Everyone has different routines and standards for personal hygiene.
That said, there is a basic level of hygiene widely agreed to be the standard for what people should do.
When people don’t meet this bare minimum, it’s reasonable to call them out.
Even though they might not take the feedback gracefully.
The sister-in-law (SIL) Redditor GothMoleRat tended to bring an odor with her wherever she went.
An odor that had finally become too much for the original poster (OP), eventually leading to a confrontation with her.
A confrontation that did not end up going well for either of them.
Having some doubts about how she handled this, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for telling my SIL that I don’t can’t about her health condition and she needs to shower?”
The OP explained why she felt compelled to confront her SIL about her lingering odor:
“My SIL has a health condition that causes her to sweat more than average, she can nothing at all physically but still be sweating bullets, it can even be cold out and she still breaks a sweat.”
“This is something that I’ve always known about her since we started talking back in high school, and although we weren’t super close back then, it was something I could live with.”
“Now flash forward to modern day, and I’m now with her brother, and she often likes to stop by very often since we live very close together, which I absolutely don’t mind since she’s overall a sweet person and likes to bring free food.”
“The only issue is that she smells, like absolutely foul.”
“I knew she wasn’t the most hygienic person sometimes out of forgetfulness, but after she moved out of her parents’ house and nobody is there to remind her to shower, put on deodorant, brush her teeth, etc., you can clearly tell she doesn’t do any of that nearly as much as she should.”
“Now anytime she comes over her smell erks me, after she leaves I open all the windows in the apartment and spray the entire place down, I have to fight myself from gagging whenever she goes to hug me, and sometimes I can barely be around her for dinners without her body odor grossing me out too much to even focus on the food.”
“This was the exact case while we were all out at dinner together, where her smell at some point was bad, that I had to go to the bathroom to throw up, and at that point, I completely had enough of her stench.”
“After dinner, I pulled her aside and tried my best to gently explain to her that she REALLY needs to shower and put on deodorant since she smells awful.”
“Her reaction?”
“To remind me that she can’t help it due to her health condition since she’d just sweat through all of her deodorant, not even halfway through the day.”
“That’s when I flat out told her I don’t care about her health condition and that if anything, because of it, she should be even more hygienic, even going as far as to offer to buy her deodorant and soap if it means she just uses it.”
“She ended up breaking down crying about how she can’t help her condition, and she doesn’t understand why I’m being so mean to her.”
“Did I point it nicely?”
“Absolutely not, but it’s starting to drive me insane that every time I’m around her, she smells like a barnyard.”
“So now I need to know if I’m in the wrong for this one.”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community was in agreement that the OP was not the a**hole for confronting her SIL.
While some felt the OP didn’t need to be quite as forward with her SIL, they agreed this was something she needed to hear, as it likely required more than deodorant or a shower and probably needed medical attention.
“NTA.”
“I have hyperhidrosis.”
“I take medication that helps massively with this.”
“There are sooo many ways to cope with hyperhidrosis.”
“The medication is oxybutynin.”
“I also use clinical antiperspirant (I find the gel kind works better than solid or soft solid) and Lume body wash and cream deodorant.”
“There are other meds available.”
“In the US, it requires a prescription.”
“Dunno about other places.”- KatiePotatie1986
“There are prescription antiperspirants!”
“You apply them to dry skin at night and it blocks your sweat glands.”
“Also if it’s really bad then can get Botox!”
“NTA!”
“But I hope the free food she brings over isn’t prepared by her.”
“If you say she has bad hygiene then you know she’s not washing her hands when she cooks.”- Ok-Yogurtcloset-4378
“NTA.”
“Her parents should have dealt with this long ago.”
“They and others in her life who tolerated it did her no favors.”
“I do think you should talk to her again and tell her you do care about her, but if she wants to come into your home and spend time with you, then she has to stay clean.”
“You should get on the same page with your husband before you talk to her, and agree on how you’ll handle it when she tests you to see if you really are going to enforce it.”
“You should.”
“She can of course, live her life however she chooses, but not necessarily in your vicinity.”-NotThisAgain234
“Maybe her brother should talk to her.”
“NTA.”- wren_boy1313
“NTA.”
‘I have hyperhidrosis and carry deodorant around with me so I can reapply.”
“I also carry an extra shirt to change.”
“There are medications to take to help it.”
“I also wash my armpits with antibacterial soap every other day.”
“Clinical strength deodorant can help (I use men’s deodorant because men smell stronger, so I figure it helps more).”
“I know body odor is a taboo subject, but my brother and sister don’t take care to mask the odor and it’s HORRIBLE.”
“Nobody likes the smell of a rank armpit in the middle of summer.”
“I live in an area where people commonly don’t wear deodorant, and it SUCKS.”
“As long as you brought it up gently, I don’t see a problem.”- Miserable-Note5365
“NTA.”
“I don’t know if the people who are saying otherwise don’t shower and know they smell bad and are projecting or what because while I understand that the sister-in-law has that condition, we’re talking about the fact that since she’s been living alone and has no one to remind her to shower, she smells so much worse, so bad, that OP had to go and throw up because of the smell.”
“I couldn’t be around someone that smell that bad on a regular basis.”- Ludaes
There were some, however, who had trouble sympathizing with either the OP or her SIL, feeling the OP was too blunt, and her SIL should be taking better care of herself:
“ESH.”
“She should still be taking care of herself and putting forth effort even with the condition.”
“But is this the first time you’ve talked to her about it?”
“Maybe she wasn’t fully aware of how bad it is because she’s used to it, and you came out of nowhere harshly telling her to do more.”
“Saying that you didn’t care about her condition was insensitive.”
“You made her cry over something she can’t have but so much control over.”
“You’re tired of it, I get it, but you could have been a lot more polite about it.”
“She should still put in some sort of effort to help her hygiene regardless.”- LunaMay196
The OP later returned with an update, sharing some more information regarding her SIL’s situation, as well as where things currently stood between her and her BIL:
“I decided to make an edit since there’s more context to it.”
“I’ve told her before about her smelling bad, more gently than now.”
“From multiple times of offering her perfumes and asking if she plans on seeking a professional to having to come over to her house to buy her deodorants and soaps since she won’t buy them on her own often times since she views buying scented body washes or deodorants as a waste of time and money.”
“Her parents for years have also run into this same issue, for which they’ve offered help, but she’d refuse to take it since she didn’t want to deal with it and has just accepted it as a part of her life.”
“I have gone back and apologized, we had a long talk about things, and she agreed to start working on her hygiene in exchange for me doing right and not acting like that again.”
Being told you smell so bad that it’s challenging to even be in your presence is not something anyone wants to hear.
Even if this news didn’t need to be broken as indelicately as the OP broke it to her SIL, this was news she nonetheless needed to hear.
Hopefully, leading her to eventually seek a doctor’s help.