DH collections bringing me down.

[SoddingSoda]

I maybe placing too much stress on this ‘issue’ as the cause of my frustrations. I do have a DD (9 months) and maybe next year when I’ve slept more this won’t be such a big issue.

DH is a collector and has lots of perfectly organised boxes full of his collections. He also has perfectly organised boxes of his possessions from a child. Imagine collecting a magazine for a few years as a child, that’s there. Or a box filled of old football boots. Every sporting medal, scout badge, swimming certificate etc. He also collects film memorabilia, which has filled boxes upon boxes. Anything he sees from a couple of franchises he has to buy. He feels by putting it in the loft is a favour to me as he’d prefer to have it out on display in the house. I did mention where he’d like to put his thousand car hot wheel collection? Maybe between the tins of beans or on my make up table…. He does have our office to have shelves filled of this stuff, and whilst there maybe one item from a collection in the other rooms I did have to curb it from taking over.

They have been living in the garage but due to damp/DH finally finishing to board the loft they’ve been moved up there.

They take up exactly 50% of the loft which he feels is fair. But, if I was to put equal amount up there it would then become impossible for the majority of it to be accessed (which he also agrees). I also think he’s probably filled 65% of the space. He wants to be able to access his collections, not just store them.

However the remaining amount of things to go into the loft isn’t really my possessions. Which if it was wouldn’t be an issue as I’m not a hoarder. It’s things such as the Christmas tree/decorations, suitcases, things that DD have grown out of but we’re keeping for the next baby. Useful things that I don’t want to slimline (Xmas decs are tree decs, lights and few misc items - nothing crazy).

He’s spent the last few weekends sorting out his collections, updating his excel document of what he’s got, and what he’s missing.

AIBU to be annoyed that the Christmas tree isn’t my procession and that it’s a problem that he’s got more space for toys/childhood processions that my DD will have. I also want to put a ban on him collecting. He needs to slimline what he’s got before thinking of adding anymore to it…

He’s quite proud that he’s got the loft to 50% his possessions. He’s at work and I’ve been in a foul mood about it all morning. I really don’t want to be a nagging/controlling person but should I draw a hard line on this?

Well, he sounds incredibly anal, and I couldn’t shag someone whose idea of a good time was updating Excel sheets of his collections, but that’s not what you were asking. I’m not sure I understand why you’re so cross his collections take up 50% of the attic, if you don’t have ‘collections’ and there’s still fully half the space for Christmas decorations, luggage and stored baby things…?

You enforce that the 50% is a hard boundary and he can't go over that.

Then he will be forced to rationalise.

Do you have an equal amount of things to put up there?

i get what you are saying about fairness in loft, but is that the actual problem, or is there something else underneath?

My autism radar klaxon is deafening right now...

Yes, OP, are you saying there’s not enough room for the household stuff that needs to be stored in the attic now?

He categorises the jointly owned items (christmas decorations etc) as 'yours' precisely because he wants 50% of the space. Really, jointly owned household things should take priority and after that, he can have 50% of the space left.

Long term I'd make sure he's not spending family money on these collections. There's nothing wrong with collecting things or paying for hobbies or holidays etc but not with money that could be paying down the mortgage.

He sounds nuts tbh. But be warned now - no amount of "hard lines" drawn will stop him from adding to his collections. You will not stop him.

A man who has saved and categorized his childhood paraphernalia is a hoarder. A hard core hoader. He may be obsessively organised about it. It may have manifested as "collecting" but the disease is the same.

He won't be persuaded to slim down his collections. He wont stop adding to them or starting new ones.

This is your life now.

I'm sorry but are you seriously considering having another baby when it sounds like you haven't even got room for anything else, especially knowing how much stuff babies accumulate

Oh dear. This sounds very like my late (ex) husband who collected comics. He'd have carried on accumulating for ever, but we moved abroad to work for a while and he was forced to sell them all. I feel your pain.

If he responds to mathematical “fairness” then I would be arguing that say the loft/other storage gets split as follows:

half for family stuff (Christmas decs, luggage, future baby kit)

the remaining space is for personal mementos and is split 1/3 each between you, DH and your child

So he gets 1/6th. not 1/2

Agree with the autism klaxon… if he has ASD he may be very distressed by getting rid of collections so perhaps normal “fairness” doesn’t apply and you need to be a bit more tolerant - but you still need to be able to store other stuff, so there’s a limit.

Don't ask him to choose between you and his collections OP. You might not like the answer.

I'm a bit of an arsehole so would dump the Christmas tree on his office chair, drape the tinsel around the tree legs and bags of DD's grown out clothes in the doorway. Then when he says WTF tell him that he's encroached over his 50% and there is nowhere else for them to go.

I agree wrt the maths around the loft. Family stuff gets a third, he gets a third and you get a third.

Can he get the garage sorted out/rebuilt (solve the damp problem, some low level heating and some lighting and shelving ect) so that he can vacate the loft and have the garage as a man cave and when that's full that's that?

