How to live with hoarder husband

[kavalkada]

Posting here for traffic. First, I apologize for all mistakes I'm going to make because English is not my first language, sorry. And feel free to correct me. I won't mind, actually I would like that.

So, back to the problem. My husband is a hoarder, he comes from a family of hoarders and I knew that when we met because first time I visited him, his apartment was a hoarder's paradise. I, on the other hand, am super organized and if I could have a dream job that would be organizing other people homes (unfortunately, not possible in my country). We talked about this before we married and we agreed on some rules that will make our life better - for him and for me.

He has a room just for him where he can hoard as much as he likes and two large wardrobes just for him and his things. He keeps his hoarding to allocated places and it works for us. I'm allowed to bin his rubbish from time to time - real rubbish - packages of food, shoes and clothes with holes and things like that. I just have to do that slowly so he doesn't notice that. So, as far as hoarding goes, we're at good place.

But, we have two problems, one that we have now, and the other that we will have in few years.

1. Toys - my MIL is lovely woman, but she likes to bring toys - lot of them to my children. We live in a three bedroom apartment and with four of us there is not much place for them. I created a system with one huge chest, ikea trofast, chest of drawers and few others places for toys. But there is too much of stuff. And considering the fact that my children are small we're talking about big toys. I can get rid of smaller items without anybody noticing, but with bigger items it's a problem. And my husband doesn't want to get rid of anything. So, what to do and how to do it?

1. Two kids in three bedroom apartment - I have a soon to be 6-year old boy and one year old girl. My little boy sleeps in his room and my little girl is with us in her bed in our bedroom. And she'll stay there till her third birthday. As I said before, my husband has a room for himself but in two-three years we will need that room for our little girl. But that means that he will have to lose his room, and the moment he loses his room, his junk will occupy the rest of of our flat. And when that happens, I know that we will fight all the time because I can't live in clutter. My brain can't handle that and I know I will became a horrible wife and horrible mother after that. Please don't judge me.

What to do? It would be ideal to find bigger place, but I don't think that will be possible in next 7 or 8 years. Was there anybody with similar problem. how did you solve it?

Has he ever had therapy, like CBT? I would try and steer him down that route to get this under control before you need the room.

Not sure what you can do about toys brought by MIL - would she agree to keep them at her house for the kids to play with when you visit?

He needs therapy to ask why he hoards?
Tackle the root and cause, at least it’s confined for now

Hoarding is a form of ocd. He needs therapy.

You need to get him some therapy, keeping food and old clothes and shoes not normal. The children are going to spot that and question it as they get older, apart from anyhting else!

This sounds like a tough situation. I second the reccomendation to see if he can access some therapy.

It’s good that he’s been managing to keep his hoarding to a specific place. Can you build on this over the next year or so - talk to him calmly and explain your concerns about space for your daughter. Ask if you can both work on getting him to cut down his hoarding to half the room, then a quarter, then a few boxes?

As for the toys, is there any mileage in convincing your MIL that instead of toys she should do something else for her GC? Maybe talk about how many toys they have but it would be absolutely fantastic and set them up nicely if she would put the equivalent amount of money into a savings account for them?

My MIL is really nice woman and she really tries not to bring stuff to our house - and keeps most in her flat that is full to the brim, but three times a year - Christmas and kids birthdays she goes all the way. And I don't want to upset her because I know how much it means to her. And my husband would never throw one single toy, for him everything is important.

As far as my husband, we talked and he told me that he needs a place in our flat that'll be just for him, where he can be himself without need to be tidy. And he is right, he respects the rest of our home and keeps it the way I like it, and he should have a place of his own. I would be pretty mad if I were in his shoes and my husband wouldn't let me have a little piece of my home just for myself.

But that doesn't solve our problem.

