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?

He won’t be able to empathise until he has it done to him. Get a black bin back and start throwing his stuff out. He needs a taste of his own medicine.

Throw away some of his stuff.

I am so, so sorry. I am genuinely having a little cry for you right now.

When a little time has passed, would you be at all open to receiving a handmade gift as a memento of your baby you miscarried? I know it wouldn't be, couldn't be the same as the bear, but it would be my honour to make and send you something to remember your baby by, if that would help at all.

First comment....
Full stop.

There is a vast ocean of middle ground between having some sentimental items which bring you comfort and are associated with specific memories, and having a 'severe hoarding disorder'.

You keep saying he's not abusive, but then you revealed you don't think he's abusive because he's not like your ex husband.

Your DH thinks you and your things are not important. He thinks his things are precious and must never be touched. But your things are trash.

He 'has a clear out' but only chucks your stuff. His remains. Because it's important. It would hurt and upset him if you chucked his things out. Yet he doesn't think or care about how you will feel when he does the same to you. He doesn't care.

Abuse can be insidious, and creep up on you. People that have had more overtly abusive relationships don't recognise the covert ones.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can say this, but you, your feelings, your possessions, do not matter to him. Abuse can still be abuse simply because your potential upset does not register in his brain because he doesn't give a shit.

So sorry OP.

The bear made from clothes related to the miscarriage is unforgivable. If he wasn't horrified and desperately sorry then there is something very wrong going on here.

Good, he deserved that reaction.

What an absolute “c” word.

I might, just might, have been more conciliatory had he been mortified and given a full apology (like a normal person) but to double-down and make out you’re the one with the problem is horrendous behaviour.

Please, please consider whether you want to carry on with this relationship.

Even if you can't grasp why people might treasure and value irreplacable possessions @Anotherparkingthread (and this does not make them mentally ill, or suffering from some 'disorder'), you surely don't agree that it's unreasonable to expect that they and they alone get to decide what happens to them?

Or are you completely obtuse as well as callous?

Im so, so, sorry OP. What a horrible experience at the Tip. Please take care of yourself—whatever that looks like to you. I can’t imagine the sadness you are feeling right now, and the anger.

I'm sorry OP but I don't believe this is accidental or just stupidity. You have told.him time and time again not to throw your things away. How literally brain dead does a person have to be before they listen to basic instruction? He isn't too stupid to understand such a basic request. He is CHOOSING to throw your things away, KNOWING you don't want him to. He is deciding that these things have no value to him. And that he doesn't care that they have value to you.

He doesn't accidentally throw his own things away. He does keep things that have sentimental value to him. So he does understand that things have value. He does know how to not throw things away accidentally.

He just doesn't care about you or your stuff. He started caring once it started to affect him.

I totally understand Op. my DS6 plays with the wooden train set that my grandad made for me. I totally understand the nostalgia. Your DH is a total arse and you have every right to go full blown angry at him. A one off can be forgiven, but he clearly has an issue with this that he's not learning from.

I'm so sorry, OP. The bear in particular must have been heartbreaking to lose.

You've told him multiple times not to throw away any of your things without asking first. You told him the bag of toys was in the shower room because you were going to find time to clean the times. You specifically told him not to throw them away and he did anyway...I too believe he does understand what he is doing and is either trying to hurt you or doesn't care about hurting you. It took me far too long (years) to realise that my ex was not 'clumsy', as I had always thought, because I realised he was perfectly capable of taking care of his own things. It was only ever my things he "accidentally" broke, and they were always things that meant a lot to me and were often irreplaceable.

I don't know what you can do in this situation. You can resign yourself to never having anything of your own (without the risk of it being destroyed/thrown out) or you can have a blunt conversation saying, even if he doesn't understand why you get to decide whether to throw your own things out, he is never to touch your things without asking again, and if he does, you will leave him (if that's what you want).

