I have a 25 year old niece with whom I have been very close with. The past three years we have not really seen each other except for family get - togethers which is ok. She is a smoker, and I am an ex-smoker as of 2 and a half years. Here is a little history:
My niece got involved with a co-worker in November of last year who was currently engaged to another girl that also is a co-worker. The other girl found out about my niece (let's call her Amanda) and her fiance, (we will call him Bill). Of course the other girl (let's call her Cassandra) was very hurt and angry, which I do not blame her for feeling that way at all. Amanda gets pregnant in December of last year, and it turns out to be a tubal so it had to be terminated. The week before they discovered it was a tubal, Amanda and Bill get married at the courthouse. Keep in mind they are both smokers. Amanda is not discouraged by the tubal and tells me she wants to get pregnant again because Bill's parents are both of ill health and she and Bill want them to be grandparents before they die.
After two months, Cassandra gets promoted and begins to "harrass" Bill and Amanda. They decide to both quit their jobs without having new jobs already lined up. One week after quitting their jobs they both got temp jobs which was very lucky. However, after working 2 days at her new job, she calls in sick 2 days in a row, and they called her and told her they did not want her to come in. Right after that Amanda finds out she is pregnant again. About two weeks after that Bill passes away from congestive heart failure. He was 28 years old. Amanda is still lighting up. I am very worried about her health because she is overweight, she does not exercise and she is pregnant and smoking. So I offer to her that if she quits cold turkey and within 30 days, I would take her shopping for new maternity clothes. I told her that only on the condition that she quit for good, because her baby will thank her later and she will feel so much better.
Three weeks later she sends me an email saying how I hurt her feelings by bribing her to quit smoking. She did not want to take the money for clothes if it was a bribe. I told her it is more like a reward which she disagreed with and said again how it was bribery. I apologized to her several times, and told her to disregard my offer since I would now feel very uncomfortable giving it to her.
My intention was to encourage, to offer an incentive, plus listing off a ton of benefits for quitting smoking, especially since she is pregnant. What could I have done differently, and for that matter, should I have not even opened my mouth? Help!
