Burned over honesty on marrying a smoker
Dear Amy: I try hard to not give advice unless I am asked to do so, but after my granddaughter became engaged, she wrote me the following letter:
“He is far from perfect, but I can endure all of his bad habits, as he endures mine, except for his chain-smoking. He has promised he will quit after we are married, but I have my doubts.
You lived with granddad all those years and he smoked; was it really so bad?”
This is what I wrote back:
“No, my darling, it wasn’t so bad. That is, if you don’t mind that the whole interior of your home gets covered with a brownish yellow goo. I struggled for years to scrub it off, but I finally just gave up.
“If you don’t mind that your hair, skin and lungs get polluted and stink from his secondhand smoke.
“If you get used to being alone at social events because he is outside smoking.
“If you give up on traveling because he gets grouchy when he can’t smoke on the plane. And anyway, with the huge amount he spends on cigarettes, there’s no money left over for travel or much of anything else.
“Finally, if you are willing to watch him die a slow and painful death, hooked up to oxygen and gasping for every precious breath, then no, it isn’t that bad.”
Because of my letter, she postponed the wedding until after he quit smoking. He, in turn, chose his cigarettes over this beautiful young woman and booked.
Now her mother (my daughter-in-law) won’t speak to me.
Smoker’s Widow
Dear Widow: You were not wrong to tell the truth about your life. Your granddaughter asked you a specific question and you answered it.
Your daughter-in-law may have a separate gripe with you, but it’s hard to imagine that she would really want her daughter to marry someone who would choose his Winstons over his wife.
The most you can do is to offer your daughter-in-law the opportunity to explain herself and, in the spirit of reconciliation, listen to her point of view and apologize if an apology is called for.
Send questions to Amy Dickinson by e-mail to askamy@tribune.com.