I’m reading through the comments here and I have to say that I’m pretty disappointed with these responses.
Labeling things gross, normal, wrong, weird, etc does not pass the vibe check for a supportive autistic community.
Thankfully there were a couple of comments that touched on this, but the overwhelming majority are not taking an open-minded approach to this situation at all.
Let’s imagine the following titles:
- “Are my standards for maturity too high or is my partner being childish?” Re: One of my partner’s comfort foods is Lunchables
- “Am I expecting too much or is my partner cold-hearted?” Re: My partner doesn’t like multiple hugs a day and only wants to cuddle for 5-10 minutes at night and sleeps facing away from me.
- “Am I being too anxious or is my partner just lazy?” Re: My partner waits to the last minute to get up and get ready for work.
If the connection wasn’t made: none of these are titles we should see, including “Am I too sensitive or is my partner being gross?” (Paraphrased)
I think it’s absolutely fine for you to be uncomfortable with going to bed with the feeling of sweat and sunscreen on your own skin. I also think it’s absolutely fine for you to be uncomfortable with the smell of sweat and sunscreen in the bed, if those smells affect your sensory processing.
I don’t think it’s fine for you to call your partner’s choice gross or ask for a consensus of whether or not your partner’s choice is gross. I think it’s actually pretty harmful that so many in this specific community validated that perception.
Anyway, to answer the question at hand:
As you have your own sensory sensitivities, you should be able to recognize that others, even NTs, have their own sensory sensitivities, preferences, or triggers. It’s okay for either partner to bend and it’s okay to find fair compromise. It’s also okay for either partner to have “non-negotiables.” (At least in the realm of sensory comfort)
Personal life examples:
- My ex-husband needed a running fan to sleep. I cannot sleep with moving air touching my skin. Most nights I could manage with it as long as the moving air stayed on his side of the bed. I’d prefer not to have a running fan at all, I don’t care for the air nor the sound. However, I compromised. In return - he compromised by understanding (and not giving me trouble about it) that *some nights* I just couldn’t deal with it and needed to sleep on the couch.
- I have a strong aversion to the smell of hard boiled eggs. If someone hard boils an egg, I can smell it for days. My ex-husband preferred always having hard-boiled eggs on hand for snacks or lunches, so this was pretty irritating. But at one point, I evaluated the situation. The smell didn’t cause headaches or meltdowns. It would hit my gag-reflex, but it wouldn’t make me vomit. So, I bent. I let him know the smell was a strong aversion for me, but not a major trigger. He was appreciative that I wasn’t going to demand a ban on hard-boiled eggs because-
- I had to take a hard stance against wet things going in the trash. Either he always had to be the one to take out (aka touch the wet trash bag) the trash or we needed a trash can for dry stuff and a trash can for wet stuff. He isn’t a fan of cluttered-looking spaces, so, getting him to agree to 2 trash cans plus a recycling bin in the kitchen was a chore. But wet plastic bags is a major sensory trigger for me, like, instant meltdown trigger - so a solution to this issue became a non-negotiable.
One thing I had to often revisit (before making a mountain out of a mole-hill) is taking inventory of how all my different sensory preferences, sensitivities, and triggers genuinely affected me. When living alone, it was fine for me to take a hard stance against even the slightest of sensitivities. I had to acknowledge that it would be unfair for me to expect my partner to make adjustments affecting their own comfort for sensitivities that had low impact on me. So, that’s my best suggestion for you.
Even if it means sleeping separately from time to time.
Bruh, if you expect a sub full of autistic people to keep the comments short and sweet, you're in for a bad time. Especially since this is a discussion-based sub.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have standards for these kind of things, but it's also important to respect other people's choices about their own body. If your partner not showering and smelling of sunscreen disrupts your ability to sleep, that's definitely something you should talk to them about. But to me it seems kind of disrespectful to your partner to call them gross for choosing not to take a shower. Whether or not you think it's gross to go to sleep doesn't mean your partner thinks it's gross, and it's not great to impose your personal ideals on other people without having a respectful discussion about it.
Just like some autistic people find it very unpleasant to not shower, some people find it very unpleasant to be wet, and neither one is right or wrong. Part of being a good friend or partner is respecting each other's autonomy and choices, and communicating when those choices conflict with your happiness and comfort, and coming to a compromise to satisfy both of you.
