Is Your Partner a Packrat?

My husband has packrat-like tendencies, but he isn't a packrat ...partially because I cannot STAND clutter. I can't stand it. It isn't as if our apartment is spotless by any means, but I really, really don't like clutter...have i mentioned I don't like clutter LOL jk

I would never throw anything out (of my husband's) without his knowledge or permission.. it is his stuff, I respect that -- but I will go through things and sort things for him -- and I think that makes it much easier on him somehow to let go of it... like for instance I will say, "hey baby, this clutter is getting out of hand... I kept the Rolling Stone covers (like if The Beatles or something was on the cover he likes to keep the mag etc) that you really love in this box, see?" I also put some you haven't looked at forever in this box, can you look through it and see what you may want because I was thinking of tossing it" - something like that... most times he is totally cool with it -- I just think it is the going through part and *deciding* what to keep or give away is what cripples him sometimes lol

His dad is a HUGE like, interfere with your life and relationships type packrat... they have a farm up north and there are like all kinds of sinks and parts and water heaters and crazy crap in one part of the land (where no one sees at least) where his dad "keeps stuff in case he needs it"....it is gross.

Same with the barn... there is stuff stored in the rafters as old as I am (nearly 30) "just in case" his dad may need it... When he passes away someday, it is going to be SO hard to clear that area. It can truly cripple you.

Anyway, good luck, just wanted to share that you are not alone...

Yes, my dh is a packrat. But he pales in comparison to my PhD in Packrat.... :

I don't think you can do much with sentimental stuff - unless it is something you could take a photo of then get rid of. We did this with a huge ceramic egg I kept for years because it reminded me of a really fun week my sister and I alone in the house one summer (we kept our mad money in the egg).

As to college notebooks, etc., could you box them up and put them up in the attic or at his parents' house or somewhere they could exist without getting in the way?

I have been watching Clean Sweep as much as possible to help me. I have been going through one area at a time and taking EVERYTHING out then putting back in only what we really love/use and the rest goes in garage sale boxes.

Just Sunday, went through my closet (my sister helped me; impossible without help) and got rid of FIVE boxes of clothes (too big, too small, sooo painfully out of date, not flattering/my color/etc.) and two bags of shoes! Now just need to convince dh to let me help him do his! The man must have 70+ tee shirts with pictures on them. I asked how many he thought was a reasonable number to have. He said 50! I think 20 is more than enough...

OMG I want to Clean Sweep my house SO bad!!! The thing is I really believe that once you get it all out, you really don't want it back in. We just redid the living room and once everything was out for us to paint I REALLY didn't want the stuff back in. The basement and the upstairs of my house are just packed. Once the weather is really nice I am going to insist we clean sweep, and I may even get ppl in here to help move the boxes. We have had 2 huge ( I am talking $700) yard sales and we STILL have crap.

So the answer would be a loud yes I feel your pain :

Oh yeah. DH is a packrat extraordinaire! His office looks like a bomb went off in there. Boxes and boxes of notebooks from college, guitar tabulature, books on top of books, a plaque he received in the mail from his boss at our last base (the plaque is still in the UNOPENED package, though, because the glass in it got broken in transit, but we can't get rid of it), bits of paper he brought home from work and needs to shred before he throws them away (yeah, right), tons of musical gear (some in use, so me not), etc. You literally cannot open the closet doors without something falling on you. He has cases and cases of cassette tapes stacked in his closet, and we haven't owned a cassette tape player in years. There are four HUGE monitor-sized boxes of computer parts in the attic ... and how quickly do computer parts become out-of-date?!? Years and years worth of National Geograhic, GuitarWorld, Writer's Digest, etc. Boxes and boxes of toys (yes, toys), comic books, role-playing games of old, M&M collectibles. AAAAARRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I just close the door and pretend it's not there. Otherwise I'd go absolutely round the bend!

I have to say that he got it from BOTH of his parents, so it's not too surprising, really. My MIL has cardboard boxes in her basement that are older than I am (33). She sent DS's last birthday gift in a box that originally held a 19 inch black and white television with a wood-grain finish. She also just recently sent some of DH's things that she still had, like a blow-up Godzilla and some moon landing astronaut toys (that he actually got the week of the moon landing). She has given me most of DH's old toys, several of the sweaters that she knit for him as a child (he's in his forties, people), some wall decor that used to hang in HER room when she was a child. She just bought a new mattress -- the one she was sleeping on was the one that she got when she was allowed to completely remodel her bedroom for her sweet sixteen birthday gift. She's 71.

Yep! But he gets it from his dad. OMG...the things FIL's girlfriend cleaned out of the upstairs. We did get a "treasure" there...DH's 6th grade journal. The kids got a kick out of it, but that tells you how much "crap" FIL kept...DH is 40 now!

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Umm...I think I married his twin. I have 6 years worth of German computer mags in the garage because he might need an update cd from one. Um...Riiiiiggggghhhhttttt. Oh, and can't though out the computer/tv/printer boxes either.

I can't go into the home office. It hurts my eyes.

no. i am the packrat :

Oh Lord yes.

It runs in the family. I've been to the homes of several of DH's family members and OMG I am just glad that he recognizes his packratness for what it is and tries to change his nature.

He wanted to save plastic drink bottles. "Because we could use them for something!" "what [dh]?" "um, I could make something! Or, SOMETHING!"

I faithfully put them in a bag for him and stuck it in the storage closet for three months. I then asked if he'd had any ideas and told him his bottles were moldy. Can I throw them out now? "yeah, I suppose..." "[DH], if you ever have an idea, we'll surely have more drink bottles in the future" "yeah, I suppose..."

