Importing from my blender to unity with armatures causes my mesh to be see through

I have a mesh of a low poly character i animated with an armature. I tried importing the mesh and the animations from blender 2.8 into unity, but when i do so the mesh seems to become transparent, or inside out. (meaning, you can see the opposite face from where you are looking, but the face towards you is invisible). i think the reason for this is the armature, as when i export only the mesh without the armature it looks just fine. i think it may also have something to do with the armature modifier, it wont apply saying "modifier cannot be applied to mesh with shape keys". I tried flipping the normals, cleaning the mesh, and other solutions, so far nothing helped :( any help will be most appreciated!