My aunt has the worst breath, and I don’t know how to tell her. I don’t know why my uncle doesn’t say anything to her, or my cousins. And I don’t feel like I can ask them about it. Is it just me? Do I have an unusual sense of smell?

Halitosis

So the funny thing about smells is that different people have different reactions to the same scent. Your uncle and cousins may not notice your aunt’s halitosis because they’ve always known her to smell that way. To them, it’s natural. Like not “hearing” a parent’s accent.

You also may have a very strong olfactory sense and be sensitive to the slightest smells. Try asking one of your siblings what they think. For fun (and your own investigative purposes), you could play a smelling game with your family. Find some obvious items around the home, for example, garlic, coffee, basil, mint or onion and blindfold everyone to see how well they can recognize each smell.

Then choose some items that you think smell nice and others that smell not so nice and ask them what they think. At least you’ll know who is on the same smell page as you.

Whenever I call my sister, who lives in another state then I do, she insists on putting me on speaker phone and then walking around her house looking for her husband. It’s always a good five minutes before she finds him and then says, “OK, I’m ready to talk now. What’s up?”

The thing is I don’t always want to talk to her in the presence of her husband. I like him. In fact, I love him. He’s a lovely person, a good husband and a good dad. He’s been a great son-in-law to our parents. I don’t have any problems with him. I just don’t always want to have a group conversation.

Usually, I just want to talk to my sister. Not about anything specific, or maybe I do, but I just don’t want this constant three-way conversation. How do I get that message across to both of them without hurting their feelings?

Three’s A Crowd

You didn’t mention your sister’s age, but this is often the telltale sign of the beginning of some form of cognitive decline. A friend whose mother passed recently was telling me about the pattern in her mental health decline and this was part of the onset.

I’m not diagnosing your sister – I’m just putting it out there for you to think about.

Either way, if you have such a great relationship with your brother-in-law, talk to him, privately. Tell him how you feel. Ask him to NOT join in on the conversations. I would guess he’d rather not be on all those calls.

And perhaps, ask him what he thinks about his wife’s mental cognition. It could be an aha moment, or he could be happy to know he can discuss it with you, or it’s not that at all.

Wherever my sister goes, drama follows. She’s always got some story or another about something that happened to her, her boyfriend, her best friend’s mother etc. I find it over the top, though individually each incident is legit. I just don’t want to get involved, but I also don’t want to seem uncaring.

Staying out of it

It’s true – drama does follow some people around like a swarm of flies. I suggest when your sister calls with a story, listen, comment appropriately, ask if there’s anything you can do to help, and then walk away. Offer as much help and involvement as you feel comfortable with. But don’t let her involvement affect you. It’s not your drama.

FEEDBACK Regarding stuck between a bonfire and a blazing disaster (Dec. 5):

Reader – “How does the mom-to-be know for sure that the baby is his? Maybe it isn’t. Since some of an unborn baby’s DNA enters the mom’s bloodstream during pregnancy, she could ask her ob./gyn to draw some of her blood and do a simple blood test to learn the baby’s blood type. If it isn’t a match for hers or her husband’s, the jig will be up. If it’s the same as the moms, only a DNA test can tell her for sure. Setting aside the ethics of the situation (which you covered), it can’t hurt to check the facts before deciding on a course of action.”

A pragmatist