That sounds really tough. The short term practical solution would be for him to rent a storage locker, if you can afford it, and tell him that's where he needs to keep everything. But that's a real waste of money. I think hoarding is a recognised psychological issue, so maybe he needs some specialist counselling / therapy to help him understand why he feels he needs to hold on to all that junk? Because it clearly isn't ok to deny your child a room of her own (and all the extra storage for the toys and the household generally) for the sake of him keeping rubbish.

My husband isn't nearly that bad, but when we declutter the house, he is hopeless at throwing anything away unless it's utterly worn out. I realised (after reading a book called Declutter by Deborah Robertson) that because he grew up in a family where money was tight, he is subliminally worried that he will be again and needs to be prepared for that time. So he doesn't want to throw away towels, pillows, saucepans, etc, in poor condition, even when we have bought new ones, because what if the day comes when we can't afford to buy more brand new of those things? I now take care of all the throwing out.

On your MIL, could you ask that she keeps some of the toys at her house so that the kids will have special things to play with there when they visit? And encourage her to buy books, which take up less space, or things like craft supplies that get used up? For what it's worth, this problem won't last for ever. As kids get bigger, the toys get smaller (and your entire house gets carpeted in Lego, but that's a different problem!).

Dyrne, no way to convince my MIL to save money from toys, because she doesn't buy them. Those are toys from 70-es and 80-es, but still unopened and in mint condition. My MIL and FIL have a house apart from their flat where they hoard. So it is a problem. With all that, they are very kind and she is the loveliest grandma you can imagine - apart from hoarding.

As for the therapy, well, I can talk with hime, but I'm not sure we'll come to an agreement.

He doesn’t ‘need’ ‘his’ spaces in your home - that’s ‘enabling’ the issue - he needs therapy for his mental health issue, which is having a negative impact on him, you and the DC.

If he won’t get therapy and gets angry when you raise the issue or (v reasonably) want to decline or get rid of stuff, is this a ‘deal breaker’ for you?

Without treatment it’s unlikely to improve over time.

Rather than finding solutions in your own, what are your husband s plans? What does he see happening when your daughter has to move to her own room? Etc etc. So it's a solution you get to together

Maybe you do need to move, even if you had a garden shed or garage maybe that would be his dream! My husband's family have hoarder tendancies but they have a massive house in London so it's hidden but the two of them have an insane sq ft of space filled with stuff. My husband has taken some training that we only have a 3 bed semi!

For toys I don't know if this is a solution for you but it helped me. A local preschool have a somewhat famous nearly new sale twice a year and they sell a huge amount. Each seller can sell 100 items, so twice a year I get 100 things and end up with £70-£80 each time selling probably 50 things. Because I do it religiously our house is much better organised than it used to be.

A lot of the time I explain to my husband that having something isn't the same as using it and that it's a positive thing for another child to be able to play with it, another adult to read a book we don't really love (we only have 2 bookcases) and that sending things outside the home or family isn't waste if it's going to be used. It's worked, because his families thing is a bit distrustful of charity shops, his dad sees it as his role to rescue things and will only accept it moving around the family so we have to be very careful, especially with furniture, they'll keep any old table forever. My mil often brings a big bag of something that I take to the charity shop for them!

He doesn't get angry when we talk about that, but I don't think he wants to think about it for the next two years. And no, it is not a deal breaker for me, at least not at this moment. I can't talk about the future.

And kids could sleep together for two, mabye three years, but not more then that. And I don't think it would be fair to punish my son by sleeping with toddler who wakes up every night and needs mummy or daddy for cuddle before he sleeps again.

Ah that does make it more difficult then. I think honestly you may just have to get firmer - there’s a difference between “needs his own space” and “literally leaving piles of food in a room while your own daughter has no place to sleep”.

You need to absolutely insist he goes to therapy and starts seeking help for his condition.

I sympathise because I have a similar problem with my husband. He won’t get any help because he refuses to agree there’s a problem. It’s difficult because we’ve had arguments over throwing away broken things, or if I tell him to take stuff to the tip I will find he’s hidden it in the loft.