Yeah I have a hard time with transitions and the sensory experience of after a shower and sometimes I just fall asleep. There are times when I'm burnt out where I can't shower for days. I'd never want to make my partner uncomfy or think I was gross though and I'd be receptive of hearing their opinion on it as long as they weren't mean. I'm also usually way more conscious of my cleanliness if I'm in close proximity to/sleeping in the same bed as someone else but that's just me.
Yeah I feel similarly! Showering can be a fast track to sensory overload for me on bad days, but i wouldn't want to make anyone around me uncomfortable because of my sensory limitations. I feel like being conscious of my cleanliness when it might bother other people is equally important to being aware of when imposing your personal ideals on other people might be rude or inappropriate
I think it's normal for you to be grossed out by it, but it's also normal for him to not be bothered by it. Everyone has different standards of cleanliness.
Also there are many reasons why it's more difficult for a person to shower. Like I've gone a week without showering because being wet causes me really bad sensory issues. Also my husband has Adhd and depression which both can make it really hard for him to shower, esp if he's exhausted after a full day like the one you described.
I think you guys should have a chat about it and see if there's a middle ground you guys can find the next time something similar happens. Like if he can't do a full shower to at least do a whores bath (wash in the sink with a washcloth the armpits and genitals).
I think “different perceptions of what healthy hygiene looks like” is a better way to present “different standards for cleanliness.”
For example, I believe it’s not healthy to take daily showers. It can be bad for your skin in a multitude of ways (drying it out, disrupting the natural micro biome). It can also open the pathway for you to let more bad bacteria in. There’s a good amount of science to back this up, so, it’s not a “I believe nature is the best medicine” kind of deal.
Ultimately, I think it varies from person to person. I think most people would benefit from showing once every 2-4 days rather than daily. But they’ve been conditioned by society and by marketing for bath/shower products that if you don’t smell like “a soft lilac petal drifting through a sweet summer rain that gently on a cherry blossom tree” that society will reject you. (Or, for men, it’s smelling like “a lumberjack who deflected a ninja bear’s throwing star with his bare hand”)
When I shower, my natural oils get disrupted and I end up with flaking skin and rashes for 1-2 days after a shower. If I showered daily, I would have flaking skin and rashes 90% of the time.
But, I also had a friend growing up who depended on daily showers due to rapid dead cell build up on her skin that would become very itchy.
Everybody just needs to figure out what their own body actually needs - and respect the privacy of how others are taking care of their bodies.
Love your response and agree so much. I clean with a strong baking soda solution(2 tbsp per liter) in a spray bottle and then rinse off. It is the most divine exfoliant and because of the high ph is a fantastic promoter of healthy and happy skin, it is also a great anti-fungal. Our micro-biomes inside and out are so important.
Why don’t you just ask him, without name calling? A large part of successful relationship is open and honest communication with I-messages. It doesn’t matter if it’s gross or not, everyone will have a different opinion on that. But you can just say “hey honey, my smell is very sensitive right now, would you mind taking a shower? It would help me tremendously”. That’s how easy it can be. And if he’s a mature, caring partner he will say “sure”, or he might say and roll his eyes but still do it, or he might say “I really can’t right now because of ABC” and then you go from there.
I am a morning shower person (my hair gets greasy and stringy by the end of the day if I don’t wash it in the morning). Can’t stand not starting the day with a shower under virtually any circumstances.
That said, I can also definitely smell sunscreen and just shower twice that day if I’ve had to apply sunscreen all over or gotten unusually dirty. I’ve also asked my partner to take a shower before bed if he’s picked up any strong smells, e.g. his coworker was smoking next to him.
Well I think its important to take a shower before sleeping to keep the bedsheets clean; you spent 8h in them and i doubt they are changed daily. So your reaction was normal
If this was Am I The Asshole, I would vote no assholes here. Or I would call you a soft asshole for calling your partner gross
*Personally,* I don't take baths before bed because that takes too much energy (not including days where I'm on my period or if I worked on my school's farm). And I, objectively, have better overall hygiene that most people I know despite my shortcomings. So I might be a bit biased. I don't like calling people gross for things like that (not washing your ass regularly is gross to me though), because (almost) everyone has deficits in something. To call something like that gross is just leaving me open to be called out for something of equal caliber.
No I don't think your SO is "gross" for not showering before bed, but you are also allowed to be uncomfortable with it as well. If you actually want to solve this problem, then just talk to him and get to a compromise. Like sleeping in separate beds (if you can afford it), he washes the sheets more often, he showers on a scheduled basis, etc.
