no smoking rule

After 25+ years of smoking, I am now about 18 months smoke-free. It is 100% worth it to struggle and make the push to quit.
Do I want one every day? Yes. Do I feel like a million bucks (and have more money) since I quit? Hell yes.
- Great job! Quit 5+ years ago, though I've slipped and had a couple in that time. Not buying 'em was the biggest thing. Still want one whenever I see actors smoking in a movie or show... so the craving never quite goes all the way away.
  I never realized how much it makes you smell until I stopped and could immediately smell it on anyone, no matter how hard they tried to hide it.
- Today is my 2 year anniversary and I hate it. I’m a lifetime smoker through and through.
  I will smoke again in the future, I’m just currently not in a place to smoke right now.
- People say it never gets easier, but it does.

My wife and my 10th anniversary is coming up this year. She quit smoking before we got married. Years later I told her how proud I was of her quitting because it would have been a requirement of mine before saying our vows.

5 years ago she started smoking again when her father died of COVID. I was patient with her in the beginning but I have become increasingly frustrated with her unwillingness to quit. We have been looking forward to a 10th anniversary vow renewal but I told her I won't do it unless she quits. I told her I wouldn't have married a smoker. I will not remarry her while she is a smoker.

Am I being an asshole here?

Unless you’re going about it like an asshole, no. You’re communicating, standing by your position, and setting a boundary.
She knows smoking is dangerous, she knows you don’t like it, she knows you want her to quit, she’s quit before so she knows how to do it.
Have you considered compromising with vapes? Still not as good for you as not smoking at all, but significantly healthier than smoking and doesn’t make everything smell horrific. She can get that nicotine buzz she craves with very few of the downsides. She can also then taper her nicotine content and quit that way if she decides to.
- I'm trying not to to be an asshole about it. She knows my stance and I'm not budging. That said, I don't throw it in her face. In fact, I only told her once that I won't do the vow renewal until she quits. We have an otherwise perfect marriage.
  We haven't had the vape conversation, but I'm not in favor of that either. You don't quit drinking by switching from beer to vodka. I honestly don't know how I would feel about her switching to vape. I hate the smell of her addiction but that's not my biggest issue. I hate the effect on her health but that's not the complete picture either. I hate the concept of a smoking addiction. It's not my identity, and I don't want it to be the identity of us as a couple. We are blue collar AF, but I still feel like her smoking diminishes us.
  I used to be proud of her for quitting and staying quit. Now I'm not anymore.
It sounds like you’re putting extra pressure on her instead of just being loving and supporting, ironically making it harder for her to quit. Cigarettes are notoriously known to be hard to quit. There are always stories of addicts who quit all drugs but struggle to stop smoking. I obviously don’t know the full situation here though.
- I get it 100%. The circumstances that led to her quitting the first time (a medical thing) aren't able to be replicated. Also, the circumstances of her relapse (her father's death) were sharp to say the least.
  Where do you draw the line? At what point do you say, "this is us." "That is not us." ? I could just as easily turn a blind eye to hoarding. It's not dissimilar. But I refuse to live like people who live in garbage. If my wife was addicted to piles of junk, few would argue against me taking a stand against it. Pick an addiction; they all have social connotations. What if she was an abusive alcoholic? I can say no to that right? What if she was a functional alcoholic? Am I within my rights as a husband to put conditions on behaviors that represent "us"?
  The family I grew up in has a zero smoking policy. I have a zero smoking policy. I love my wife, but I will never support her addiction.
Yes and no.
I dont know your wife or her family so pinch of salt and all. But it sounds like cigarettes are a safety blanket back before marriage, mortgages, dad was alive, kids... they dont judge, they help with stress and they give you an excuse to give yourself a 5 minute break now and then.
You arent wrong to be upset but empathy and understanding will go further than bitching and guilt. Addicts are the worlds best excuse makers and the "Oh FUCK HIM" impulse is real.
- They've been smoking for 5 years straight with OP openly disapproving of the situation. I'm not seeing the "Yes, you're the asshole" here. If this was for a brief period then sure. But 5 years is just beyond the pale. Half a decade of someone disapproving of smoking and they haven't found a single opportunity to quit?
Cigarettes are about as addictive as Heroin, so it's not just a matter of "doesn't want to quit", which makes you an asshole if you only apply pressure and don't try to help instead, but i don't know what you've tried.
My personal advice would be to try to get her to start vaping instead, at least as an intermediate step. It's far less unhealthy, doesn't smell awful, and you can taper off the nicotine over time, reducing the addictiveness.
Don't go for disposables, get her a nice mod kit with at least 10 replacement coils (a newbie tends to kill them fast!) and 2-3 sets of batteries (and a charger for them), and go flavour shopping with her. Depending on the smoking habit either go for nic salts when you need a high nic strength (for heavy smokers/chain smokers) or go for freebase nicotine - difference is how much you feel in the throat, nic salts are a lot easier on the throat than freebase, so freebase is when you don't need much nicotine but the throat hit is important. I would say initial costs of about 200 bucks sound about right.
It's the only thing that got me off a 2 decade habit of a pack a day, and i tried a lot. If you have any questions, pm me!
e: an example for a pretty good and cheap beginner mod: https://shop.voopoo.com/products/drag-m100s
- Yeah I'm not doing any of that. I stopped smoking 18 years ago the day I said I don't want to do it anymore. She stopped smoking 12 years ago by just not doing it any more. Quitting is a choice to feel like shit for a reason. You choose to feel like shit every day with the hope that one day you'll feel slightly less like shit. You either do something or you don't do something. There is no such thing as "weaning" off.
No.
You privately set a limit with not marrying a smoker. You made that stance public years later after she had already quit. She knew about that stance. She begins smoking again. Understandable, addicts will relapse. However, relapsing for 5 years straight? When you know it bothers your partner and ACTIVELY contributes to not just a detriment to their health but yours as well? They haven't found a single opportunity to quit? Even for a brief period.
They're the asshole. If this was for a year, nah. Needs more information. But 5 YEARS STRAIGHT? She's not respecting your boundaries or your health.
- Lol. Neither of them are assholes. He decided to stick around for 5 years. He wants her to quit, she probably wants him to be more accepting. He could have left 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 year ago given that he’s upset she’s not trying hard enough.
  People smoke for all kinds of reasons. Her dad’s death could’ve triggered some intense mental health issues. You don’t know. Who’s to say she didn’t try a few times?
  She's not an asshole lmao, she’s struggling with addiction and likely mental health issues. Neither is he for having these boundaries. It’s up to him to just leave.

