DH collections bringing me down.

Omg excel spreadsheets of collections 🫣
This would drive me nuts but his hoarding cannot have been a sudden surprise to you? You must have known about this for a long time.
I couldn’t live with so much ‘stuff’, we cleared out our large loft space to put 2 bedrooms and a bathroom up there and it took less than 10 minutes to empty it, 2 boxes of books from when we moved in but at that point hadn’t built book shelves and a box of photos for the same reason, a box of Christmas decorations and some stuff left behind from the previous owners including random carpet offcuts that weren’t from any carpets in the house at the time of us moving in!
It sounds like his ‘collections’ are just boxes of hoarding and not to be enjoyed.
I’m not a minimalist, my house looks lived in but is totally clutter free - the only thing I seem to collect is other peoples children for tea.
I don’t really know what to advise op, he thinks his stuff is really special and important (I’m not sure what importance a lot of it has!) and you think it’s cluttering up valuable space. How do you both come to a middle point in this?

At some point you decided to share the rest of your life with him, share your house and make children. You are actually planning to have another child.

I don't understand your motivations for doing so if you are not happy with such a large part of who he is. Forget the hoarding - what is your actual issue?

How is it possible to to have an ick or a brewing annoyance with a boyfriend and yet just carry on hitching up?
I'd be back on Tinder the very first time he mentioned his collections or any similar afflictions, and yet here you are - married with children.
Maybe you are more suited than most to blank his peculiarities out and lead a happy life. So just do that. Think of his good points and ignore the rest, just like you had to do to get this far. I really don't think there is an alternative unless you are prepared to leave him now after successfully ignoring the signs of neurodiversity for years.

No collection is immune to fashion and yes odd things hold their value. Someone born after Elvis died might want one 78, beautifully framed but they don't want 30 and collections come in multiples. My Nirvana vinyl is currently desirable but most things from the SubPop record label won't be.

The Lego was interesting, early stuff, not much of a market. Space and trains, very popular, Lego City, less so. But my kids won't be buying original 1980s Lego space models and if we'd have just put the toy money in a savings account we'd have made more.
By the time Lego have rereleased the Lego Death Star or VWbus every few years no-one will want to pay huge amounts for an old one, mint or not.

Storing, moving & selling the stuff took a huge amount of effort. We made a good amount of money but I've made an awful lot more working a normal job.

Having an attic full of stuff on the off chance a bloke with disposable income decides he must have it 20 years from now is crazy. Any decisions or limits about collections should remove the 'one day worth a lot of money' argument. Collections cost a lot of money and resources, they are never worth it.

I can't bear clutter so this is the sort of thing that would drive me mental.

If he has lots of small collections - presumably they can't be insured. Perhaps you could encourage consolidation on that basis. Plus a programme of simplification and "cashing in" might give him a nest egg for the "man cave" albeit £10-15k is a hell of a lot of expensive collectibles.

Fire risk? Is tons of this stuff paper based sitting in your loft? I used to live across the road from a hoarder and in a freak lightening strike her house [mid terrace] went up like a Roman candle.

I think you should point out that he is entitled to 1/4 of the loft at best assuming you and the children take a portion for your own possessions, household and baby stuff. Personally I think you are being perfectly reasonable to take a VERY firm line on this stuff as it will take over your lives otherwise.

My Gran had a lot of stuff. Not a collector as such and definitely not a hoarder, but had lots of things dating back years. Travel magazines from the 1960s for example!

When she had to go into a home, my parents had a hell of a job clearing it all out. As they found her marriage certificate in the middle of one of the previously mentioned travel magazines, they had to go through EVERYTHING. She had a small terraced house and it took weeks to clear out.

My DPs, as a result, then decided to do a massive declutter of their own house as they didn't want me having to go through the same amount of stuff as they did.

@SoddingSoda I know he'll probably say he has a spreadsheet to keep track of it all, but remind him that one day your kids are going to have to deal with it all and they are not going to have any personal connection to the football boots he wore when he was 10!

Your husband is a hoarder.

He won't believe this, because it's all 'collections' as far as he's concerned, and he won't accept it's a problem because he has only taken his own half of the attic, and the office, to hoard it in.

Get support for yourself.

Try to get your husband to seek therapy.

Some vinyl can be worth a fortune. But depends on lots of things like whether it was a rare edition etc.

I have sold some 12" recently. Not for amazing money but was surprised how much I got for a pile of stuff just sitting in the loft. I think a lot of people like the cover art on 12" vinyl. Some of it is amazing.

I love a collection and really struggle to throw anything away - it's not just men. And DD was exasperated when I told her how proud I was of her interrailing spreadsheet; "of all the things I've done!" was her response! But I do recognise that I have to be realistic about what is reasonable in a limited space, even if it takes a bit of nagging from DH.

Im not sure this is true.

We sold off a load of cooms and toys that weee part of someone’s collection.

They fetched 15k

I imagine an Elvis 78 is worth something.

Would it matter either way if he had it or not?

