Secret decluttering...

[Mummyof287]

We live in a fairly small home, I hate clutter, untidiness,too much stuff etc....it makes my brain feel so overwhelmed.

Trouble is DH and oldest DD (7) don't like getting rid of anything (despite DH often complaining that there is no space and too much stuff!)
Due to this, I have taken it upon myself over the years to routinely get rid of things (often secretly) to the charity shop etc, if it's things I know they won't notice, but sometimes I feel guilty about doing this as I know if they did know (this is mainly DD's stuff) they might not have wanted it to go.

I've sometimes been abit too ruthless then regretted it, and have even bought some stuff back from the charity shop before.
I'm currently regretting sending a soft toy there last week that I then saw a photo of DD with as a toddler and remembered was quite special to her then.I know she and DH probably wouldn't be very pleased if they knew it had gone to the charity shop, although she has soo many more and if I don't mention it neither of them will notice.

AIBU? What do other people do?! It's a constant battle in my brain....wanting a tidy uncluttered home, but not knowing what to keep or not...i am quite sentimental and from a very sentimental family who kept everything.But they had a big 4-bed detached house so they had space to!

i’m brutal

once it’s gone it’s gone

upside is i have a very organised clean and uncluttered home!

For things belonging to the DC, I bag them up and stuff them in the eaves space with a date label.
If they haven’t been asked for in 12 months, they go to a charity shop 4 miles away

I got burned when DS spotted a toy I’d donated to a nearer charity shop when out with a family member and bought it so it “could be twins with his toy alligator.” 😬

I do this on a regular basis. No one's noticed yet!

DH has over enthusiastically tidied up my stuff before and I was furious. It is utterly disrespectful. Box stuff up and then work through it with them if it’s bothering you.

You can agree a one in one out rule for things like toys.

Oh that's funny!

A photo of your child with the soft toy holds the memory for you and takes up much less space than the toy itself. The Works do a nice range of collapsible boxes that have nice detail on them so they look nice above a wardrobe or in a cupboard, maybe buy some for the things you do not want to part with for your child, but once the box is filled up, you need to go through and streamline it. You mention de-cluttering other people's belongings. Do you also reduce your own personal belongings too? If not perhaps, this is where the guilt comes from.

Could you win your daughter over to your way of thinking? If objects have a lot of meaning to her you could remind her that a cardigan isn't living its best life sitting unworn in a cupboard and that it needs to go to a new owner who will let it fulfil its cosy purpose.

Sounds like the mental load of keeping the house clear is on you so I think it's fair enough to do this.

Have they ever asked about something you've given away? I'm guessing not.

I am doing this. Throwing away some shirts of DH that are over 20 years old bur he insists he wants. Bet he won't even notice.

I struggle with this too - the only thing that keeps me on track is picturing my parents house (a hoarding nightmare). When I think about that it makes me ruthless.

I wouldn’t do it now - I wouldn’t want them to do it to me. Though they’d have difficulty as I’m ruthless too about decluttering my own stuff. I now have the conversation with them (DDs are ‘collectors’ - but DH is a full on hoarder, luckily he has his own outbuilding). I try to get them to agree, and they never regret it, especially when it frees up space to do something else they wanted to do. I’m currently in negotiations, ongoing for a few months now, about getting rid of a broken leather chair in DHs building…we’ll get there.
(I’m not perfect, I did do it once, I secretly got rid of DHs stash of Speedos when we moved in together. I’m not sorry)

i keep a clutter free home and am quiet ruthless with cleaning out but a do have two huge folders ( approx metre long heavy plastic) and each child gets on and I keep art work nearly in them plus I keep the baby boys - one or two)

I have kept christening outfit and that type of thing (obviously tiny)

Baby toys

I absolutely do this. The alternative is to never throw away a single toy, stuffed animal, school craft or clothes. That's hoarder land unless you have a very large home with outside buildings for storage. I have explained to DC that sometimes their toys want to go and give pleasure to smaller children. We sometimes take a last photo of them with it and print it off.