My ex did this from very early in our marriage, my gce certificates were first to go then our marriage certificate, all my art work from college, in a very large folder, so it couldn't be written off as mistake, a box of books which he had previously put in the garage including a copy of 'the whole world catslogue' the precursor of the Internet, which is probably worth quite a bit now, it was very 70s how to run a smallholding etc.
Precious children's toys! Oh no, I found out later he had given them to his affair partner, for her baby ( still don't know if she was his)
I thought he was just careless but looking back, I think he was secretly punishing me.
Do not put up with it, make a huge fuss, don't let him get away with thinking you haven't noticed, or don't care.

I actually have a happy update.

I have just been tidying DS’s room because he chucked building blocks everywhere and guess what I pulled out from under his bed? My bear.

I think it’s got dried soap on it but he’s no worse for wear. DS (3, nearly 4) told me that a ginger cat got it out of the shower room and brought it back and a dragon told him not to tell me because I was mad he drew it on before so he was washing it (in the toilet) and forgot about it after he left it to dry in his room. I can’t articulate how relieved I am and how happy my DS has just made me. Right now I’m glad he doesn’t listen to what I say. My bear is going to be cleaned and put away with my bear from my grandmother which I treasure.

DH is not off the hook. He didn’t know about the reason behind the bear because I’ve never told him. I don’t talk about my life before him and he only found out about the baby I lost when we had the midwife booking in appointment with DS. The point remains he shouldn’t have been throwing things away.

He’s given me a box of his old things and said whatever makes me feel better- do it. But I’m not breaking his things because two wrongs don’t make a right and I am not an arse. I sat him down after the bear was found and told him that if he ever touches anything again I’m going to chop his d*ck off, and he’s still on the sofa because I am still furious. I’ve been through the wringer the past 24 hours and I can’t replace my eldest son’s old toys.

That's a truly lovely update. Hopefully 'D'H has finally got the shock of his life and knows your things are out of bounds. I'm so pleased you have the bear though

I'm so relieved you have your bear back. My friend has a similar item (a blanket) and it holds so many memories for her. She would be devastated to lose it.

I think your DH has been a complete bastard, and giving you a box of old things isn't the same. He's chosen things that he would now know would be gone and he's on with that. You're not ok with your things going. (I know you're not going to do anything with them anyway) but even him thinking that's comparable just shows how much of an unreasonable dick he's being. The same would be yoh deciding at any point in the next four weeks anything of his could be binned without consultation. And he has no idea when/what. Because that's what he's expecting you to live with.

Oh wow, that's a lovely update. Your bear is meant to be with you 💕

Top work there from a dragon and a ginger cat!

Oh I'm so glad you have the bear. Your darling boy. He tried to fix it, he knew it was important to you and he tried to fix it. Amazing how your H is stupider than a 3 year old.

Giving you his stuff to destroy is abusive and manipulative as fuck. That is not repentance, it is pure malice. Taking advantage of your vulnerable state, if you did it you're just as bad as him and he has free reign because you destroyed his stuff too. If you don't "get over it, I said you could do the same to me and you weren't bothered so what more do you want me to do."

I've got money on if you keep going on about it he's going to destroy/throw something of his to prove a point to you. He is not a good man. Good men don't do this to someone they love, repeatedly.

I think he's the one that belongs in the bin op

I think if you keep living with him though you need a safe space to leave your 'stuff' that you want to deal with but haven't left, like maybe a big box. As clearly he wants tidy and clutter free but you like to keep things 'out' and this can be tricky to navigate

To answer a few questions I’ve been asked.