The problem still exists

Sadly for my children my ex, whilst loud at proclaiming how much he loved his DD, preferred his collections to us. He also slowly reduced the amount of money he put in the “family pot” saying he had bills to pay…bills that was actually him prioritising new additions to his collections over the happiness and welfare of the children.
When we moved house his belongings took priority and I had to get rid of personal affects of mine and children to reduce the removals costs. I never forgot that.
It took me a couple more years to admit defeat, and I wish I had got rid of him sooner than I did.

I'm a minimalist and too much stuff makes me anxious.

Me too, this thread is actually making me feel a bit uneasy. I couldn't live with a hoarder or anyone into collectables or hanging onto old crap for sentimental reasons.

I agree with this. Don't start quibbling over whether it's fair that the joint stuff counts as part of your half. I think you should stick to half the loft as your boundary - but be very very firm about it.

I'm a minimalist and too much stuff makes me anxious. But what is the point of a collection or collections if they get put in the loft? Does he think some of it is worth anything?

Some of his collections sound like hoarding. What happens when his share of the loft gets full? It sounds like whatever he's collecting will never be enough.

I like the idea of 50% for family stuff like the Christmas tree and then a third each for each of you. If he gets a full 50% it will soon overrun the 50% you, your child and family space and then what?

He sounds selfish.

Oh dear, I'm a collector too BUT I live on my own and my 3rd bedroom houses my collection, also it's worth a lot of money as it's very niche and I've been collecting since the 1980's. I've told my adult DS he can auction the lot when I'm dead. It should give him quite a nest egg.
It is something that never goes out of fashion and is really museum quality.
Really he either needs an extra room to house this stuff or an outdoor lockable man cave.
At my last house I had an outbuilding that I stored everything in.

It wasnt.

Unfortunately, it's therapy. CBT night help, or EDMR.

Actually I think Lego is pretty timeless. The prices for Lego sets seem to hold up pretty well. If it is mint and boxed of course.

Meccano is different. That is very much looked on as an old toy and not modern. Prices for that don't seem to have held up anywhere near as well as Lego. I expect train sets to go the same way, if they haven't already.

My Dad collected a particular type of model car. But he chose the wrong type. Some types are worth a fortune. A good proportion of his are worth less than their purchase price.

Sometimes it is hard to predict what will be worth something in a few years time.

I think you are right that a lot of people want to collect stuff they had as kids. So that stuff becomes worth less as generations move on and kids have different toys.

As for vinyl not being worth anything. Hmmm.

I had an ex who collected some pewter model shitty things. Had a few boxes of them. He had other toys as well.

We were under thirty so I think he had potential to go further. When we moved in together we had strong words and we "agreed" they would not go on display. I never asked what he did with them.

We split up, he moved out. He apparently couldn't find them but as I'd never paid attention I had no wisdom to offer on it.

I moved out many years later and one of the removal guys found two boxes of it all in the loft (people had been up there in the meantime but I think they were shoved into the eaves). Probably about a hundred of the things, they cost between a tenner and up to about fifty quid each.

I took great joy in donating them to a charity shop who were thrilled!

I really think I wouldn't put up with that any more, though I'd never live with anyone again so I guess it doesn't matter.

Is this even safe for your house? I’ve not owned one but we’ve always been told to only keep a reasonable amount in the loft, spread it out and use sparingly.

We found notebooks full of tick sheets of boxed toy cars never played with. Between the collectables and then collecting every port a P&O cruise ship ever docked at, they spunked hundreds of thousands of pounds. Once a 'collector' always a collector but they never wanted to collect happy afternoons.

Ok
So if someone was similar to this man ,
Where would someone go to get advice to make changes,
Maybe someone has autism and has taken over the loft entirely with every single baby and toddler item their 4 adult children possessed
Maybe someone has kept every item of clothing for the last 30 years also in the loft .
Where would someone start .?
Just out of curiosity

No advice but in a similar situation here. My husband has boxes and boxes of his childhood toys such as Lego, hot wheels cars, micromachines etc. Not things like old football boots though. He seems to think that these physically possessions = his childhood as if to get rid of any would mean he was getting rid of his childhood.

He also has an excel sheet of one of his collections...

You could do one in one out where he can only buy something new when he's sold something.

My dad was a 'collector', he loved stuff more than us.
I sold my boxed Lego to middle aged men who hadn't got their Xmas presents in 1982. Turns out my dad's controlling nature had sucked a lot of joy out of it and I bought my kids new Lego relevant to them.
The thing about collections is that most people don't want the collectables of the past so coins, stamps, cigarette cards, model toy soldiers are worthless as their aging collectors die off.
I predict that comic book franchise collectables, vinyl, this generations Lego will be as unwanted as an Elvis 78 record today.

Sorting out my dad's stuff switched my grief to hate. I feel utterly cold about him now and it's made me a bit ruthless around my own house.
I certainly don't expect my kids to have any attachment to things I have chosen to live with. It's up to them to forge their own identities with their choices.