Do you want to quit smoking but your partner won’t? What should you do? Read to the end because I’m going to tell you the 3 positive things that you can really do to make sure no matter what type of partner you have, supportive or unsupportive, that you can beat the habit of smoking no problem.
I’m also going to give you in this post 10 tips, tricks, and hacks you can do to make sure that you quit smoking especially if your partner isn’t quitting with you.
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You want to quit but your partner won’t. They’re not going to quit with you. What should you do? Let’s go through the 10 tips, and then at the very end of the video I will give you the 3 positive things you can do to make sure that you’re successful.
The 1st thing to know is that there’s really 3 types of partners when it comes to quitting smoking with unsupportive partners and supportive partners. I listed both supportive and unsupportive. Why I put both up here is because the truth is people aren’t monoliths. We don’t tend to be just one way. We tend to vacillate go from one thing to another. So, what you’re going to find is your partner is going both to be supportive and unsupportive. They’re going to go back and forth. It’s just good to understand that.
Don’t make your partner into one kind of partner. It is a self-sabotage technique. Realize that people are dynamic and your partner is likely going to be both.
You may be one of those lucky people that just has a partner who is supportive. They’re not going to quit themselves, but they’re going to be supportive of you. That is less than 3% of partners. Most partners will be supportive at times and unsupportive at others.
If you’re one of those people that has a partner that is just unsupportive of you I’m going to tell you exactly how to frame your quitting, and how you can use these tips, tricks, and hacks to have that not get in your way.
Let’s hop right into these 10 tips.
Tip #1. When you decide to quit smoking do not make up what type of partner you’re going to have. Don’t make up that they are going to be supportive because you may be disappointed. Do not make up that they’re just going to be unsupportive, no matter how well you know them.
Discover. You may be surprised. Likely you’ll find that they can be a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B.
The first thing we want to do is start the discovery process. Be open. Sit your partner down and explain to them that you are quitting smoking and that this has nothing to do with them. They’re free to join you, but you’re doing this for yourself.
Tip #2. Set some ground rules.
When you sit them down you’re going to ask them to either support you, or at least not get in your way. Here’s why this is important. What we’re really doing when we sit our partner down here is we’re setting the ground rules.
When you’re quitting smoking you can set the ground rules. So, set ground rules. What are we doing here is we’re setting ourselves up for success.
Let’s go through some of these ground rules.
If you have an unsupportive partner ask them not to speak to you about quitting smoking. You simply have to say, “This isn’t about you. My quit smoking journey is about me and nobody else. It’s part of my quit smoking journey. I’m not talking to anybody about it. It’s not about you. It’s about me. I’m not just not talking to you about it. I’m not talking to anybody about it.”
If you have a supportive partner or one that vacillates back and forth you can talk to your partner about smoking, but if you find that talking about smoking is getting in your way or making it hard for you simply say to them, “As part of my quit smoking journey I’ve decided now that I’m not going to talk to people about quitting smoking. It is nothing about you. It is about me.”
Keep making it about you. The more you make quitting smoking about you the more likely you’ll be successful.
No matter what type of partner you have, supportive or unsupportive, ask them not to talk to you about smoking. If you have a supportive one, that’s fine, but if they start to vacillate and become unhelpful just simply ask them not to speak to you about smoking and don’t blame them.
Tip #3. No smoking around you. This can be difficult because if you have a partner who still smokes they may say things to you like, “Why can’t I smoke in my own home? Why do I have to go outside because you’re deciding to quit?”
Here’s how you handle that. You have to simply say to them, “Look. I’m trying to quit smoking. This isn’t forever.”
Do not make it about forever. When we make things about forever, or we make things that have no ending it’s harder to get our partners to buy into it. Give it a timeframe. Say that you don’t want your partner smoking around you for a month or 2. Say it’s just for 3 months. However long that your partner will agree to. Get as much time as you can, but do not make it about forever. They’re more likely to say yes to you.
That leads to the next tip.
