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AIBU?

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Original poster

DH and sleeping bag gate

182 replies

CoffeeCoffeeTea · 14/04/2019 22:11

Ok, this argument has been going on for 10 years and I need advice on how to move on. I lost my temper badly tonight , and I am so ashamed, not because I argued with DH but because I know I've upset my DCs.

Around 10 years ago my sister and her family came for dinner! Talk turned to my DNiece and that she was going on a camping trip with school. My DH offered my DN his sleeping bag , my DN was polite and said thank you , how kind.... but in reality there was no way she was going to use my DH grotty sleeping bag, it was at least 40 years old, had a weird odour and even I would not use it. So my niece ever took the sleeping bag.
A year or two later I had to do a major clear out as we had a bad infestation of carpet bugs and silver fish. To be honest I do not remember what I binned , I just put on the marigolds and cleared lots of stuff and probably DHs sleeping bag...

So moving on, and I do apologise as I've just reread what I've written and it's so trivial.
So problem is that my husband keeps bringing up the missing sleeping bag. He keeps asking me to ring my sister as he is convinced my niece has stolen it. When I tell him I binned it with all the contaminated stuff he accuses me of covering for my sister.
Tonight I lost it and said 'I fxxxx binned your shxxx sleeping bag with all the other crap you had'
We had a massive screaming row. I've apologies to our DCs .
But I'm just so tired of this arguement .it was a 30?year old thread bare sleeping bag . I've apologised , I binned it, ,
How can I get him to move on

OP posts:
GirlRaisedInTheSouth · 15/04/2019 05:47

We borrowed one of FIL’s tarpaulins a few months ago for an event. He hounded us every day after this event to return it, in spite of it having not been used for decades.

When we did return it, I couldn’t help myself. I said, “why, are you going on a camping trip?”. DH said that was rude of me, but I could see him trying not to laugh Grin.

cantfindname · 15/04/2019 06:31

This seems to be a common problem. My lovely partner was always buying socks and underpants,amongst other things, swearing he had none fit to wear. When I had the task of clearing all his things out I had an 80 liter sack stuffed full of decrepit socks with holes in them. Followed by almost as many underpants. 14 pairs of shoes/boots/trainers with holes. Umpteen shirts, jumpers etc, some pf which I had never seen in the 17 years we were together. Oh, and jeans. Baggy, saggy jeans with holes in them... lots of pairs.

Then, inexplicably, eleven brand new sets of watercolour paints. He had never painted, not shown any desire to do so.

Over 500 DVDs. I once suggested he should take some to a charity shop and I think that was the closest we ever came to arguing.

I reckon it was partly because at one point in his life he had been extremely poor and he was scared he might 'need' this stuff again one day... although what he was going to do with holed boots and shoes I dread to think.

I admit I would willingly put up with it all just to have him back.

cortex10 · 15/04/2019 06:37

DH still accuses me of throwing his calculator away when we first moved in together more than 30 years ago

septembersunshine · 15/04/2019 06:57

My dh wants to keep our current Maclaren stroller for our grandchildren. Our toddler is 2.

AlwaysCheddar · 15/04/2019 07:08

He’s got issues! A £10 sleeping bag would cost £150 in today’s £ worth.

MaybeitsMaybelline · 15/04/2019 07:09

I thought my dad was the only one. I also put this down to him being very poor as a child. My dad still darns socks and the holes in the elbows of his lambs wool cardigan. He sees the toes of his slippers when his feet poke through too.

These days he has Alzheimer’s so when he starts on the sewing kit, mum waits until he has left the room then moves it. Later she disposed of the offending article and he forgets he was ever on with it.

Sadly I don’t think now it is the poverty. DS age 24 is already showing these tendencies. I have told DH that when son finally leaves in the next couple of months to his own house and takes what he wants we are hiring a skip. DS will be told in no uncertain terms that anything left behind WILL be disposed of.

Minxmumma · 15/04/2019 07:10

Sorry I have a loft full of sleeping bags - avid campers but none older than 4years at the most. Old sleeping bags are just ewwwww.

Can I suggest turning the lounge into Dads Museum of antiquated stuff for a weekend. Drag it all out and 'display' it. Sell him a ticket and sit back and giggle a little or a lot.

Then break it to him that if it hasn't been used in 5 years HE is taking it to the dump!

Your Dc are old enough to cope with you being cross - it's part of life

HBStowe · 15/04/2019 07:14

Christ he sounds like a chore!

I don’t blame you for shouting, you were goaded beyond endurance. Hopefully this means it will sink in at last...

ItStartedWithAKiss241 · 15/04/2019 07:18

Some people are just like this 🙄 My DM works in a corner shop and bought a loaf of Hovis that was on sale for 10p round for me... I said ta and froze it as I already had bread. A week or two later she comes round and asks DP if he enjoyed his bread. He has no idea what she is talking about asi didn’t even mention where the Hovis came from it’s so trivial. X

ScreamingValenta · 15/04/2019 07:19

Did it have huge sentimental value - e.g. did he lose his virginity in it, or something like that?

MyKingdomForBrie · 15/04/2019 07:22

@ScreamingValenta pretty grim to offer it to his niece unwashed if so Grin

ChipSandwich · 15/04/2019 07:29

Why are they so weird? So many of them, apparently functioning in real world, but strange
Yup. Sounds like mine as well. House and garage full of stuff that might come in useful. It's actually loads of old shite I despair sometimes.

Damntheman · 15/04/2019 07:35

I would be beyond offended that he continually accuses your DN of being a thief. That is not even slightly OK! Have you pointed this out?

Lolatall · 15/04/2019 07:38

Fucking hell I would have lost my temper too.

