The clothes horse/toy hoarder/stacker, aka DH

[JTA Mom]

What do you guys do about your significant others? My dh has TONS of clothes. He has more clothes than my kids do (newborn to 4 T). Way more than I do. He refuses to get rid of any of it. Even if he has never worn it and even if he will NEVER wear it (those hawaii shirts from grandma, anyone?).

On top of it, he refuses to get rid of his childhood toys. Because he wants to 'hand' them down to our sons. However, when ds gets his hands on it, and being a typical 3 year old, breaks it or bashes it about, he gets agitated. Now, ds' toys is not a lot. Almost everything fits into 5 of those plastic drawer unit, and then he has more 'big' cars, firetrucks, balls, etc.

But his clutter is driving me insane. I can declutter all I want, but honestly, at some point his stuff needs to give. We all share a small closet, and all of us have 1/4 of the space in it for our stuff. Then, dh has the entire half of the hallway closet for more of his clothes. the other half is full of outgrown/growing into clothes for both boys.

He also has a big trunk in our room dedicated to his toys "for" ds that aren't age appropriate. he also has a few more boxes in other places.

Should I just get used to this? I almost feel like the boys and I need to shoehorn in our needed items around a bunch of his stuff that isn't used. Argh!

Ami

[maisiedotes]

I am ready to punch my husband.  Or scream at him and throw everything out.  He never puts anything away.  He also never throws anything away- he will take the last of the cereal and leave it on the counter so I can recycle it because the 2 steps to the recycling bin is just too far for him.  He never EVER puts his clothes away.  He can't find any socks, etc and actually asked me to stop doing his laundry because he can't find anything.  I said "Clean out your drawers and I will put it away, and by the way, are you trying to punish me by not letting me do your laundry?  Because I ain't doing it for fun!!!"  He currently has 3 full, folded baskets of clothes ready to put away but no room in his bureau because he can't part with anything.

And the tools.  UGH.  They get left around, never put away (we are in an apartment and there is really nowhere we can put them so they are on a rack in the kitchen along wtih a million other things)... I toss them all in a bin and then he can't find them.

Sorry to go on about my own DH but I wanted you to know you are not alone!  By the way, my husband has more clothes than me and my 2 kids combined, and he wears a uniform to work!  GAHHH

[JTA Mom]

Thanks, Kerri.

No one else has had to deal with this? How do/did you reach a compromise?

Ami

[Tigerchild]

I would tell my DH to rent a storage unit.  Yes, he will probably freak out at the expense, but...you can show him the bill for weekly marital counseling and it might seem tame by comparison.

Are you wishing to have more space for your own things?  If his stuff is contained in closets and in one trunk, I honestly think that is probably okay.  He just has half a closet more space than everyone else, which in the large scheme of things doesn't seem like that big to me, esp. for someone who has hoarding tendancies.

So I'm guessing that he also has a ton of stuff everywhere besides those storage areas, which is where I think the storage unit comes in handy.  He can store whatever he likes at the house in "his space" but anything beyond that must go to the unit.  No matter what, you guys are "paying" to have that stuff in your face, with fighting and agitation.  When it's out of your hair, you need to let it go, and let him deal with it, when he gets tired of paying the $50-100/mo for the space he will deal with it.  It will buy no more nagging or frustration or him having to worry that you will purge his stuff.

My DH is not a hoarder, but he is really lazy about doing dump runs and going through old stuff even when I have almost gotten down on my knees and begged him to.  Finally I had to tell him that I was going to hire the 1800 junk guys if our own personal laundry room dump was not hauled to the dump like I'd been asking for the last 6 months (I don't have the time to do it myself, and even if I did, I couldn't lift all the stuff and take care of it at the time due to health issues).  Strangely enough, when faced with paying the extra $100 he magically found the motivation to do so.

It wasn't a threat or said nastily, I just explained that I was tired of fighting about it and feeling pissed at him all the time, if he didn't want to do it no big deal but I needed that crap GONE and so I  had a plan in place, unless he told me beforehand to move up the time and go ahead and call them.

