AITAH : vaping in house
F(26) and my partner M(27) just welcomed our first baby a few months ago. We’ve been together since we were 16, and we moved in together when we were really young, 17 years old. My partner did not start smoking until he was about 18 years old. Back then, he did smoke in the house because we were young and just did whatever we wanted. However, as I matured, around age 20-21, I asked him to stop smoking in the house, which he did. Over time, though, he began smoking really heavily. I’ve never been a smoker, so smoking really bothers me. Since he didn’t smoke when we first got together, I realized how much I hated smoking; the smell, the breathe, the kisses after. Even so, I still allowed my partner to be himself, and I don’t constantly bring it up. I have expressed that I don’t like it, but he simply avoids doing it around me. About three years ago, he said he wanted to stop smoking, or at least cut back when we mentioned trying to start a family and I completely supported that decision. He always smells like smoke, his car heavily smells like smoke, and he always has smoking paraphernalia with him. Even though he smoked on the balcony, our balcony is right off the living room, so the smell would sometimes linger when he came back inside. It’s a lot of hard work, but he slowly stopped smoking as much. when we got pregnant a year ago, he slowly smoking and then completely stopped, but he started vaping.
Once he started vaping, he stopped going out to the balcony and slowly began vaping everywhere inside the house. There were even times when he vaped around me while I was pregnant. He would apologize and say, “My bad,” but I feel like vaping is so easy to do and so widely accepted that it became second nature for him to pull it out and use it. I know he was not intentionally doing it, but he constantly vaped around me during my pregnancy because it was just so convenient and automatic for him.
Now that our son is here, I constantly see him vaping in the house. He thinks it’s not a big deal because it’s “just vaping,” and he says he won’t vape directly around our son. I initially tried to let it go, but I told him I still do not want him vaping in the house at all, especially because we have a balcony that is easily accessible. I’m not asking him to leave the property or go sit in his car just to step onto the balcony. Lately, though, I’ve noticed him vaping around our son almost automatically. He’ll be sitting in the living room holding our baby and will pull out his vape, or our baby will be in his swing in the same room while he vapes. I do not like this at all. He says he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it and that it’s just an automatic response. I can understand that he is not intentionally doing it, but I suggested that maybe, when he is around the baby, he could leave the vape in another room so he doesn’t accidentally reach for it. However, I’ve noticed he doesn’t do that. He keeps the vape on him constantly. It’s becoming a real problem for me because I do not want my son around vaping. Even though my partner is apologetic, I think he genuinely believes it is not a serious issue because he is vaping instead of smoking. He seems to think vaping is not as harmful