When I married Michelle, I knew that she would have a cigarette every once in a while at parties. I didn’t like it all that much, but was still okay with it. Just because it’s not something I would personally do is no reason to judge somebody. But recently, things have been getting worse.

As of now, she’s smoking a cigarette a day – and, worse, it’s caused her to to lose her judgement over the situation to the point where she’s actually being dishonest with me about her behaviour. I’m not going to go into details, suffice it to say that, for all intents and purposes, her desire for her daily puff has assumed priority over everything else in her life.

At one point, after her behaviour caused a big rift between us when I caught her telling me several things about it that weren’t true, she told me that she’d ask me before she had a cigarette. I thought that we’d come to an agreement and that, despite her “problem”, I could trust her to be honest with me about it.

I finally got my physical job contract. I opened a bottle of champagne that her mother and aunts had bought for me a little while ago to celebrate my new job. She asked me if she could have a cigarette or not. I told her that I didn’t want her to. I didn’t want to associate the day of my “officially” getting my new job with her continued addiction to nicotine. Apparently she didn’t like my response because she went ahead and had one anyway.

I don’t know what to do about this. If there isn’t trust in a relationship, I don’t know what there is. Trust is the most important aspect of any relationship – it’s what I assume exists between myself any of my close friends and family. If I can’t trust my own wife and best friend – I can only question everything I know about her.

The first time I caught her being dishonest with me I was hurt. It took me several days to get over it, and I thought that we had the potential of being closer than ever when we made up. Now I have no idea at all where it leaves us. I’m hoping that we can get over this, but I don’t know if it’s in me to do so. At the very least, I want to be close friends with her, but I just don’t know if the foundation of an intimate relationship exists between us any more.

What’s worse is that she still continues to make light of this and doesn’t take my reaction seriously at all. She has no idea how badly she’s disappointed me – or even how much she’s jeapordized our relationship with this. I don’t get close to people easily, but the bonds I make are as close as I know anybody to make with anybody else. But if I’m ever betrayed in the openness I share with somebody, I’m very quick to disown them and move on with things. I’ve never been married before, never cared for anybody as much as I care about her. So this is the first time I’ve faced something as pivotal as this. I honestly don’t know where things are going to go from here.