And OMG the computer components! I made him strip the old cases though so at least it is only the cables, cards, etc. But yes, we paid money to ship them when we moved and they haven't been touched. I'm quite upset about it because I HATE to have stuff around that we don't use, even though we've got the storage space for it now. I HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT. But *sigh* I think I can live with it because the inverse price of getting rid of it is a bunch of distress to DH. I need to wait until he'll give me the OK.

Oh the shirts.

ALL of my clothing, 100% of it, fits in my 5-drawer dresser. DH has a 3-drawer dresser that holds...drumroll please...his socks, underwear, undershirts, sleepwear, and yardwork clothes. The rest of his clothing (work clothes, a godzillion tshirts of varying quality most not worn for years, pants, shirts, etc) is stacked atop the closet organizer. He seriously has more clothing than everyone else in the house combined. But no, we can't get rid of it. In fact, we must take careful care of his clothing lest it become *gasp* worn out. Holy hell if there's anything I could strangle my DH over, it is his clothing collection.

My DH is also a packrat - but I try to just live with it as much as I can. His parents divorced when he was 13 and as the oldest of three boys, he was sent to boarding school (his dad took his middle brother and his mom took the youngest) and he says that when he went back 'home' that first Christmas, his mother had thrown away all of the stuff he left in his room. So, at 13 he left home with a suitcase and that's all that's left of his childhood.

It really is psychological for him and I've learned not to throw anything out without express permission. I admit, I usually clean the fridge out after he's left for work and before the garbage men come b/c I can't stand having rotting food in there (he actually eats a lot of stuff that I won't even touch - he was also a poor student for a long time and hates any kind of food waste).

His clothing also takes up not just his dresser, his closet and about 7 suitcases in the basement, it's also completely taken over both spare bedroom closets. He collects things too, so he has at least a dozen pairs of running shoes that haven't been worn, but were probably on sale or something, so he just keeps picking them up.

Don't ask me what's in our basement. I stopped going down there b/c it makes me crazy and I know he has 'stashes' of stuff in the garage that he's pulled from the trash that I threw away. He's said he feels like I don't respect how hard he works sometimes b/c I can just throw a lot of stuff away that we bought. I'm pretty good at thinning things as we go along or otherwise we end up having it take over every spare surface...but, I know it still bothers him a lot.

Does it make me crazy? Only sometimes, but we kind have come to an agreement that as long the living room, kitchen and baby's room (they are the public areas of the house basically) stay relatively clutter free of his stuff, then I won't make a stink about the rest of the house. My office is also off limits to any of his stuff - although I did catch him trying to put some stuff in there the other day that he thought I needed.

Oh well, I've made my peace with it. I love him and all his mess and it's easier for me to understand it b/c I know why he's that way. I also saw how hurt he was one time when I did throw something away. It seemed useless and completely pointless to me, but it really, really hurt him that I did that. He took it so personally that I've never done anything like that again. I just pretend I don't see it or if it's getting to be too much in the common areas, I ask him to just move it somewhere else, out of my way. He's pretty good about it - although sometimes that creates problems b/c then he'll 'lose' some piece of paper he had stored in that pile and then we have to go back through ALL the piles to find it. I now keep track of where which piles get moved to to save myself a lot of headache b/c he really does FLIP OUT if it gets lost for good.

Well, anyway, I'm rambling - but I feel your pain, or at least I used to. It's just kind of status quo around here now tho...

I'm the packrat around here. DS1 is like me, and I get it from both my parents, but especially from my dad. My dad has a 1-bedroom apartment. There are so many boxes under the kitchen/dining table that you can't sit at it, and there's no room at the table, anyway, as it's piled up with stuff. (He eats in a chair in front of the tv). His bedroom is piled literally to the ceiling with boxes. There's a skinny path through his living room - kitchen, to chair, to couch, to patio. The rest is covered with stuff. He still has a bunch of junk at my mom's place. Oh - did I mention the four storage lockers he has at the moving company he used to work at (retired last summer)?? It's INSANE. I can't imagine what's going to happen to it all when he passes on...

Anyway - I'm trying to get on top of my packrat tendencies...just let dh throw out a whole box of magazines that I'd been keeping, for example. But, it's hard. I've never learned to make order out of chaos...I'm okay at keeping order, but I suck hugely at establishing it in the first place. (Oddly enough, I can do this in the workplace - no problem.) The sorting tasks are just too overwhelming.

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yep. This is the number one reason we fight. I come home, he has thrown something of mine away. It IS so distressing, and hurtful for him to be so flippant with the things that are important to me, ykwim? I will go to read a Parenting magazine, and POOF, it's gone! And DH has NO CLUE where it's at. He's either thrown it away or almost worse, moved it, but he doesn't remember where : . His idea of cleaning is throwing everything in a box or bag and then dumping it in the garage. The worst was when I was in the hospital on the day I gave birth to my son, DH went behind my back, lied to me and said he had to go to work, then brought over my MIL and SIL to help him go through MY personal stuff and throw out what they thought was junk all under the guise of "babyproofing the house". Umm, newborns don't even crawl yet???? GRRR. I don't know how many arguments we have had about this topic, it's really stressing our marriage!

And I have to say CaptainCrunchy is awesome. I have actually asked DH to help me sort through my stuff the way she does with her husband's, without much luck. It is sooo much more helpful and kind that way.

Edited to say sorry for hijacking your thread Quse