DH has and hidden something valuable "for safety"

I'd be raging at him for hiding the car keys. I always leave them in plain sight in the hopes that if someone broke in they'd grab the keys, get in and go rather than continue rummaging through the house.

But yeah, stop helping him. My granddad hid his watch because he had foreign workmen in . He never found it and was told repeatedly by his DC that it was his own fault. I think they found it when emptying the house after he died.

I've "put away" a Ted Baker handbag.
No effing idea where it is & I cannot find it.

Annoying.

I honestly don’t know why you would be turning the house upside down for his watch. Yes fine if you’re already spring cleaning the kitchen, to keep an eye out. Otherwise, maybe this will be a learning experience for him and you shouldn’t swoop in and try and save the day.

Next time he puts something in a safe place tell him either put a note in the diary on your phone, take a photo on your phone and/or message yourself or someone else with a note of where you've put it.

As my mother would say "it's in the place where you haven't looked!" Luckily losing his watch only directly impacts him. I'd leave him to look for it; maybe the boredom and inconvenience will make him more mindful going forward.

Could he keep a llist on his phone or computer of all the places he's hidden things? Admittedly, a burglar could break in, hold your husband's thumb up to the touchpad, and force him to locate and open the document and reveal his hiding places, but that's probably unlikely.

If you keep jewellery in the house, hide it in something else metal as thieves sometimes use metal detectors.

We used to have a sideboard with four drawers and when he couldn't find something in it my late OH decided to index it, he got index cards from work and had divided each space in each drawer into back, front, left and right and he carefully filled in 16 cards for the 4 drawers, He was very proud of his marvellous system except when he needed to find something, he couldn't find the cards!
To all of the foil hat brigade, No I Did Not, but we never did find them.

My DH does this, after a few years of me saying-“it’s where you put it” when asks where’s my car key/phine/wallet/fill in the blank he has got the message. He puts things away, he looks for it.

I'd get a metal detector or try using one of those stud/cable detectors for walls, if you already have one, to find important metal items. It would help for keys at least!

Otherwise, I agree with PP that you shouldn't make it your problem. I wouldn't be stressed by DH losing (his) things, but I love puzzles and treasure hunts so I'd HAVE to help with searching, just for the fun of it.

Two safes and hiding things in light bulb boxes? You know none of this is even remotely normal right?

FWIW I would hide a watch in the biscuit tin if I needed a quick spot.

Gosh how bizarre and irritating.

Surely though those saying write a list or send a WhatsApp are significantly increasing the risk, as all a dodgy person would need is to find the list or check the phone? A safe seems much safer!!

"Have you checked your butthole?" 😆

When we were clearing my late Aunt's house we brought a small wardrobe over to my mother's house. A few years later I was looking for something on the shelf and right at the back, tucked into the frame was a bundle of one and five pound notes. We'd also found bundles of money in the pockets of her clothes before we took them to the charity shop.

Stop searching. This is his consequence to learn from.

Make sure he can't find your important stuff and start hiding that too. And make a sensible note of where you hid it from him.

Have a sensible conversation about where he will hide things in future.

Inside pocket of a blazer/suit jacket.
inside rolled up socks
in the corner of the medicine cabinet behind his cologne
under the towels in the cupboard

I stopped throwing unknown stuff away as I realised it would become apparent what something was for after I'd thrown it away.

Point was proven a couple of weeks ago. Went to get the barbecue out and the nut that held the chimney cover on was missing. "Aha!" I thought - I know exactly where that is! I found it last summer in the garden and thought it looked important, so popped it in the junk drawer in the kitchen and hey presto! It's fixed!

My MiL hid a lot of jewellery pinned to the insides of blouse sleeves. She gave me one and when I went to try it on there was a gold brooch pinned in one sleeve, one that I'd given her as a gift and she didn't want to lose it. When I gave it back, she just said 'Oh, wondered where that was'.

I think you have two problems, the first is his fear of burglary. Is this rational? I mean do you live in an area with high rates of crime? Is there anything less troublesome that would help like one of those alarms that will ring you if anything is happening at your house?

The second is the annoying hiding things and forgetting where you hid them. He needs to train himself to remember, there are books about this sort of thing so you have a sort of hook you hang things on, as an example someone recommended an author to me I knew I'd have forgotten the name by the time I got home so I pictured someone I used to work with who had the same first name, the second name was an animal so I pictured the animal. I got home and was too busy to look up the author but the next day I wanted to look up his books and I had no problem recalling his name. I'm not sure if the "pictures" helped or if it was just because I'd gone through a process and it had improved my memory.

Hope the watch turns up.

I really couldn't deal with that. Has he been burgled before? And that's why he takes it to such an extreme level?

Also, get another car key cut and keep it in your own safe space in case he loses the one he has!!

In between the lining and the outer of a dog biscuit bag (tends to only be the paper type that have a plastic liner though).

In his pants drawer perhaps? Or maybe under the bed....

My aunt found her Dad's death certificate in the middle of a knitting magazine from 1965.

He died in 1990!

Honestly, it will turn up when it turns up. Just don't chuck anything away without checking it carefully!

Sympathies @Beebopwasthebest . My DH is forever losing things. Important things as well as lesser items. I stopped helping him, mostly, after the time we were at my Mum's and he 'lost' his watch. We had brought her in a new microwave and were setting it up for her. Box and all sorts lying about. He said he had taken it off and couldn't find it, so we knew it had to be in the house somewhere.

After about 30 minutes of turning everything upside down and no luck (and remembering what my husband is like with 'losing' things) I reached over and pushed up the sleeve of his jumper. It was on his wrist the whole time! Didn't know whether to laugh or cry!! 😁