Tip #4. Make your home smoke-free.
You’re quitting smoking. If your partner decides that they are going to cut their life short and do something unhealthy they can go outside to smoke. It’s not an unreasonable ask.
I get that this is also your partner’s home, so again, back to this trick of don’t make it forever. Don’t say there’s no more smoking in our house forever. Don’t make rules like that. Just say that while you’re on your quit smoking journey for the next 3 months you want to have a rule that there’s no smoking in the house. Tell them they can just simply go aside for 3 months.
Here’s the thing. Once they’ve gone outside for a month or 2 it’s actually unlikely that they themselves will even want to smoke in the home again because they’ll start to like that their house doesn’t smell like cigarettes. They’ll like that it smells fresh and clean.
So, don’t make it about forever. Make it a finite time period and watch what happens when you get there.
Tip #5. Go stay with family or a friend. This tip isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you can swing this and you have an unsupportive partner in particular, this is very helpful.
Go for the first week of you quitting smoking, or maybe 2 weeks if you can manage it. Maybe stay a month. Here’s what’s going to happen. First of all it’s going to change your habits and your associations with smoking. It’s actually going to make quitting smoking easier too.
If you have an unsupportive partner this may cause them to be like, “Whoa! Wait a minute. Maybe me being unsupportive is not helping. I need to be supportive because I want my partner back living in my home.” It may not. There is really no way to know until you do it, but if you can do this it’s a good way to avoid an unsupportive partner just for a short time.
If you have a supportive partner this one’s probably not for you. You can just stay in your home although even if you have a supportive partner you may want to go stay with your parents for a little bit or a relative or friend. Just go for a week or two to get yourself kicked off and on the right track. It’s a really good tip, trick, and hack if you can manage it.
Tip #6. Remember quitting is for you and not someone else. If you’ve read my EBook How to Prepare Your Mind for Quitting Smoking you’ll know that to quit smoking successfully we have a better chance if we are properly motivated.
When we are motivated by somebody else we’re not as likely to be successful. We know that from studies in psychology. It needs to be for you.
If you want more details on what type of motivation it takes to break a habit I have a video specifically about all the preconditions that are required to break any habit. You can watch that video on my YouTube channel, but here’s what you need to know for this post. Remember that you’re doing it for you. You’re not quitting smoking for your partner. You’re not quitting smoking because your doctor’s been nagging you.
You have to frame your quitting as it being for you. The self-motivation is internal. We’re going to come back to this later.
Tip #7. The other thing you can do if your partner isn’t going to quit with you is use that fact as a motivator. This may go perfectly with your personality, but this isn’t for everyone. If you don’t have a personality that is motivated by that then don’t do this tip, trick, and hack, but many people, in fact, most people find this motivating. This is a very successful motivator to quit smoking for 83% of people.
Use your partner’s unwillingness or not going to quit smoking as a motivator for you to be successful. Show them that it can be done. Show them that you can do it. Show them that it’s possible, and use that as a motivator. Use the fact that they’re not quitting as motivation not as an excuse as to why you fail.
We’ll come to that right here in a second, but before we get that let’s get the 8th trick.
Tip #8. Celebrate! Celebrate constantly – almost every day. Go on the Facebook chat groups and say I made it another day. Buy yourself something. Get a new shirt, a new dress, a new piece of clothing, or a treat. Treat yourself to anything that is not food related.
There’s a good reason for that. There is an association with quitting smoking and weight gain. You can learn more about this in my video on why you gain weight when you quit smoking. I give tons of additional hacks to combat the weight gain.
All you need to know for this trick is celebrating is the art of positive momentum. When you celebrate you get positive momentum to help keep you being successful. Just don’t make it food.
Tip #9. Understand and have compassion. This goes back to the previous tips about properly motivating yourself and using your partner’s not-quitting as a motivating factor. Here’s what you have to understand about that. This is really about how we frame it and how we hold it.
