Thomas is prepared to walk away from his wedding to Paula, and the trigger is something most couples would never think twice about: deodorant. With two weeks left before the ceremony, a scent argument on Sunday’s 90 Day Fiancé escalated into Thomas telling Paula flatly that she is free to call the whole thing off.
“Like, you have the option to not get married to me,” he told her. “You have that option.”
That is not a comment made in the heat of a small disagreement. That is a fiancé, days from a wedding, putting the entire relationship on the table over a can of deodorant.
How A Scent Turned Into A Standoff
The fight started when Paula apologized for wearing deodorant, explaining she needed it because they would be outside all day in the heat. Thomas, who says he is sensitive to artificial scents, did not accept the apology.
“Everything you just said, you’re saying to be funny, and news flash, I’m not laughing,” he told her. “Maybe you should get a better audience.”
He described her deodorant as the “most pungent and obscene thing” he had ever smelled, and made clear this was not a one-time complaint. “I really need Paula to come up to speed on this and just accept that this is a boundary that I need in a relationship for us to be together,” he said in a confessional.
Paula tried to defuse things with humor during their cake tasting, joking about how dramatically Thomas described wanting cake without “severe repercussions.” It didn’t stick. He pushed further, telling her she should be consulting him before using any scented product at all. “Why don’t you ask my opinion and say, ‘Hey, before I spray this, maybe I should consult my fiancé, who I’m going to be living with for the rest of my life about spraying this to see if he’s going to be sensitive to this?’”
Paula’s patience ran out. She called him “annoying” and compared him to a cockroach, telling cameras, “Thomas never lets anything go. He’s trying to control every little thing that I do. He’s micromanaged me like a kid and I’m not happy at all.”
Then Came The Bigger Fight
Just as the cake tasting seemed to settle, Paula dropped a separate bombshell: eight members of her family were flying in for the wedding, and she wanted them all staying at the couple’s apartment.
Thomas suggested a hotel instead. Paula pushed back, saying she wanted to maximize her time with family. Thomas was not having it, telling cameras that Paula has never “cut the umbilical cord” from her parents and that the two are too close. Paula, meanwhile, worried aloud that Thomas’s controlling nature would stop her family from ever approving of him.
The argument followed them into the car, where Thomas escalated further, threatening to throw away her mother’s deodorant if she brought any into his apartment. “I need my apartment to be my safe place where I don’t have to be worried about invasive smells that give me an allergic reaction,” he said, before adding that Paula picks “some of the worst artificial smells of all time.”
A Pattern, Not A One-Off
This blowup fits a dynamic that has defined the relationship well before the deodorant fight. Thomas wants a minimalist lifestyle; Paula has purchased household appliances without telling him first, which he saw as her taking advantage of his trust and his wallet, while she maintains the purchases were necessary for city living. Thomas has also mocked Paula’s rock collection, which she keeps for their spiritual and energetic significance, a belief he regularly dismisses.
Individually, none of these are large issues. Together, they paint a consistent picture: Thomas wants control over the details of their shared life, down to what scent Paula wears in her own home, and Paula keeps running into that same wall in different forms.
Where Things Stand
Paula told cameras she now feels trapped. “The way he’s managing our relationship and the way he’s trying to control every single step that I do, I really don’t know if I can commit with this for the rest of my life,” she said.
Thomas has not softened either. He called her decision to wear deodorant that day “reckless” and maintained the issue is a genuine dealbreaker for him, not an exaggeration for the cameras.
Fans online have not been kind to him, with many calling him a “man-child” and arguing nobody should have to shrink themselves to fit a partner’s rigid demands. A large portion of viewers have specifically praised Paula for building a successful life on her own before Thomas, and are now openly urging her to walk away rather than spend a marriage negotiating what scent she is allowed to wear in her own home.
With the wedding two weeks out and neither side budging, this couple is heading toward the altar with more unresolved than settled.
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