DH threw sentimental toys away

[VSadMum]

My DH has an issue with throwing things away without speaking to me first. If he tidies up in our house he just bins stuff without checking it first. He’s binned my passport and other important documents before now. He promised me that he would stop doing that. God forbid if I threw away so much as a paper clip that belonged to him.

About a month ago our 3 y/o DS got hold of a sharpie and you can imagine, he drew on a lot of his toys. He also drew on some toys that had belonged to my older son (21 y/o) that had been passed onto him. I read up that acetone can remove sharpie and put the toys and stuffed toys into bags in the downstairs shower room that we use for storage. I specifically told my DH that I was going to try and get the sharpie off. I’ve been busy, we’ve been on holiday etc and I have two young children who I look after, I hadn’t got round to cleaning the toys up.

There was also a sweet little bear made up of fabrics from clothes I bought for a baby I later miscarried. I liked that my subsequent children played with that bear. I imagined my grandchildren playing with those toys and that bear one day. I wanted to clean it without destroying it so I’ve been looking online for how to do it, so yes, a month later it was still all sitting there, not in the way or anything.

So today I found out he just took it all to the tip. It’s the sentimental value of some of these toys I am most upset about, especially the bear. I can’t replace them. If I had wanted them binned I would have done it myself in the first place. He didn’t ask me about it, or tell me he was going to do it. He told me afterwards. I am very upset, particularly about the toys that belonged to my older son and the bear. (Not his son) They were all really nice wooden toys, a train set, stacking toys etc. there was nothing wrong with them except some sharpie on them. They were quite old and the sort of things I wanted to keep.

He said he did me a favour going to the tip (I asked him to take some stuff from the garden) and I had no right to be mad with him and now he’s sulking. I’ve asked him time and time again to stop just throwing things away. He’s forever binning my things, because he’s decided I don’t need them or it’s rubbish and he always says it’s “accident.” He can’t understand why I’m upset. I’m very upset and mad because he KNEW that I wanted to clean them up. He’s acting like I’m being silly and unreasonable, I don’t think I am. I keep imagine all those well loved little toys sitting in a skip and I’m genuinely so, so upset. I genuinely believe he did it on purpose, as he’s now saying it was accidental. How can it be accidental?

Am I making a big fuss about nothing?

Yes, this is a bit like the 'she divorced me for leaving a dirty coffee cup on the side' scenario.

It's not the action of physically picking up the bag of toys (and all of the other wanted items belonging to OP that he's chucked) and taking it to the tip - it's the whole arrogant mindset that led him to believe he had the right to and actually do it:

He presumes to have control over her belongings

She can't treat her own home as a safe space where her possessions are respected

He ignores her when she specifically tells him "I want to keep this bag that I've temporarily stored in the unused shower room"

I wouldn't care that he does it with his own stuff; that's his look-out - but being stupid with your own things does not in any way excuse you deciding to extend that stupidity to other people and their things.

Even aside from the bag of treasured toys, the going in her desk drawer and chucking her document folder away reminds me of another heart-breaking thread from a while ago. OP and her DH had gone on holiday and (in hindsight, against their better judgment) had given his mother a key and asked her to water the plants, feed the cat or similar (I can't quite remember).

That nasty woman took it on herself to snoop through the wardrobe and found a small box buried at the back belonging to OP containing precious old photos, cards and other mementoes of her life, including some of loved family members who had since passed on.

She threw them all in the bin, the day before it was collected, and quite some time before they were due to return from their holiday, so not possibly findable in any busy tip/waste facility.

Her excuse was that she was 'tidying up and helping them to get rid of some old clutter'. Evil cow; just what could drive somebody to be so cruel, deliberately hurtful and abusive for no reason whatsoever?

When it comes to your items, it’s amazing that you at least got your bear back, with its vital connection to your miscarried child. We do form attachments to items, and maybe one day they will be of no importance to future generations, or maybe they will if they have stories attached that are passed down, but in the here and now they help us remember things.

But OP, there is also great importance in our loved ones who are with us right now, and they can vanish in the blink of an eye, forever, we all do at some point, we will be dead, for eternity and none of this would have ever mattered.

I can tell from your long messages about him that you both think the world of each other, but your saying you would like to smash him over the head with a brick, something in many posts I’ve seen would have everyone suggesting the police are informed. You’re making him sleep on the sofa, giving him the cold shoulder, something I’ve seen described on here as abuse. He converted religion for you, including a very big operation as part of that, he protected you from aggression from your ex, loves you like a big dopey Labrador, you defend what he’s done to everyone on here, so let him back in now, love him while he’s still around. Obviously explain the importance of things, but also remember it’s the people and memories that are most important, because everything eventually goes to landfill, including us!

A few things- he was screened for autism before I met him and apparently not although I suspected it from the off. Other women in new relationships get flowers and stuff, I had him on my doorstep with two carrier bags saying I remember you were due on your period so I thought I’d be helpful and buy tampons but I don’t know which ones you use so I bought them all and I’ve got a chocolate bar because I read that sometimes women get low blood sugars when they are on their period.

I get him. I think he’s hilarious. It’s just this one thing. Eldest son said last night that he remembers DH just chucking paperwork away without looking at it and then later on wondering where his paperwork went. It’s stressful though. I wouldn’t leave him over this but it’s going to take me time because I really am sad about it and I’m so frustrated. Him and me, we are literally end game, and I know people say that? But we are. We knew it from the moment we met. I don’t want to be with any body else and I’m never getting rid of him, he wouldn’t function without me, my son our children and the baby on the way, we really are his world. I just need him to stop doing this. It’s the one thing he does that makes me unhappy.

RE my language. It’s an expression I’d never hit him; I wouldn’t be able to reach for a start and he’s a gentle giant. I told him once I feel hitting you with a brick and he said yeah it would bounce off and we laughed about it. He’s on the sofa through choice because he knows that he tends to say the wrong thing when he means well and he didn’t want to do that. ( I told him that if he dies before me I’m literally going to have “he meant well” on his headstone) We are speaking this morning and it’s been fine. I asked for the scissors to cut a tag off DD’s new dress and he gave me a look and said I haven’t thrown them away and after I screw faced him we had coffee together. I understand that he had an idea in his head, clearing the shower room for my dad to use, and that was it. He sort of hyper focuses? And as sad as I am, I get that it came from a good place and I told him today, it’s ok if my perfume is half empty, you don’t need to chuck it and buy a new one. My desk is overflowing, that’s ok, I know what’s there and where and so on.

The thing is with DH, although it takes time and a lot of repetition to make him understand that he’s done something that’s hurt me, when he understands, he gets very upset because he doesn’t want to hurt me. He doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. He is, in fact, a lot like my very sensitive DS.

I won’t be replying to this thread any longer, it’s done now, isn’t as a bad as it could have been, and thank you again to the understanding and empathy shown for my upset over my lost “things.”

Maybe sell Disney the plot to this epic tale

Jesus. You're understanding.