DH throwing out my things

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DH is a minimalist to the extreme, he has very little in terms of 'things'. Naturally I'm the opposite, a hoarder. Over the years I've conceded ground and downsized a LOT to pacify him, although it's probably fair to say that I still have too much stuff and it's also a bit messy and cluttered. Having kids has obviously brought more stuff to the house generally, but my own "stuff" is contained, with most of the house being tidy and (from my perspective at least) quite minimalist as he likes it. The "stuff" is in our bedroom (my side) to some extent, but mostly in my study which only I use.
In response to my compromises, instead of compromising too he seems to be going the other way. I'm increasingly finding my stuff in the bin, or things have just disappeared. I'm not talking about my most prized possessions, but they are things that I have bought, with my own money, for myself, that are on my side of the bedroom or in my study. I've always known not to leave things lying around in the kitchen or lounge or whatever for this reason, but it's like he's encroaching more and more on what I'd consider limited private spaces. To be fair, a lot of them are not big stuff. But even if it's just a receipt, it might be for some things I had meant to return or where I was going to claim something back as an expense. But to him, he's right and I'm wrong.
Even if it's actually something that is completely unimportant and doesn't matter to me, I still feel in principle that he shouldn't be throwing out my things from my study without checking or at the very least telling me. Am I being unreasonable?
When I pick him up on something specific, the response is always about the actual thing in question "what were you going to do with it anyway / it had a rip in it / you said yourself you have too many socks". Where for me, it's about the principle of it being up to me what to do with my own things. He says my clutter affects him as he lives here too, but he increasingly seems to be looking for it beyond surface level (while he is extremely private about his own things).
His 'need' to get rid of things also extends to perishable goods. So I might buy an expensive condiment (where he won't spend a penny more than he has to on anything), or I'll get a bottle of Baileys as a present from someone, he'll use them up as fast as he can, I'm talking days, not really 'enjoying' them as far as I can see, but just to get them out of the house. And inside I feel "hey they are my nice things", but am I just being selfish?
The other side is that I probably do have too much stuff and too much emotional attachment to 'things'. And gifts I receive like the Baileys could be in the cupboard for weeks/months otherwise. He says they're there to be used. Should I just give in?
At the moment I'm not giving in, at least not in my head, it's a huge source of frustration for me. But any effort to put a boundary in place on this, as with anything else really, is met with a bullheaded wall of stubborness ("I'm not agreeing to that"). I basically have to let it go time and again. But it's making me very anxious, what will be gone next?

@sandyhappypeople at what point has OP said she isn’t going to drink the Baileys. She just said it might sit in the cupboard for a few weeks/months, which if you are just an occasional drinker of Baileys is normal. She isn’t just admiring the unopened bottle as a friend bought it for her.

It may be normal for you. But the opposite view - it should be used and not sit around - is also normal. We don't have any alcohol sitting about. We buy it to drink it or gift it, then when we want more, we buy more. And drink that. It would never be in a cupboard for months.

And what is months? Three months? 36 months? It really depends on whether this is hoarding or just a fairly normal 'I'm saving that for Christmas'. And it will then be used.

We can look at his behaviour through the lens of living with a hoarder. We can look at him as a controlling abuser. Might be both.

Your first post I could kind of see his side, but this one is just beyond. This is abusive behaviour, why would you want to stay with someone like this?

Hoarders and minimalists (or wannabe minimalists like me- hard when you have toddlers!) don't work very well living together.
You sound alot like my partner. His clutter and mess was taking over my home to the point it was hard to function so I threw him out. He does things like 'Saving for best' too. Ie a million aftershaves all with only a drop left, instead of using some up to save space and be tidy will drag them out as long as possible until they go off, evaporate and don't even smell good any more!
And yes I've thrown stuff of his away. Had to. But the difference was i gave him months upon months to sort through it and it was my home not his. So he can keep his mess elsewhere!!!
If he kept it clean, tidy and organised id be more tolerant, but he didn't it was just boxes and boxes of junk getting in my way.

You obviously don’t get special bottles of alcohol as gifts very often …

It is very normal to be given a bottle of alcohol for a special occasion and for people not to drink it immediately. Baileys is one example, for most people it’s not an everyday drink so it will be drunk over a course of weeks or months.
The same can be said for other spirits. We have bottles of whiskey and tequila which were bought as presents for significant birthdays and cost a lot of money. They are drunk on special occasions only so may last years. That’s is perfectly okay.
If my DH either threw out or drank the bottle of tequila ( which cost over £100) I was given for my 40th just to ‘get it out of the house’ there would be hell to pay. He doesn’t get to make that decision.