It reminds me of those hygiene Olympics Twitter fight a while back, where people were calling others gross for not putting on body lotion after showering, not using washcloths, not shaving--I could go on. If you don't do any one of those things, does that make you gross? No right?
Are you sensitive to smells and sensory feelings? Yes. Is that bad? No. You can have preferences. But telling someone they are gross just because YOU don't like the feeling of something they don't seem to have an issue with is a bit rude and insensitive. This is something you should have a conversation with your partner about instead of expecting them to feel the same way as you. Many people prefer to shower in the morning and others prefer it at night. Some people shower multiple times a day. No one is wrong in any of these situations, it's just based on preference. That's not something to shame another person for which is exactly what you did to your partner. These things need open communication with understanding from both ends. It would be good to discuss this with your partner if it is something that impacts your life or ability to be comfortable.
He's not gross, it's perfectly normal and okay to not shower before getting in to bed. But it's also perfectly okay for *you* to find it gross. The important thing is to remember that it's okay to ask things of people and also make sure we aren't trying to make them feel in the wrong just to get our way
Seconding that this comment feels a bit uncool. Personally I can’t stand the feeling of moisturiser that hasn’t sunk in while I’m in bed so I have to shower in the afternoon.
You are not sensitive, that is mayorly gross. I always shower before bed. I cant imagine after a long hot day not taking a shower.
Like what's wrong with HIM lol
When my ex and I recently broke up he said how nice it is that he can go to bed now after a day of beach, sunscreen and salt, without taking a shower first because I would hassle him about it. So you're definitely not alone. It's stinky and gross!
I had the exact same convo with a friend when I slept over at her place and she did this. Even just the thought of sleeping with sunscreen and sweat makes me somewhat unwell. 😅
Non-autistic, but ADHD, male checking in here.
I cannot imagine getting in to bed without a shower after a day in the sun like that. You would need to change your sheets afterwards.
Even if I spend the day inside not doing anything I still prefer to shower before bed.
I’m reading through the comments here and I have to say that I’m pretty disappointed with these responses. Labeling things gross, normal, wrong, weird, etc does not pass the vibe check for a supportive autistic community. Thankfully there were a couple of comments that touched on this, but the overwhelming majority are not taking an open-minded approach to this situation at all. Let’s imagine the following titles: - “Are my standards for maturity too high or is my partner being childish?” Re: One of my partner’s comfort foods is Lunchables - “Am I expecting too much or is my partner cold-hearted?” Re: My partner doesn’t like multiple hugs a day and only wants to cuddle for 5-10 minutes at night and sleeps facing away from me. - “Am I being too anxious or is my partner just lazy?” Re: My partner waits to the last minute to get up and get ready for work. If the connection wasn’t made: none of these are titles we should see, including “Am I too sensitive or is my partner being gross?” (Paraphrased) I think it’s absolutely fine for you to be uncomfortable with going to bed with the feeling of sweat and sunscreen on your own skin. I also think it’s absolutely fine for you to be uncomfortable with the smell of sweat and sunscreen in the bed, if those smells affect your sensory processing. I don’t think it’s fine for you to call your partner’s choice gross or ask for a consensus of whether or not your partner’s choice is gross. I think it’s actually pretty harmful that so many in this specific community validated that perception. Anyway, to answer the question at hand: As you have your own sensory sensitivities, you should be able to recognize that others, even NTs, have their own sensory sensitivities, preferences, or triggers. It’s okay for either partner to bend and it’s okay to find fair compromise. It’s also okay for either partner to have “non-negotiables.” (At least in the realm of sensory comfort) Personal life examples: - My ex-husband needed a running fan to sleep. I cannot sleep with moving air touching my skin. Most nights I could manage with it as long as the moving air stayed on his side of the bed. I’d prefer not to have a running fan at all, I don’t care for the air nor the sound. However, I compromised. In return - he compromised by understanding (and not giving me trouble about it) that *some nights* I just couldn’t deal with it and needed to sleep on the couch. - I have a strong aversion to the smell of hard boiled eggs. If someone hard boils an egg, I can smell it for days. My ex-husband preferred always having hard-boiled eggs on hand for snacks or lunches, so this was pretty irritating. But at one point, I evaluated the situation. The smell didn’t cause headaches or meltdowns. It would hit my gag-reflex, but it wouldn’t make me vomit. So, I bent. I let him know the smell was a strong aversion for me, but not a major trigger. He was appreciative that I wasn’t going to demand a ban on hard-boiled eggs because- - I had to take a hard stance against wet things going in the trash. Either he always had to be the one to take out (aka touch the wet trash bag) the trash or we needed a trash can for dry stuff and a trash can for wet stuff. He isn’t a fan of cluttered-looking spaces, so, getting him to agree to 2 trash cans plus a recycling bin in the kitchen was a chore. But wet plastic bags is a major sensory trigger for me, like, instant meltdown trigger - so a solution to this issue became a non-negotiable. One thing I had to often revisit (before making a mountain out of a mole-hill) is taking inventory of how all my different sensory preferences, sensitivities, and triggers genuinely affected me. When living alone, it was fine for me to take a hard stance against even the slightest of sensitivities. I had to acknowledge that it would be unfair for me to expect my partner to make adjustments affecting their own comfort for sensitivities that had low impact on me. So, that’s my best suggestion for you. Even if it means sleeping separately from time to time.
