to find the resources in your journey to do so but cold turkey doesn’t work for everyone and that your boyfriend takes this as a personal slight is ridiculous.
I think the weight you need to drop is your bf and I wish you luck on your quitting vaping journey.
NTA. You really wanna move in with this guy? He sounds pretty controlling
NTA.
Your boyfriend’s strategy to motivate you is shaming you, which doesn’t work. Besides your health habits, the main unhealthy thing in your life is your shitty boyfriend. And this isn’t a figure of speech, low mental health and self esteem are linked to poorer health outcomes later in life.
Your boyfriend is a cocktail of controlling, selfish and not empathetic. He is so imbued with himself that he doesn’t concern himself with how deep problems impact others (including his own partner), only that HE doesn’t have those problems so others should just make the choice to be problem free.
Smoking is definitely an issue, but here’s the real problem in your life: You have a boyfriend who doesn’t reassure you on your appearance and shames you for not being more like him. You should consider how he’s gonna treat your kids if they have issues and how he’s going to treat you in front of them. He’ll act too good for you around his own kids? Nah fuck that girl!
NTA. Choosing to quit nicotine is a major decision and breaking the addiction takes a huge amount of willpower. If it isn’t fueled by you, you just won’t be able to do it, full stop.
Also: I’m sorry but he wants you to stop vaping so that you will *lose* weight?!? What rock has he been living under lmao.
Look, I don’t want to scare you off of a good thing. I finally quit vaping after years because I got pneumonia so bad I was in the hospital for a week. I had been wanting to quit for a while and I couldn’t vape while in the hospital or recovering, so I used that momentum to help me. It was a great decision and I am happy with the mostly positive impact it has had on my life, but losing weight was *not* one of those things lmao.
Honey, do you really want to move in with this energy? You’ll have nowhere to go when he’s being critical and cutting you down and you want to get away from it.
It sounds like he wants to change some pretty significant parts of who you are, and make you always make choices for optimum health rather than considering what makes you happy. That’s a lot to live with. Right now, if you’ve had A Day and just don’t feel like facing criticism, you can choose to stay home alone and unwind. If you’re feeling attacked or like you just can’t win, you can easily have some you time alone. When you move in with someone, your ability to walk away from conflict is pretty strongly limited by whether your partner will let you.
Also, radical thought I want you to think about here – is being healthier and being better the same? Is moralizing health good for us, as human beings? If we moralize health, what happens when we become not-healthy, even if it was something we don’t have control over, like chronic illness or disability? Is the way we verbally and emotionally punish ourselves and each other for doing things that are unhealthy actually good for us?
NTA, but I would not like to be treated the way you are describing your partner treating you.
NTA
GIRL do not move in with someone who grabs at your stomach & makes you feel insecure about weighing 130 lbs. I had a friend who dated a guy like that over a decade ago—he’d criticize her hair, ask her if she “really needed to eat that,” try to control her. She was so miserable & didn’t tell us what was going on for the longest time. She broke up with him and just brightened up so much. Yes, you should try to quit vaping because there are so many health risks associated with it—but it’s not a moral downfall it’s an addiction. I’d take a wild guess and say it’d be a whole lot easier to quit if he wasn’t around.
Ok, thank you. As I’m reading this post, sure – I understand OP doesn’t want to stop a habit cold turkey (or at all, really) but the red flags on the BF just kept stacking.
> He grabs at my stomach and it makes me really insecure.
(which he also doesn’t like)
He thinks my weight has to do with the wine,
I weigh 130
He’s acting like I’m choosing to vape just to spite him
All of this is really gross behavior. At 130lbs, even if OP is 5’0″ – that’s not heavy.
ESH.
You know you’re addicted, you knew this was coming, you could have prepared. You don’t want to quit, and addictions are hard enough to quit when people *want* to be free of them. If he doesn’t want to be with someone who vapes, you shouldn’t move in together until you’ve quit, and you shouldn’t be making promises you don’t want to keep. And you need to quit kidding yourself, you’re not healthy if you’re vaping.
BUT also:
Why is he grabbing your stomach when he knows you don’t want him to, and weighing in on your food and drink and gym habits? You wouldn’t believe how many controlling relationships start with “concerns about health” and the controlling partner doing things to make trying-to-change partner feel insecure. Even if I have agree with him on the vaping issue, most of your post just feels off. If you tell him to quit grabbing your stomach and he keeps doing it, that’s a red flag.
Edit: a few clarifying words
NTA but what you _really_ need to quit is this loser. Stomach grabbing and playing on your insecurities are a big NO. And no, it’s not coming from worrying about your health, he has control issues. Think seriously if you really want to spend the rest of your life this way