I tackle it the following ways -

1 He has some Ikea kallax boxes in the house for his stuff. They are all bulging full so I have to insist he clears one out every now and then because his stuff starts to spill all over the house. It’s a battle but does work.

2 He has a shed. This doesn’t sound possible for you in an apartment but has solved it for us, more or less. His shed is overflowing with junk and we’ve had a few battles where stuff starts being left in the house because he says there’s no room in the shed but generally it works. Is there anyone in your vicinity who isn’t using their shed/ garage/ outbuilding who might hire it to you at a small cost? Or could you afford a very small storage unit? Cheaper than moving and this would free up the bedroom.

3 I throw stuff out when he’s not around. I don’t like doing this and would never throw anything that isn’t very obviously broken/ mouldy/ rusty etc. But he has never once noticed and I cannot be expected to live in a house overflowing with junk. Can you ask your older boy what toys he wants to give to other children who have no toys and take them to charity yourself? The toys belong to them so it isn’t really for your husband to decide. My betting is he won’t even notice. This is how I tackled it when my children got older - they got tired of having so much junk around themselves and wanted to get rid of it.

4 I’ve tried recently to seriously reduce the stuff that comes into the house in the first place. This is an issue you might have to tackle with your MIL direct. Will she understand the problem? Could she keep some of their toys at hers for you?

None of this solves your root problem and therapy would be a better route. But mine won’t even agree there’s a problem so this is what we do.

First, I have to clear one thing that is probably important for discussion. We live in ex-communist country and most of our friends live in flats like we live and have one or two children. Children usually share a room and nobody sees anything wrong with that. The general idea is that is nice if they have room of their own, but nobody died from sharing a room. I agree in some cases, but our children are four years apart and of opposite sex so I don't see that working in long term. If I talk with a friend or family member about that their solution is to give up my bedroom and sleep on the couch until they move and make me feel like I'm terribly selfish for not wanting to do that.

It almost certainly won’t become easier to deal with this in two years. Getting help now could improve your H’s life, and help the whole family.

There’s lots of good info online about hoarding MH issues.

If you live in an apartment, are there any storerooms? Are there any near where you live? Could you rent or buy one? I ask because this what we're doing abroad at the moment which is how I know it's sometimes possible. Cheaper and easier than moving?

Your H is the selfish one here, not you, but it’s to do with his MH issue.

Sell the vintage toys, some of them are worth a fortune. Look on eBay and show your DH. Get him to see how something that's taking up space and causing you stress, and you're talking about paying to store, can be swapped for hundreds of pounds.

But he needs therapy. It's not on for him to have a room for his stuff at the expense of a bedroom for a child. Give him a deadline of a year or two at most to have it out of the house, sold, stored at his expense, given away or binned as appropriate.

As far as my husband, we talked and he told me that he needs a place in our flat that'll be just for him, where he can be himself without need to be tidy. And he is right, he respects the rest of our home and keeps it the way I like it, and he should have a place of his own. I would be pretty mad if I were in his shoes and my husband wouldn't let me have a little piece of my home just for myself.

Yet you don't have a full room in the family home for your exclusive use, do you?

You said you live in an ex-communist country. I’m assuming you have three bedrooms plus a living room. As you probably know, for people with small apartments in some countries it was quite normal for the parents to sleep in the living room. So, if necessary, and it is so important to you for your little girl to have her own room, you could always do that and she could have your room. That’s your back-up plan if your husband can’t get rid of some clutter. If you explain that to him, he might get his act together, but I doubt it as it sounds like this problem needs to be tackled with some kind of psychological therapy.

Sorry, I see that you’ll ruled out sleeping on a pull-out bed in the living room. Fair enough. Is your husband also against that? If so, he needs to do something! It might focus his mind if you point this out to him.

Therapy

Could your bedroom also be your DHs hoarding room? It could make you very unhappy though