When a loved one has a problem with their hygiene, it can be a touchy subject that is very difficult to bring up.

What would you do if your sister-in-law always smelled horribly, so you finally called her out on it privately, and she got upset that you were being mean?

That is the situation that the woman in this story is in, and she isn’t sure if she was out of line or if she did the right thing by telling her that she stinks.

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.

It sounds like there is nothing she can do about it.

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.

If she has a sweating issue, she should take care to stay clean.

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 must be a horrible smell.

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.

She can at least keep the odor to a minimum.

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.

I can see why she would be upset/embarrassed about this, but she needs to know.

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.

AITA?

It really depends on what exactly he said to her. If he really was rude about it, then he is out of line. If he did it in the nicest way he can, then he is not. Although, this should have come from her sibling or parents, not her brother-in-law.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This person says there is medication that can help.

It may take extra effort, but she should be putting that effort in.

The parents should have done it years ago.

I agree with this commenter.

This person has the same medical issues.

Someone had to tell her, you can’t let her live like this.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.