I would say do ask him for this reason - if she comes second to his collections she needs to know and then he might not like her answer!

I think this re the space calculation

I was married to exactly, exactly, exactly this guy (with added dickhead elements that I am positive your DH doesn't have). You had me at the excel spread sheets! Oh my god. YES! The madness of it!

Anyway, we are divorced (or at the bitter end). Dealing with his collection has been, for nearly 3 years since I filed, an absolute fucking nightmare that has destroyed my mental health. It's just been so triggering and I constantly ask myself why I tolerated it. But honestly, I didn't have a choice.
Not only was it a pain in the ass to move his collection from the house after our split (he cares more about his stuff than his own children), but I've ended up spending so much money repairing the ceilings because the area of the loft in which the majority of his collection lived throughout our marriage, weakened the timber and caused sags and cracks in multiple areas. The irony that his collection destroyed even the structure of our family home (never mind my sanity) is not lost on me. Everything about his collection has come back to bite me emotionally and financially since our split.
Collectors are the most selfish people on the planet! My daughter and son had to share a room, even when my daughter started her periods she was sharing with her little brother because the room that was actually meant to be hers was crowded with boxes and boxes and boxes of her father's shit. And it is just that. Useless shit. I used to say to him, "We bought a family home, not a Big Yellow Storage! Your children need a bedroom!" to no avail.

He won't respond to your requests. He'll pretend to respond but he won't. My ex was on the spectrum for sure, and although there are plenty of people on the spectrum who do not hoard collect, dealing with one who is a collector is a losing battle. Believe me. I wish you all the luck and hope in the world! I mean that.

LTB. My own parents are holders (and probably autistic but that's a post for another day!) and I now have a very minimalist home because clutter makes me anxious.

I cannot cope with people like this (I have autistic DC who aren't this bad). I also could not find myself sexually attracted to someone who kept an excel spreadsheet of their possessions.

Out of interest does he get 50% of the discretionary space in the rest of the house (assuming stuff like your DD things, and the ironing board, are 50:50 each of you)?
I ask because there was a poster before who didn't want her husband's collectibles on display but he didn't like her choice of ornaments/live laugh love plaques.

I cannot cope with people like this (I have autistic DC who aren't this bad). I also could not find myself sexually attracted to someone who kept an excel spreadsheet of their possessions.

Me too! My youngest is diagnosed ASD and even he would be like, "You're gonna Excel Spreadsheet that shit? Really?"
Awful. Living with hoarders is just soul crumbling. My mother was one as well as my ex husband. My kids always tease me and tell I'm Lois from the Family Guy episode where she Marie Kondo on Steroids her house.

I get why his collecting might be infuriating (quietly, I think it sounds adorable), but I don't understand what all this stuff about 50% of the loft is. Do you actually want to put your own stuff up there? It doesn't sound like you have anything you're needing to store.

He's already taking up more than 50% of the loft and wants to be able to regularly go up their and stare lovingly at his tat. If the OP wants to put stuff like the Christmas decorations or baby stuff she wants to store for subsequent kids up there, he cannot gain access to his tat.

So even though he's only using half the loft, he's saying she can't put the miscellaneous bits up there.

That's how I read it anyway.

quietly, I think it sounds adorable

Oh I thought this too! When I first met my ex husband, it was his collecting, ironically, that melted my heart! How sweet, I thought. How tender.

There's nothing adorable about it! Nothing. When that collection becomes more adorable to the collector than his actual living breathing children, it becomes a source of rage for the wife. When I first met him and saw his collection, never did I think, 17 years later, I'd be smashing it up and throwing boxes, with my Ace Ventura strong-arm, down the stairs to the front door while belting out Call Tyrone. I'd lost my mind by that point. And that was not adorable.

@SerenityNowInsanityLater I hear you! I think unless you have lived in a chaotic, dirty and cluttered home, you will never fully appreciate or understand how bad it is. It is that the one place that is supposedly your comfort and safety is anything but.

People tell me I am too house proud, then visit my parents and suddenly get it!

@SerenityNowInsanityLater I can see how it's less adorable when you are actually married to a collector, rather than in theory... 😱
@ProjectEdensGate I thought she was arguing that it wasn't fair that the Christmas trees etc counted as her stuff because it's actually joint stuff, but I could have read it wrong!

I absolutely fucking hate junk. I really dispise it. Why does he need a lift full of this tat? He's clearly not using it otherwise it wouldn't be in boxes. Disgusting. I can't think of anything worse than being married to somebody who wanted to take a perfectly beautiful spacious environment and fill it with garbage and clutter.

It probably won't stop. Once he's exhausted the loft it will move to other areas of the house. If the collections are this big now imagine what they will be like in another 20 years. I'd honestly not have got involved with somebody like this. Junk around the house like that is bad for airflow, it was already causing damp in the garage. It terrible for your mental health and will only get worse.