Britain’s veteran television presenter Richard Madeley has a weekly agony uncle column in The Telegraph.
Recently, a 76-year-old lady from Argyll and Bute in Scotland wrote to him complaining about her 73-year-old husband’s smoking and drinking.
Excerpts of the letter and Madeley’s wise reply follow, emphases mine.
Anon writes:
I am 76 and I don’t smoke or drink. My husband is 73: he drinks strong lager every day, he smokes and he takes no exercise whatsoever.
All of this is making me increasingly worried and angry. He is a good man, but I fear that he has deliberately set himself on a path to self-destruction. (Certainly he seems to take no evident pleasure from his habits.) He knows my views on the matter but we have never argued about it.
Richard Madeley begins by asking where the harm is in her husband’s habits, as he is in his eighth decade. He tells the woman that she is:
over-worrying a bit about this.
It’s not as if your husband is shooting up on class-A drugs every night or downing a whole bottle of whisky before sunset; he is indulging in some pretty mild vices. Yes, smoking is especially harmful, but if he hasn’t managed to kick the habit by now I think it’s probably a lost cause.
You say that he knows your views on the matter but quietly carries on puffing away and snapping open those tinnies anyway. You also say that you don’t argue about it and he doesn’t behave objectionably after he has sunk a few.
So my advice? Leave him be. It is not a perfect situation and you are quite right to be concerned about what his habits are doing to his liver and his lungs, but ultimately that is his responsibility, isn’t it? Carry on enjoying your own retirement in your own way and let him enjoy his on his terms.
Live and let live. Or, rather, live and let smoke and drink. There are worse things in a marriage, you know.
I couldn’t agree more.
This lady should be thanking God for a lasting marriage — and enjoying her husband’s company more often. No doubt he was smoking and drinking lager when she married him. If it wasn’t a problem then, it shouldn’t be one now.
13 comments
September 28, 2021 at 10:01 pm
OIKOS™- Art, Books & more
Reblogged this on OPENED HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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September 28, 2021 at 10:03 pm
OIKOS™- Art, Books & more
A very good advice, C.M.! Gosh, now also the elders are complaining against each other. 😉 Perhaps I would have quoted something from the book of Proverbs to the lady. Thanks also for the smile, and have a nice and blessed week! xx Michael
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September 29, 2021 at 10:37 am
churchmouse
Thank you, Michael, for your good wishes and for the reblog, both of which are greatly appreciated.
Agree with you that a quote from Proverbs would have been appropriate. 🙂
May the rest of your week be blessed!
Our weather here is distinctly autumnal. Fortunately, I was able to get most of my garden tasks done by Sunday, the last warm day of the year.
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September 29, 2021 at 4:59 pm
OIKOS™- Art, Books & more
Thank you, C.M.. You in the UK are mostly famous gardeners.;-) I really do not have the green dump, so our yard is more like a jungle. Lol Yes, i will miss the summer too. Best wishes, Michael
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September 29, 2021 at 12:45 am
lynnfay73
Well… I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. I’ve been wondering for a long time if you were male or female. I’m still not 100% sure, but am thinking you’re a guy. 🙂 I agree with you you are likely not changing the guy. She has to decide if it’s disrupting her life enough she wants to actually change it. However, here is a thought. Right now I’m taking care of my father who is 90 with heart disease, COPD, Parkinson’s disease. In really bad shape. He drank heavily and smoked many years. I’ve been doing it three years and it’s taken a huge toll. I am in pretty good health right now. Meantime, my husband has been a big drinker all his life, smoked some in his youth, marijuana for while before me. Now he has two heart stents, some heart failure blood levels, and has real short term memory problems. We just actually somehow qualified for short term longer term insurance help, for a tidy sum monthly. But it isn’t much. If he has some form of dementia and heart failure (I guess if he just dies of a heart attack or heart failure, not such a big deal) but if he gets dementia and I spend the rest of my life taking care of him (or lose my kids’ inheritance such as it is), I’m a little pissed off about giving up my retirement to take care of people who were so freaking selfish to not take care of their own health or think about the impact it has on other people. I told my husband if he wasn’t going to take care of his health, I was not giving up the rest of my life to take care of him. Take your choice. I guess my options would be to divorce him and save HALF of our money for my kids. But you have over-simplified this thing. And it might not be the wife–you might be making some child take care of you because you are such an idiot. I suppose I could wonder if I had bad judgment when I chose him 🙂 He does have redeeming characteristics. But I’m about done being caregiver. For selfish people. My life is not very fun. So I guess I have a bit more compassion for this wife. She probably has a few more thoughts about this than your surfacy reply… 🙂 Are you a guy or a woman??
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September 29, 2021 at 12:47 am
lynnfay73
p.s. if you all just die one day without making anyone take care of you or you are happy to be dropped off in the joint, and have made arrangements for that, that might be just dandy. 🙂
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September 29, 2021 at 10:25 am
churchmouse
I am sorry to read of your family situation. My thoughts are with you.
However, I can point to any number of non-smokers who have debilitating diseases or Alzheimer’s. They prided themselves on never having had a cigarette or much strong drink — and they still got long-term illnesses requiring daily care from a family member or moving to a nursing home.
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September 29, 2021 at 3:36 pm
lynnfay73
Not the point, though. My father wouldn’t have COPD if he hadn’t smoked all that time and other hard living things. Or used all that Roundup pesticide in his garden every year I told him not to, might not have Parkinson’s. The point is you don’t do things PURPOSELY without a thought for other people and then think they should donate their lives to care for you. Live and let live, eh. I’m more tolerant of drinking if people aren’t full on alcoholics but smoking is ridiculous, not to mention you are usually inflicting second hand smoke on other people. As a kid, I had to empty those disgusting ashtrays. Nauseating. If you want to make arrangements for long term care or you plan to go out in some blaze of glory, that’s fine. I can tell you’ve never been a caretaker. 🙂 And nobody should live a life so pure they have no fun, eat perfectly all the time, never drink, not saying that (and she can’t control him, she can only control herself) but there seemed to be a blatant disregard for other people in your post that didn’t sit quite right, either. 🙂 I think people should think things through a little more. Well…anyway
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September 29, 2021 at 12:52 pm
dearieme
For better or worse, in sickness and in health …
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September 29, 2021 at 2:18 pm
churchmouse
Absolutely.
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September 29, 2021 at 4:16 pm
sackersonwp
Three score and ten: he’s a;ready won, so every day from now is a bonus.
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September 29, 2021 at 8:48 pm
Nigel
From personal experience of my own, and watching other good friends let go, there does come a point that we may not want to be here any more. This is a very personal thing. I think the lady may see this happening before her eyes. Someone deciding to leave as quietly as possible. i.e. not commiting suicide in a blatant fashion. Is there not something about when you hate this world and this life? It happens and people have a tiger by the tail when it does. You don’t want to die and you don’t want to live. How ill prepared we are for this event. And lo, where has it all gone. I think of Psalm 30.
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September 30, 2021 at 9:40 pm
churchmouse
I mostly agree, Nigel, which lockdown has proven.
Your reference to Psalm 30 is indeed a wise one:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+30&version=ESV
On the other hand, one man’s perception of suicide is another man’s perception of living life to the full.
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