The understanding that you’re quitting may be challenging to your partner. It actually may be hard for them. Come from a place of compassion and love. That will help you let go and properly motivate yourself.
I have a little trick for you to help. Put yourself in your partner’s shoes. Try to see it from their perspective. They may see it as a threat if you quit smoking and are successful and they don’t. What does that say about them?
This happens a lot especially if your partner’s male. Competition is a natural instinct. It may kick in their competitive spirit, and so they may sabotage you because if you quit and they don’t it says something about them.
They start to self-doubt. It’s hard on their psychology. It’s a real thing.
Be compassionate about that. It might be difficult for them. They may see it as a danger to the relationship. If this does happen, if you do quit smoking, guess what? You no longer smoke. You’re going to live longer. They may be afraid or see it as a reason that might make you no longer want to be intimate with them. It may be the thing that broke the marriage.
It is not uncommon for a partner who’s not yet ready to quit to see you quitting as a threat. Really think about this. Put it in its proper context. They probably aren’t aware of that fact. That’s all going on in their unconscious mind and they’re having these feelings.
That’s why they’re sabotaging you. That’s why they’re smoking around you or telling you, “Ah, you’re not really going to quit. It’s so hard. You know this method you’re using, cold turkey, doesn’t work. Hypnosis doesn’t work.”
The reason why they’re saying those things is they’re afraid. If you come from a place of compassion and properly frame it in that way, the way that it most likely is, it actually is a lot easier to quit.
Here’s the other thing about this. I see this all the time. This is one of the main ways that we self-sabotage. We blame our partner for our inability to quit.
This leads us to the next one.
Tip #9. Don’t use your failure as a covert “F-You”. This is a huge mistake. Here’s whathappens. Quitting smoking and being successful is all about you. It’s not aboutsomebody else no matter what your partnerdoes, what they say, or how they tryto sabotage you. It’s only you that is inthe way of your success. It’s not yourpartner.The more you blame them andmake it about them the more you take it outside of you.
You make your problemexternal to yourself. You are blamingsomebody else, but you have nobody toblame but yourself no matter howjustified you feel in blaming them or what you feel they did you your success.
Tip #10.This up to you. The truth aboutsuccess is until we realize that successis all internal and it’s only us we’re neverreally successful. If you understand, grasp, and own that your successin quitting smoking is all about you andnobody elseyou will be successful. Until that day you’re not ready.
So, ifyou find yourself being one of thosepeople that says to yourself that you keep failing because your spouse isn’t supportive, and if you’re doing cold turkey you’relikely going to fail on average 30 times, what you need to do is tellyourself, “I have nobody to blame but me.”
Come from a place of compassion and love.Tell yourself, “They just feel threatened by my success,”and show them the way. That will do moreto help you get past an unsupportivepartner than any of these other items.
Here we are. Here are the 3 things that if you just realize and own you can be successful no matter what type of partner you have.
- Remember that you are doing this for you and nobody else. Be properly motivated. You’re doing this for yourself. That’s where all real change starts. The real change happens with realizing the problem is me and it starts here.
- Understand your success has nothing to do with your partner. Do not blame an unsupportive partner. It’s not going to help you be successful. It’s not something external to you. It’s internal. Your success depends on you. You are the leader, and you will show your partner this.
It comes down to that motivation no matter if you have an unsupportive partner or one that vacillates back and forth between being supportive and unsupportive. Just remember you are showing them that you can quit smoking and you can be successful. Use that to motivate yourself.
- Know and understand only good things come to those who quit. There is no good ahead in keeping smoking. Remember that by quitting smoking no matter what you face, what type of partner you have, and how supportive or unsupportive they are there’s only good things coming your way. When you remember that you will feel better about yourself. You will feel better psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and physically. There’s only good things ahead.
You’ve got this! It is a process. It does take time. We do have to go through things, but, trust me and everyone else out there that has ever beaten smoking, there are only good things ahead for you.
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Blessings to everyone and I wish you the absolute best of luck.