Exactly! But she doesn’t get the chance as her DH has necked it.

It's not hoarding to keep a bottle of alcohol in a cupboard for months or even years.

Your point of view seems rather extreme, and definitely not normal for most people.

I think perhaps the problem is that the OP has used the word "hoarder" because that is the word her husband has used, and that has triggered some people here.

She doesn't actually sound like a hoarder at all, she sounds like a normal person.

Two things can be true here:

a) OP's husband is a controlling dick

and

b) OP is a hoarder who is massively minimising her compulsion

I have watched programmes on hoarders and they rarely, if ever, have any insight into their condition, how bad their surroundings have been made by their hoarding, and how it feels for the other people in the family.

OP, you've got your study. Can you see the floor in it? Can you sit at a chair? Or do you have to climb over stuff, or just pile stuff up in it?

You say your hoard is only on "your side" of the bedroom. But it's his bedroom too. Is there big pile by the side of your bed?

To a PP who suggested the idea of a box for things he wants to get rid of, that's really a non-starter. OP will probably come up with a reason to keep every single item.

Ok, this is controlling and abusive.

Op can you give examples of things he is throwing away? Because the examples you've given of receipts, torn things, old socks are things that most people would throw away without much thought. For example if I was doing laundry and come across a sock of my husband's that's got a huge hole in I would probably just chuck it out without asking him, likewise if something's obviously not sentimental and is cheap and torn and obviously trash I'd probably chuck it and tell husband oh by the way threw out that broken belt you had etc. But I would always ask if was an expensive item, one that was inherited or special etc. I would never throw away his things without asking.

With regard to receipts are they left just scattered about? Ask yourself honestly could you maybe tidy things like receipts into one box somewhere so that they aren't all over the place?
It's really frustrating living with someone who is messy or a hoarder.

That's sounds absolutely horrendous. I'm not surprised you asked this man & his hoard to leave. I have a friend albeit divorced who is not only a hoarder she is extremely untidy. There are clothes everywhere,including on top of units,tables,chairs,also piles of washing hanging out of baskets. I have known her since childhood so felt I could say something. She just laughed & said feel free to sort it out. She's a hard worker (full time) & a great mother just a hopeless housekeeper & worse a hoarder. Some people can live happily in this type of situation. I couldn't.

@28Fluctuations do you not have spirits in the house? We have a few bottles, many bought for us as gifts. We have them occasionally, regular alcoholic drinks are wine and beers. DH likes whiskey. He doesn’t drink it regularly so a bottle will last months. We have a bottle of brandy that usually gets used when making Christmas cake! Again there may be an occasional slurp from that during the year but not on a weekly basis. We’ve also got some expensive wines that will be saved for special occasion rather than every day drinking or cooking. Thought it was quite common for people to have a drinks’ cupboard.

I think a lot of people just have money to burn. Bought a bottle of Baileys for Christmas. We unfortunately came down with a bug, felt terrible and didn't eat or drink much. We only drink Baileys at Christmas so it's in the cupboard for next Christmas. Why the fuck would I chuck a perfectly within date bottle out?

No wonder we have thread upon thread of people struggling to cope with the COL if you're all doing this

The receipt wasn't left lying around! It was in her study.

With the rest of her stuff (other than what's beside her bed).

Because she's already been trained by him to never leave anything laying around in communal areas else he'll throw it out.

She can't even leave treat food or drink in the fricking cupboard or fridge without him consuming it as fast as he can, to deprive her of it.

She doesn't live there. It's her registered address but she's barely tolerated and that tolerance doesn't extend to her owning stuff.

He's a bullying abusive arsehole who doesn't want a partner, he wants a slave he can control. For housework, sex, to provide him with children and nanny duties for all the bits of parenting he CBA with, to earn money to help pay the bills and maybe to entertain him when he's bored. Some kind of humanoid robot would do for him now the children are in existence, but nobody has invented one yet.

Although he might still go get a partner even if he had a robot, because so many of his type actually enjoy having someone else to stamp down on, their lives aren't complete without it.

I can't understand why people are justifying hoarding & think partners living in the same house should accept it as a character trait.

