Woman’s Alleges Husband Eats So Much Garlic It ‘Disrupts Her Sleep.’ So, She’s Telling Him to Stay in Another Room

A woman is wondering if she’s causing a stink in her marriage because of her husband’s cooking habits.

The Redditor shared her complaints on the popular forum, “Am I the A——?”, on Monday, July 14. 

She established a few things about herself and her 7-year relationship. The poster wrote that she is sensitive to scents and is “neurodivergent and can’t abide bad ones at all.” She likes garlic, but her husband has a “fixation” and uses 6 to 8 cloves when cooking and eats them raw sometimes. 

The Redditor said her husband is from a culture that uses garlic, but the meals that she has a problem with are not “cultural cooking.” “It’s just extreme garlic meat,” she added.

She smells the garlic in their home, furniture and clothes and described his scent as “a sour garlic cloud until he showers.” Plus, he supposedly gets in the way of her attempts to conceal the scent. He “does this fake cough” when she uses room spray, won’t let her open the window because of the neighbors’ cigarette smoke and doesn’t use the mouthwash she bought him.

The scent is a point of contention for the couple, which they have discussed numerous times, and he has since made the meals less often. “I’ve explained how it disrupts my sleep and how I worry I’ll smell at work,” she wrote, continuing, “He must know how intense it is, but he just doesn’t care. He insists it’s ‘healthy,’ which I’m sure it is, but does it need to be this much?”

She wrote that she is going to tell him to sleep in their second bedroom if he continues to eat garlic without trying to lessen the scent. 

“I’m tired, embarrassed, overwhelmed, and everything I own smells horrible,” she concluded the post, saying that she feels “silly” for getting upset over his cooking. She questioned if her scent sensitivity is because she’s “not used to strong cooking smells as a white person” and asked Reddit users if it was common in other households.

People were torn in their reactions to the post. Many pointed out that her husband doesn’t use many cloves of garlic, so there might be something wrong with the ventilation in their apartment if it is that pungent. Despite not relating to her sensitivity to the scent, commenters said the issue is about respect.

One person wrote, “Sounds like he should fix the kitchen hood and the door before indulging himself. This seems fair, especially seeing his sensitivity to room spray and cigarette smoke seem to matter so much to him.”

The general consensus is that whether or not the original poster or the husband is the problem, they just need to compromise. “Maybe its you, but that doesnt mean he shouldn’t accomodate to you. My husband loves fish and I cant stand the smell. He does not eat it in the same room with me and he uses moutwash and opens the windows,” another added.