“AITA for telling my SIL that I don’t can’t about her health condition and she needs to shower?”
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 can 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, this 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 have 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 where 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 offering to even 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.
Edit:
I decided to make an edit since there’s more context here 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 the 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 has also ran into this same issue, if which they’ve offered help but she’d refuse to take it since she didn’t want to deal with it and has just excepted 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 that I do right and don’t act like that again.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
KatiePotatie1986
NTA. I have hyperhidrosis. I take medication that helps massively with this. There are sooo many ways to cope with hyperhidrosis.
Fiendishfrenzy
Had a friend that got botox shots for it, and she said it helped immensely.
Adventurous-Bar520
She needs to see her doctor because there are a variety of treatments available for excessive sweating. She is neglecting herself by ignoring this and doing nothing about it, never mind expecting others to put up with it too. You could have been nicer in how you told her, but you will not be the only person who has told her she smells.
clothanger
“I don’t care about your health condition” is the AH part for sure, you were frustrated and it showed. But just a mild one, because she for sure puts in zero efforts and thinks that people need to cope with her smell, I’m pretty sure you ain’t the first person to tell her she stinks.
Ok-Yogurtcloset-4378
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.
LunaMay196
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.
Edit: the edit about how OP has talked to her about it previously came after I made my comment and OP responded to me earlier about it. I am aware of that now. I don’t need dozens of you trying to point it out again.
So, what do you think of this one? If you could give the OP any advice here, what would you tell them?
