So I have a girl I’ve been friends with for over 15 years. We were bestfriends but I left school and we lost contact for years. We recently reconnected and we are both married with kids. She has 2, and I have 3. The first time we hung out, I noticed little hygiene things. Like her teeth being a little yellow breath didn’t smell good. I just chalked it up to maybe she forgot to brush or ate something, idk. I also noticed her husband has a BO smell but it was 95 degrees out and they had been out all day so that’s reasonable.

Then we hung out again and I noticed the same thing with her teeth/breath. And they both smelled not too great again. I made up an excuse that day too because it was another day where it was extremely hot and even I had to stop and put deodorant on multiple times because we were running around in the fields with the kids.

Then came the third time we hung out. We invited them to our house for a weekend sleepover. It was a very fun time. We did a lot of fun things and our connection is just as strong as it was before.

Their son, who is 7 wouldn’t wash his hands after going to the bathroom so I made sure to loudly remind my son do wash his hands multiple times. And once I did that, my friend picked up on it and started reminding her son as well which made me happy.

Her husband though.. he had went to the bathroom (#2) which clogged the toilet (that bathroom toilet sucks and we need a new one) and he ended up needed to use the plunger and whatnot to fix it and he came out and did NOT wash his hands. At all.

I know I should have spoke up but I’m a very shy and anxious person. I ended up getting my hand sanitizer that smells really good and was like “hey you gotta smell this. It makes your hands really soft too” and put it on his hands. But it made me feel very awkward.

The entire weekend, they did not brush their teeth. And I didn’t see either one wash their hands a single time. I’m not saying they never did but I didn’t see it.

Their second child is just a baby, and they also don’t wash her bottles. They do rinse them out but that’s it. I won’t lie, I sometimes will rinse out a bottle in hot water and little bit of soap and shake it but I don’t scrub it. That’s only once in a while though and if the bottle isn’t old milk or something. They didn’t even use soap. I actually washed the baby’s bottles the entire weekend, trying to kinda like.. show them subtlety without directly being mean if that makes sense.

I will say that I know for a fact that she grew up in a house where hygiene wasn’t taught. She wasn’t allowed to shower often, she wasn’t allowed to have deodorant, hair care, skin care.. anything. She lived in a house with a man who abused her daily and I think he grew up in a similar home where he wasn’t taught a lot of things.

The family they are close to now a days, are all people who don’t care much about their appearance or anything including hygiene. So I get it. I want to help them without being rude and saying it’s nasty because I don’t think they quite understand it.

What can I do? Do I keep subtly doing my things and lead by example? Gift them some of my favorite products? Or just not even be friends with them because of it?

Or am I in the wrong and it’s not my business to worry about it and I need to let it go?