Cannot stress enough the smell like shit part. Y'all genuinely stink out loud.

I'm an ex-smoker, but I'm able to have a couple every month or two without going back full blown. One thing I have noticed is how smoking spikes your heart rate. I can look at my Fitbit data and see exactly where I smoked.

I'd heard about weight gain from quitting, which I have experienced, but I always thought it was attributed to increased appetite and not linked to cardiac activity. The stress on your heart is not just cumulative, it is acutely affective every time you light up.

Never marry a smoker who says they'll quit for you. They'll probably resent you for the rest of their lives.

I literally quit for my wife the day we met.
I was a two pack a day Navy punk. Met her at a friends house with a large group of folks, and at some point she mentioned she could never date a smoker. On the way home I picked up a pack of patches and spent the next few weeks quitting. We started seriously dating about a year later and beyond the occasional cigar/cigarette socially while drinking (like once a year if that) I've been smokeless. This was 2006.
Why would I resent her for my choice?
- I think you quitting immediately after meeting her is kinda different from saying that you'll quit for the partner who already got together with you while you were smoking.
- I guess I should say be careful rather than never.
  Some relationships are stronger than others, and people are different.

Also: transfer massive amounts of money to some of the worst companies on earth, who will then use part of that money to lobby for rules that allow them to keep suckering in new smokers, and keep killing the ones they have.

my dad and my gram smoked all the time and i hated how even my hair would smell when i got back home :(

I grew up with smoker parents. That shit is so rank, and I grew up when smokers were extremely blasé about secondhand smoke - every room was always smoke-filled when smokers were in it, and obviously it's OK to smoke in a car with children if you open one window.

Also: DIY roofing.

don't forget "make everyone and everything around me smell like shit as well"

it's so wild because i've tried nicotine gum and it does nothing but burn my throat, the idea that other people are literally chemically addicted to it is insane, like being addicted to banging your toe against a table leg.