# Sometimes it's the most obvious thing (and you're not looking there!)



## Miss Metta (Jan 27, 2013)

To all those who have commented followed advised on my threads of late:

I was wrong. It is unlikely H is having an affair.

All that money missing and convenience store purchases? 

All those weekend trips to the hardware store that, by the end of last week, had me convinced he had a burner phone and was calling OW?
The six months or so of angst and anxiety?

All it took was for me to look in his car (searching for a burner)
well, I found a burner alright
in the console

a fking pack of cigarettes and a lighter!

The lying SOB is smoking again. It' s not drugs, it's not affairs. It's not gambling. It's much simpler. He's gone back to smoking but hiding it much better this time.
The convenience store purchases are exactly the amount of a pack of cigs. The cash withdrawals were so I don't know...

I don't know why I didn't catch on or consider it earlier as in hindsight it's actually the most obvious. 
I guess I just thought he was so far past it and he had quit for good.
The 'trips' out on the weekend is so he can have a flippin' smoke!


I don't know why it took me so long to just, well, look in his car!
At first I was just relieved. Here I was thinking there's an OW because he'd been so cagey and deceptive. I had smelled it on him occasionally but he'd brushed it off. I honestly didn't think of it.

Now I'm annoyed. Our initial agreement - BEFORE we dated, the deal-breaker, was smoking. I said I didn't want to be next to the bed of a dying husband in a cancer ward. And I thought he'd quit. There'd been some bumps and he'd hidden it from me, but I thought he quit permanently 18 months ago.
Now I look back I can see that this has been going on longer than 6 months, which is when I was back on these boards posting about money disappearing. There MAY have been drugs involved, too, for a short while, but it's predominantly been ciggies. 
Why did I think of everything else but? It was THE most obvious! but from hereon in this belongs in another thread. As in, how do I broach this now that I know? Should he be unfaithful though, I now know what to do, thanks to all of you.
Metta


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## Mr The Other (Feb 1, 2014)

Miss Metta said:


> To all those who have commented followed advised on my threads of late:
> 
> I was wrong. It is unlikely H is having an affair.
> 
> ...


It does show that the standard TAM approach of investigate without confrontation is the best first step. There are too many posters wanting to press the nuclear button straight away. 

Of course, ideally, he would have shared with you that he was struggling to cope without smoking. Most of us have some self-destructive tendencies and this was doubly so.

Good luck and well done.

That he you could smell the dishonesty suggests he is not comfortable lying to you, and that is a good start.


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## Mr.Married (Feb 21, 2018)

Ha !!!! .............. A lucky strike !!!!!


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Buy him a vaping device and tell him a neighbour saw him smoking?


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## Mr The Other (Feb 1, 2014)

MattMatt said:


> Buy him a vaping device and tell him a neighbour saw him smoking?


Get him the vaping say that you can read him like a book.

Far better for keeping him honest!


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## She'sStillGotIt (Jul 30, 2016)

Will secretly smoking *also* account for all the OTHER shady behavior you've posted about over the last 6 years?



> I've been watching and waiting and as they say on this forum, they start to get careless or you just get timely clues. It seems to me that most of the activity is happening on the phone. Appears to have been using a free one-use only SMS number service so that there is no record of his real number in the phone log. I believe these numbers used to log into sites like Tinder etc or any site, really, where you don't want to use your real number.





> I also think he's deleting messages and using private browsing, so history is no use, I need to go deeper.


In other past posts, you've_ also_ mentioned that you've been dealing with years of his SHADY behavior - being vague about where he's going or where he's been, refusing to give you the address of where his supposed 'friends' live when he was going to go visit/stay with them that weekend, having way too many 'dental appointments' always on the *same* day of the week and at the *same* time of day, etc. etc. etc.

*Surely* all this shady behavior isn't due to him simply sneaking a smoke?

I think smoking is just one of the many things this guy is hiding from you. You'll eventually find that out.


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## Ragnar Ragnasson (Mar 4, 2018)

I wonder why he felt he had to jump through hoops just to have a smoke?

Just throwin' a different perspective out there for discussion sake.

That would be a cold day in hell.


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## SkyFive (Apr 4, 2019)

All of that just to preserve your feelings. What was he thinking? :surprise:


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## She'sStillGotIt (Jul 30, 2016)

SkyFive said:


> All of that just to preserve your feelings. What was he thinking? :surprise:


 From everything I've read about this guy (read the OP's posting history), _her_ feelings are pretty much the very LAST THING this guy gives a *rat's ass* about. Hiding his smoking wasn't to spare her feelings, it was about him wanting to avoid her nagging his lying ass about it.

It's ALL about him and what he wants - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.


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## StillSearching (Feb 8, 2013)

Ragnar Ragnasson said:


> I wonder why he felt he had to jump through hoops just to have a smoke?
> 
> Just throwin' a different perspective out there for discussion sake.
> 
> That would be a cold day in hell.


The things a man will do...................


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## Sauvie Island (Jul 4, 2018)

You already know what's going on, you're just afraid to 'take the plunge'. 
Get real; it's why you frequent this particular bar.

I remember flying in a holding pattern looking for the strength as well a couple of years ago, on this same site talking to these same people. I knew it. They knew it.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

She'sStillGotIt said:


> Will secretly smoking *also* account for all the OTHER shady behavior you've posted about over the last 6 years?
> 
> In other past posts, you've_ also_ mentioned that you've been dealing with years of his SHADY behavior - being vague about where he's going or where he's been, refusing to give you the address of where his supposed 'friends' live when he was going to go visit/stay with them that weekend, having way too many 'dental appointments' always on the *same* day of the week and at the *same* time of day, etc. etc. etc.
> 
> ...


Agree 100%. I stand by my previous advice to let his sorry ass go.


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