I did the same for the self-storage and my ex's stuff.  I didn't want to have to go through it all, didn't want to have him get all pissy at me for throwing some important wrapper away or something, so I told him I was renting a storage unit, everything not put away in drawers and in closets was going there (it was very close by, which was a plus) so that we wouldn't fight about it any more.  He actually did prioritized what he wanted in his drawers and closests (dumped the rest on the floor), and on moving day I moved all that stuff to the unit while he was at work, and when the bill for it came I put it on his desk and did not even open it.  He was happier with all that stuff gone too.  Eventually he did go through the unit stuff and we were able to get rid of the unit after a year.  And again, it was not penalizing or anything.  We had actually been going to counseling and paying $75 a session for weekly sessions, which is why when I told him I noticed we were mostly fighting about Stuff, and why didn't we try spending a quarter of that on a storage unit, he was game.

[mmmmochi]

We only have a small apartment and 2 children. My DH is the same. I finally managed to persuade him to let me give away/throw away baby stuff. After all we were definately done with our family, no more babies.

I got rid of so much stuff. I saw it as the start to getting rid of some of DH`s clutter...I started to tidy away some of his trash stuff....

This was 5 weeks ago.

I very recently found out Im pregnant with a suprise baby number three.

After being told off by the hoarding husband, and told he will never throw away anything again, he informed me he was clearly correct in keeping things. He produced the baby bath and highchair he had hid saved from my tidying up session.

So I`ve well and truely lost the `arguement`.

There is a moral to the story somewhere, perhaps dont drink alcohol over the festive period? I am not a drinker, it was a yearly Baileys and ice.

Dont get me wrong, my husband is a darling. I love him very much indeed, he is a good dad and a great provider for the family. He is just a hoarder. Perhaps he is right, I just cant stand clutter and mess. He doesnt seem to see it that way. My idea of trash is his concept of treasure.

[JTA Mom]

We do have a small storage unit already (that my mom mostly utilizes. 1/6 of it is our stuff. Or should I say, his stuff. He also has a bunch of stuff at one of his grandparent's house. And it's not just the closet and trunk. Under the bed, about half the stuff is his--game controllers, computer parts, etc. the other half is either our important papers file, the breast pump, and extra receiving blankets/blankets. That's not mentioning the couple boxes of gaming stuff downstairs, and the neverending piles of 'important' papers from work. Papers he never, ever looks at. Papers that are 3 years old! He stores those in his old backpacks and a crate. Currently there are 3 full back packs.

It's more that I feel that my stuff, or the kids' stuff, which is not a lot to begin with, don't have room. And no matter how much I sift thru everything, he keeps taking more and more room over. And stacks of stuff everywhere. Ack. Like he empties his pocket on our small bookcase. And leaves it there. Argh!

Ami

[kasey08]

Oh gosh. I know exactly how all of you feel and am at the end of my rope. I'm ready and willing to get rid of my old stuff / old baby stuff, but I feel like I can't even begin to clean up because I'm blocked by all of DHs stuff. He won't part with anything from high school (15+ years ago), tshirts that are ripped or stained and he'll never wear again, and he has a HUGE collection of CDs and stuff like that. His childhood bedroom at his parent's house is filled with stuff, I don't think you can even open the door and walk in anymore. I refuse to live that way. The storage unit isn't an option for us because of money but also I know it would just turn into a junk pile that he never visited or sorted through. Sometimes when I start to clean I find little piles of actual garbage, like price tags he cut off DDs shirt and *forgot* to throw away!

[HerRoyallHighness]

I think this is a "man" thing, because my DH does it, too, and so does my dad. Every time I complain to my mom about it she just tells me "Congratulations, you found one just like your father!" When my brother and I moved out, his stuff took over almost the entire upstairs of their house (in other words, both of our old bedrooms, and we didn't move out that long ago!) until my mom put her foot down. He spent an entire summer cleaning it out and hasn't been allowed to put anything else up there since. We have to put the coffee table in the spare room when the Christmas tree is out because our living room is too small for both. Took the tree down today and went to move the table back... he had it covered it with stuff - stuff that I asked him to go through just before Christmas and either throw away or put away. So then what does he do? He stacks the stuff on the floor and promises to do it Monday. How many times have I heard that one before? I've lost count. He does the clothes thing, too. He prefers to stack the clean folded piles on top of the dresser rather than put anything away and then live out of the piles. Every now and then I get so frustrated with it that I put his clothes away for him. The catch is, when I do it I rearrange all his drawers so he can't find anything. So now all I have to do is threaten to put his clothes away for him if he doesn't do it himself.