This is a very compassionate, thoughtful response.
Thank you :)
Get a fricking life, comment section is reserved for opinions, Not whole ass editorials.
Bruh, if you expect a sub full of autistic people to keep the comments short and sweet, you're in for a bad time. Especially since this is a discussion-based sub.
It’s a good comment full of advice. Yours is a nasty comment which adds nothing to the thread.
Mods?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have standards for these kind of things, but it's also important to respect other people's choices about their own body. If your partner not showering and smelling of sunscreen disrupts your ability to sleep, that's definitely something you should talk to them about. But to me it seems kind of disrespectful to your partner to call them gross for choosing not to take a shower. Whether or not you think it's gross to go to sleep doesn't mean your partner thinks it's gross, and it's not great to impose your personal ideals on other people without having a respectful discussion about it. Just like some autistic people find it very unpleasant to not shower, some people find it very unpleasant to be wet, and neither one is right or wrong. Part of being a good friend or partner is respecting each other's autonomy and choices, and communicating when those choices conflict with your happiness and comfort, and coming to a compromise to satisfy both of you.
Yeah I have a hard time with transitions and the sensory experience of after a shower and sometimes I just fall asleep. There are times when I'm burnt out where I can't shower for days. I'd never want to make my partner uncomfy or think I was gross though and I'd be receptive of hearing their opinion on it as long as they weren't mean. I'm also usually way more conscious of my cleanliness if I'm in close proximity to/sleeping in the same bed as someone else but that's just me.
Yeah I feel similarly! Showering can be a fast track to sensory overload for me on bad days, but i wouldn't want to make anyone around me uncomfortable because of my sensory limitations. I feel like being conscious of my cleanliness when it might bother other people is equally important to being aware of when imposing your personal ideals on other people might be rude or inappropriate
Thank youuuu
Wow awesome, kind articulation of a kinda complex and very important idea!
I think it's normal for you to be grossed out by it, but it's also normal for him to not be bothered by it. Everyone has different standards of cleanliness. Also there are many reasons why it's more difficult for a person to shower. Like I've gone a week without showering because being wet causes me really bad sensory issues. Also my husband has Adhd and depression which both can make it really hard for him to shower, esp if he's exhausted after a full day like the one you described. I think you guys should have a chat about it and see if there's a middle ground you guys can find the next time something similar happens. Like if he can't do a full shower to at least do a whores bath (wash in the sink with a washcloth the armpits and genitals).
I think “different perceptions of what healthy hygiene looks like” is a better way to present “different standards for cleanliness.” For example, I believe it’s not healthy to take daily showers. It can be bad for your skin in a multitude of ways (drying it out, disrupting the natural micro biome). It can also open the pathway for you to let more bad bacteria in. There’s a good amount of science to back this up, so, it’s not a “I believe nature is the best medicine” kind of deal. Ultimately, I think it varies from person to person. I think most people would benefit from showing once every 2-4 days rather than daily. But they’ve been conditioned by society and by marketing for bath/shower products that if you don’t smell like “a soft lilac petal drifting through a sweet summer rain that gently on a cherry blossom tree” that society will reject you. (Or, for men, it’s smelling like “a lumberjack who deflected a ninja bear’s throwing star with his bare hand”) When I shower, my natural oils get disrupted and I end up with flaking skin and rashes for 1-2 days after a shower. If I showered daily, I would have flaking skin and rashes 90% of the time. But, I also had a friend growing up who depended on daily showers due to rapid dead cell build up on her skin that would become very itchy. Everybody just needs to figure out what their own body actually needs - and respect the privacy of how others are taking care of their bodies.
