be staring (one) in the face

1. To be an unavoidable situation or issue. I know you don't want to pay for this expensive course of treatment, but if you keep ignoring your health, a hospital stay will be staring you in the face. Foreclosure is staring us in the face now—what are we going to do? I don't want to lose the house! Mom and Dad want us to come to the hospital now. It sounds like death is staring Uncle Ed in the face.

2. To be very obvious, especially suddenly. Thanks to all of those failed experiments, the solution is finally staring me in the face! Unfortunately, the solution—to break up—had been staring us in the face all along. If you take a break and get away from all this stuff, I'm sure a new plan will be staring you in the face when you come back to it.

be staring someone in the face

If the facts about something are staring you in the face, they are very obvious, although you may not yet have realized this. Even when the evidence is staring them in the face they deliberately misread it. Sometimes you're trying to solve a complex problem, and you suddenly realise that the answer has been staring you in the face all along.

be staring someone in the face

(of a fact or object) be glaringly apparent or obvious.