My husband keeps going on about a denim jacket he had when he was a teenager, apparently it was really good and he must still have it somewhere.

He also fishes things out of the bin when I try to throw them out.

vintanner · 15/04/2019 07:43

He may have stashed a ton of money in it????!!!?????

CremantDeLoireSocialist · 15/04/2019 07:55

Ooh my DH is a bit like this too! He is very resistant to things being thrown out. Luckily we have a large loft.

OP if he basically accused you of lying, you were quite justified in losing your temper. Maybe you got your point across this time.

Ninkaninus · 15/04/2019 07:58

I think that if your children are teenagers they can cope with s fairly big argument, and maybe they needed to see you refusing to be brought into the same stupid discussion for the umpteenth time, especially after you’d done a nice thing and cooked him his favourite dinner!

He sounds a bit of an arse, and I would have lost my temper with him years ago. Imagine being so dumb and so obsessive that you honestly can’t see how awful you’re being to family, accusing them of stealing your nasty old horrible shitty things.

Billben · 15/04/2019 08:07

This thread is hilarious 😂 But the bit about my DH accusing me of covering up for somebody would really really piss me off 😡

angstinabaggyjumper · 15/04/2019 08:11

My mother was like this, whenever she lost something which she did often as nothing got thrown out she would accuse either me or some random workman who had the misfortune to be in the house, of stealing it.
This included a cotton dress which apparently one of the builders had stolen for his girlfriend, a pair of velvet curtains that a painter had taken and a gold ring that some furniture removers had taken because they weren't paid enough.
All these items and more were eventually found in the house, ironically she had been sitting on the cotton dress for years as she had stored it under the cushion on her favourite chair.
I never found this funny and thought it was a paranoia that was probably some undiagnosed condition.

downcasteyes · 15/04/2019 08:19

This is the worst of armchair psychology posting, but I have a theory that there are many types of unhealthy relationship that people can have to objects. Hoarding is just at the extreme end of a whole spectrum - we notice it because it's really out of control. But I think there are people who have an unhealthy degree of emotional investment in material things at a lesser level. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean the odd sentimental item - that's fine - I mean people who find it hard to let go of literally thousands of objects that they own because they are invested with some kind of significance. It's not a healthy way to live if you can't throw out a whole host of things that are old and knackered because every one of them has sentimental value.

I prescribe a course of Marie Kondo and Consumed on Netflix. Grin

diddl · 15/04/2019 08:29

"But the bit about my DH accusing me of covering up for somebody would really really piss me off"

Yup-that is really strange.

Well that and offering an unwashed, unlooked after sleeping bag to someone-that's just disgusting!

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 15/04/2019 09:02

Poor OP - I hope you're on speaking terms again soon. It does sound funny, though.

A friend's dh was a hoarder - not as bad as those you see on TV, but so many clothes he never even wore, God knows how many gadgets of every kind, etc.

After he died and she was clearing the house, among other things she found six blood pressure monitors.
I asked why on earth he'd need six.
'Because he couldn't find the first (among all the accumulated crap) so he'd buy another, rinse and repeat.'
Ditto electric shavers, you name it.

winbinin · 15/04/2019 09:20

My DH isn’t quite that bad but he does cling onto ‘stuff’. I dislike clutter and am constantly clearing out. Recently I gave away over 1000 books of mine either because I now have them on Kindle and prefer to read them that way or because I had outgrown them. I didn’t get rid of all of them by the way, I kept ones that were special to me or that aren’t available as ebooks. The happiness and lightness of seeing spaces on the shelves where they were once stacked 2 books deep was invigorating to me. DH went through the boxes very thoroughly to make sure I hadn’t disposed of any of his books and made quite a fuss when he found 2. Even when I pointed out he had other identical copies of the books in question he was still reluctant to see them go.

He is the same with DVDs. He loves the offers you get in HMV which give you 5 films for £20 or whatever. He will see 2 films he really wants and then add another 3 to get the offer but then he doesn’t watch them. They sit on the shelves in their shiny plastic wrapping for literally years until I crack and smuggle them down to the charity shop. Again, I don’t do it with everything, I would never throw away something he loves or that holds memories for us but we don’t need three copies of Hairspray or to keep a seven year old action movie that has never been taken out of the wrapper and I only give away things that can be seen on one of the many steaming services we subscribe to. I can honestly say he has never once missed or looked for one of the discs I have passed on but on the one occasion he saw the pile for disposal he acted like I was selling one of the DC. He actually raised his voice, (a very, very rare occurence) and put all the discs back on the shelf telling me they were vital and he intended to watch them imminently. A couple of weeks later I boxed the same discs up, dated the box and hid it in the garage. That was over a year ago and he still hasn’t missed them!

This is a long post. I obviously needed to rant about this as it drives me mad. The point I wanted to make was that DH is quite a shy, uncertain man and I think stuff like books and CDs and DVDs kind of define him to himself. They become part of his identity. In his head he is the man who reads this and listens to that and to him getting rid of something he once acquired is giving away a bit of his personality and history, I think it almost seems disloyal to him. And his loyalty is part of why I love him so I do my best to control my ruthless clearing out streak and respect his stuff. Well, that’s what I repeat to myself every time I see his 50 year old German/English school dictionary on the shelf next to an almanac of cricketing trivia he was given for Christmas about 10 years ago and has never opened!

labazsisgoingmad · 15/04/2019 09:30

did it have memories of a great camping trip? was it a family heirloom! sometimes silly things have great sentimental value

justasking111 · 15/04/2019 09:42

DS got married so everything was packed up and given to him. A few days later he was back new wife had made him cull the stuff he brought so many clothes back for his little brother to grow into. She had also culled his photos a hint of a girl out it went so we have those back too. {Grin}