Life Advice

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Health

Wife wonders about siblings' bathroom habits

By Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

Dear Amy: I am a married woman. My husband and his younger sister are of a Mediterranean nationality. Family relationships are "closer" there, I think, than those in North America or Europe.

I was shocked to see my husband and his sister in our bathroom together. She was putting on makeup, he was brushing his teeth.

We were in a hurry to leave the house, but there was a half-bath downstairs that one of them could have used.

I have been in the bathroom with my own older brother, but it was to install new toilets -- something practical -- not to do something "intimate," that, in my opinion, is only for a husband and wife to share.

I felt very "strange" about this situation. Then it happened a second time. I have decided that if it happens again, I will join them in the bathroom and put on my makeup or brush my teeth with them to see if they understand that I'm disturbed by this situation.

-- Too Close!

 

Dear Too Close!: If brushing one's teeth or putting on makeup is considered an uncomfortably intimate act that only married partners should share, then we need to completely revamp sexual education in this country.

I don't think this is an ethnic thing or a national characteristic.

I think this is a "you" problem.

Taking your letter at face value, these two siblings were basically sharing a mirror.

...continued

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