For DH it's harder but I got him sort of on board with Marie Kondo. Basically if something is lying around (random handle from a door we no longer have for e.g) it goes into 'his cupboard' and when he can longer shut the door he needs to do a sort out. I wouldn't chuck his possessions but I don't want them on surfaces or hanging about in my way.

You’re doing fine, just go with your gut and properly look at things so eg the teddy doesn’t go again. My mum was a declutterer and we were left with nothing bar what we’d kept ourselves and I do rage over the fact that we had decent collections of a few sets of toys and books that are still popular now and so the kids/ my siblings’ kids would have loved.

I had an ex like this. He took it up himself to donate my record collection to the charity shop. I never forgave him. The charity shop refused to give it back and refused to let me buy it. Eventually got it out of them they had binned it because records weren't selling.

There were some really important to me records in there. Original released of my favourite band, all their back catalogue that I'd bought as released. My Moms entire Beatles collection she left me, my Dad's entire record collection of his records too. All gone.

His excuse? They were in boxes in the spare room and therefore cannot be important or needed as I would have unpacked them.

We moved in on the Sunday, I went to unpack them the following Saturday after a week of work and found them gone, I moved out the following week.

By all means work through things together to get rid of but don't assume you know best and decide what you think is important and what isn't.

I've constantly "de-cluttered" on the quiet, for OH and our son. Neither has been remotely bothered and have never gone looking for anything that has disappeared. I tend to "hide" things in the loft or cupboards as the first stage as part of general tidying up to make space for new things, then after a year or two, if they've not mentioned them, I'll either sell, donate to the charity shop or throw away. There's still loads of things in the house, so it's not as if their cupboards/rooms are bare! Obviously, I'll not get rid of anything with serious financial/sentimental value, but I'm talking about all the bog standard generic stuff that just accumulates. I.e. our son must have had about 20-30 large Lego sets - I sold most of them over the years, but there are still a couple of them in his old bedroom cupboard - I don't intend to sell those. Similarly he was very in to those small plastic collectable figures and had hundreds of them, so I've kept those too as they are in special sets/boxes. But generic bog standard board games, toys, soft toys, etc have mostly gone! Luckily OH isn't a hoarder so he doesn't have much "stuff", mainly things like lots of old hobby magazines which he's happy to be "nudged" by me to get rid of, and his weight fluctuates massively, so it's easy to persuade him to donate clothes when they don't fit him anymore, so his clothes only take up half a modest standard sized wardrobe! We've always sold DVDs once watched, so we don't have the standard wall unit full of them, and we've just one box of old DVDs which we never use now that we have Spotify so they can all go to the charity shop. Actually our house is pretty clutter free and empty - still lots of piles and boxes in the loft but I have recently made myself a rule that I bring down and dispose of two things for every one thing I take up there, so that's starting to get less - I'd love it to be empty except for Christmas decorations and holiday suitcases within a couple of years now our son has left home!

I live alone now, so it is up to me what I keep/throw away. I would never have thrown away anything belonging to my late husband without discussion, and he would never have thrown anything away belonging to me.

@TheCrenchinglyMcQuaffenBrothers 🤣🤣🤣 the Speedos made me laugh

I'm brutal, and with kids stuff I just get rid. Luckily DH is the same. It makes our life so much better with less stuff - quicker cleaning and tidying, so we have more time for fun stuff.

Oh no! The sentimental value. That is awful.

it's awful - it's not yours to give away OP, how would you feel if your DH started giving away your stuff to charity?

I'm still not never it and it was 20 years ago. Some of the stuff was irreplaceable too. Nothing of huge value but it's not the point.

That must have been gutting
Not the same, but I had dozens and dozens of videotapes of all my favourite shows, neatly stacked in my cupboard in the room I shared with my sister. I used to sit there and lovingly pause the recording during the ads 😂. My bitch of a sister threw them all the away when I was visiting our gran abroad. There was also recordings of me in the news. She had no excuse as she had her own cupboard. This was when we were teens in the 90s, DVDs weren't even around.

How did your ex react to you moving out?

I once cleared out a lot of stuffed toys, sold them on eBay and realised that DD’s favoured Steif duck was in the lot!

Luckily, the buyer agreed to return it when I explained the mistake 😬