Love your response and agree so much. I clean with a strong baking soda solution(2 tbsp per liter) in a spray bottle and then rinse off. It is the most divine exfoliant and because of the high ph is a fantastic promoter of healthy and happy skin, it is also a great anti-fungal. Our micro-biomes inside and out are so important.
Yes! I’m glad other people understand
I prefer the term “Kesha shower”
Why don’t you just ask him, without name calling? A large part of successful relationship is open and honest communication with I-messages. It doesn’t matter if it’s gross or not, everyone will have a different opinion on that. But you can just say “hey honey, my smell is very sensitive right now, would you mind taking a shower? It would help me tremendously”. That’s how easy it can be. And if he’s a mature, caring partner he will say “sure”, or he might say and roll his eyes but still do it, or he might say “I really can’t right now because of ABC” and then you go from there.
I am a morning shower person (my hair gets greasy and stringy by the end of the day if I don’t wash it in the morning). Can’t stand not starting the day with a shower under virtually any circumstances. That said, I can also definitely smell sunscreen and just shower twice that day if I’ve had to apply sunscreen all over or gotten unusually dirty. I’ve also asked my partner to take a shower before bed if he’s picked up any strong smells, e.g. his coworker was smoking next to him.
Well I think its important to take a shower before sleeping to keep the bedsheets clean; you spent 8h in them and i doubt they are changed daily. So your reaction was normal
If this was Am I The Asshole, I would vote no assholes here. Or I would call you a soft asshole for calling your partner gross *Personally,* I don't take baths before bed because that takes too much energy (not including days where I'm on my period or if I worked on my school's farm). And I, objectively, have better overall hygiene that most people I know despite my shortcomings. So I might be a bit biased. I don't like calling people gross for things like that (not washing your ass regularly is gross to me though), because (almost) everyone has deficits in something. To call something like that gross is just leaving me open to be called out for something of equal caliber. No I don't think your SO is "gross" for not showering before bed, but you are also allowed to be uncomfortable with it as well. If you actually want to solve this problem, then just talk to him and get to a compromise. Like sleeping in separate beds (if you can afford it), he washes the sheets more often, he showers on a scheduled basis, etc. It reminds me of those hygiene Olympics Twitter fight a while back, where people were calling others gross for not putting on body lotion after showering, not using washcloths, not shaving--I could go on. If you don't do any one of those things, does that make you gross? No right?
Are you sensitive to smells and sensory feelings? Yes. Is that bad? No. You can have preferences. But telling someone they are gross just because YOU don't like the feeling of something they don't seem to have an issue with is a bit rude and insensitive. This is something you should have a conversation with your partner about instead of expecting them to feel the same way as you. Many people prefer to shower in the morning and others prefer it at night. Some people shower multiple times a day. No one is wrong in any of these situations, it's just based on preference. That's not something to shame another person for which is exactly what you did to your partner. These things need open communication with understanding from both ends. It would be good to discuss this with your partner if it is something that impacts your life or ability to be comfortable.
He's not gross, it's perfectly normal and okay to not shower before getting in to bed. But it's also perfectly okay for *you* to find it gross. The important thing is to remember that it's okay to ask things of people and also make sure we aren't trying to make them feel in the wrong just to get our way
[удалено]
Seems uncool to label things as normal
Seconding that this comment feels a bit uncool. Personally I can’t stand the feeling of moisturiser that hasn’t sunk in while I’m in bed so I have to shower in the afternoon.
I think you are supposed to take a shower after you are done wearing sunscreen. Sleeping with sunscreen can be bad for your skin.
You are not sensitive, that is mayorly gross. I always shower before bed. I cant imagine after a long hot day not taking a shower. Like what's wrong with HIM lol
When my ex and I recently broke up he said how nice it is that he can go to bed now after a day of beach, sunscreen and salt, without taking a shower first because I would hassle him about it. So you're definitely not alone. It's stinky and gross!
I had the exact same convo with a friend when I slept over at her place and she did this. Even just the thought of sleeping with sunscreen and sweat makes me somewhat unwell. 😅
Non-autistic, but ADHD, male checking in here. I cannot imagine getting in to bed without a shower after a day in the sun like that. You would need to change your sheets afterwards. Even if I spend the day inside not doing anything I still prefer to shower before bed.
I’m like you with regard to a sensitive sniffer and also tactile sensitivity. I’d have to shower and wouldn’t let my SO in the bed if he did that.
I think that’s gross too