He does throw his own things away. His drivers licence was a classic. He threw his original birth certificate away because the mental gymnastics it took to unfold it and see what it was before binning it was apparently too much for him. He has chucked no end of debit cards away, to the point he no longer has one and if he needs cash he puts it in my account and I withdraw it for him. I said in my original post that he would go mad if I binned anything of his. I’m actually now thinking that he would probably think he must have binned his own stuff if he ever did. That’s how I know it’s not malicious, he is as bad with his own things as he is mine. Sometimes I literally go and get stuff out of the bin and be like why have you thrown this away? You like it?! And he never knows what to say. things he has binned before have never been particularly valuable; more annoying than anything else. The passport thing was truly something that he shot himself in the foot with because he had planned a romantic weekend in Paris and paid for it and we couldn’t go.

the dynamics? We are pretty much even keel on success terms and are high earners. He earns slightly more because I am self employed and I take days off to go on day trips with the kids because I want to enjoy as much of these years as I can. He’s very successful in his field but I suspect that if he had to deal with people rather than machines he would still be an apprentice.

how is he with friends/coworkers? He is fine over the phone with co-workers, he works remotely. He doesn’t socialise with them. He has old friends who he speaks to but never accepts their invites, even to weddings etc because he is not a people person, he gets anxious and awkward. When I suggest he makes friends he looks at me like I asked him to chew his own arm off. He said I married my best friend, I’d rather stay home with you and the kids. That doesn’t mean he stops me socialising. He sees when I’ve had a hard day with the children and suggests I call my friends and go to the pub or for a meal. He tries with my friends which usually means he hovers asking us if we want anything, can he do anything, shall he order us takeaway? Do we want him to pop to the shop for another bottle of wine? He doesn’t have much to do with his own family but he’s made a supreme effort with mine. He drives a four hour round trip to bring my sick dad to come and stay with us.

What’s the rest of our relationship like? It’s fine. He is the loyal type. He’s kind, patient and generous. He’s a six foot handsome guy who has all the mums at the nursery fawning over him to the point he begs me to not make him go there. I’d never have to worry about him cheating, he couldn’t keep a secret if he tried. He’s honest to point of being blunt and I know he doesn’t have eyes for anybody but me. He took on my son, put him through private school. Never treated him differently. Accepted the fact I didn’t want more children even though he wanted to be a dad. (DS was an accident that turned out to be so amazing that DD was planned). We met in a carpark when I dropped my bag, he picked it up but upside down and showered tampons all
over the tarmac. He still says he can’t believe I gave him my number and how lucky he got. I left the county to go back to uni a year after we met and within a month he had turned down a promotion, took a pay cut and moved to be closer to me and my son and that’s when we got serious because we didn’t like being apart.
He converted to Judaism to marry me and even got circumcised. He learned a second language to be able to talk to my family in their mother tongue. He’s a hands on dad who adores his kids and he cooks, cleans and always does his fair share without me asking. He moves heaven and earth to make sure we have what we need all the time because we are literally the centre of his universe. He was a rock during me having PND after DS, I remember him feeding me sandwiches whilst I breastfed at 2am and checking my bum when I thought I had piles after the birth and he still calls me beautiful every day. I wouldn’t look at his bum hole if you paid me. He is cautious and meticulous and I’m rather more spirited and he loves the fact that I am fiery and says he hopes DD is another Slavic firebrand. We balance each other out and he makes me laugh a lot mainly because he’s so socially awkward and despite being highly intelligent he’s also thick. And he makes me feel safe. My abusive ex only came at me once and my docile, placid DH was in between us in a second and told my ex he either walked away or he’d be leaving on a gurney. That’s the only time I’ve seen him really mad.

I have a nice life. I really do. It’s just this one thing. And as tempted as I am to stomp on his old Star Wars models which he cherishes- and he’s told me to do it if it makes me feel better- I won’t. I am angry and I am hurt and am so so frustrated that he has done this but he is not a bad guy. If I ever felt that he was doing things to hurt me then I would be gone. He’s currently unblocking the loo because DS had a huge poo and needed a whole roll of toilet paper to wipe his bum. I hid the marigolds. I am still upset and I will be for a long time. He’s apologised to my son and son called him a muppet and asked if DH has a death wish.

I wish he hadn’t done this because I don’t want to be angry and I’m missing him and want a hug but I don’t want him to think it’s all ok, even thought I got my bear back.