Because you know what someone is like before you marry them. Hoarding is hardly something a person can hide, it's physical stuff. You don't marry someone with the intention of changing them. If that's how you feel, that they'd have to change to be acceptable to you, then you're with the wrong person.

A hoarder doesn't merely hold on to a few unnecessary bits & pieces. They have a serious aversion to throwing away anything from worn out shoes to packaging. It must be a nightmare to suffer from this anxiety inducing affliction & equally difficult to live with.

Which hardly fits with OPs description of herself as someone who has continued consistently to minimise the amount of her personal possessions during this relationship. She also doesn't mention being unable to throw out worn-out shoes or packaging.

Not all hoarders hoard trash or have teetering pikes of junk, sometimes it's an excessive collection of ordinary things but all tidy, clean and in good condition. Nowhere has OP mentioned that they're living in squalor, with pest control issues or a fire hazard, for example.

I'll bet she's not a hoarder at all and has just been told this repeatedly during her marriage to the point he's got her believing it and blaming herself for his bad behaviour.

"Tidy" means different things to different people. The OP resides in this house too. She's accommodating her husband's preferences for minimalism in most of the house. She should be allowed some personal space to keep her own things how she wants to. Some people don't do well with the everything-hidden-away-in-a-cupboard style of organising.

OP I just finished up a bottle of peach schnapps I bought as a duty free treat on holiday in Greece... 10 years ago! I rarely drink, a few times a year is all. You know what my partner does if he wants a drink, which is maybe around once or twice a month? He goes to the store and buys one, if he's run out. He doesn't take mine.

I do get them a few times a year. And the 'special occasion' is now. Our last v expensive bottle of whiskey went in an evening the day after we got it - we invited friends round for it. It was fun.

I know it's hard to understand that some people have a different outook. And don't save stuff the good stuff for later.

And none of that matters in the OP's situation, because we still don't k ow if he's responding to herhoarding or just being a twat.

Which hardly fits with OPs description of herself as someone who has continued consistently to minimise the amount of her personal possessions during this relationship.

To be fair @Cassieskinsismad , this is what OP said:

it's probably fair to say that I still have too much stuff and it's also a bit messy and cluttered.

and

The other side is that I probably do have too much stuff and too much emotional attachment to 'things'.

I do think there are two sides to this story.

There's messiness and clutter, and there's hoarding, where somebody keeps hold of receipts for things they bought that they have never returned.

Depends how much stuff you actually have. You refer to ripped things, too many socks, receipts, a messy study just for you on top of your half of the bedroom. None of us know what your house really looks like, but it does sound like a lot of stuff for no reason to me. Maybe it isn't, and he's a controlling bully. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

Absolutely bonkers to suggest leaving a bottle of baileys on a cupboard for a few months is hoarding. I am more alcohol-free, except I’ll occasionally get Baileys on offer around Christmas as I like if with my hot drinks. I may choose not to open it for months.

Just like how many people have a cupboard full of Easter eggs from April onwards or Christmas chocolate and if they’re not massively into chocolate it may stay there for a while.

Nothing is weird or unusual about any of that.

No-one is saying it’s strange not to eat or drink something nice on the same day you get it but doing otherwise isn’t strange either!

I do get them a few times a year. And the 'special occasion' is now. Our last v expensive bottle of whiskey went in an evening the day after we got it - we invited friends round for it. It was fun.

Good for you, me and my friends get together every week. Sometimes we drink the good stuff, sometimes we save it 🤷🏼‍♀️

I know it's hard to understand that some people have a different outook. And don't save stuff the good stuff for later.

I think you need to take your own advice here.

Exactly @HighLadyofTheNightCourt if a partner raided a cupboard and drank all my baileys or champagne gifts I’d be annoyed.

The same way he would be annoyed if I raided his cupboard and hoovered up all the chocolate his Uncle gifted him.

We have different approaches to different foods but it’s about both of us appreciating we are different and respecting the other.

How is this relevant to the OP, who would like to savour her bottle of Bailey's rather than knocking it down, or eat a nice jar of tomato chutney one sandwich at a time, but doesn't get to enjoy them at all because her partner deliberately uses them up rather than allow her any space in her home for her things?

I would have pulled him up on this the minute he 'disappeared' something that did not belong to him. I don't care if he is a minimalist. I don't care if you're messy. It costs nothing to ask you what you plan to do with an item he sees as clutter.

You have the right to possessions in a shared home. You have the right to keep things he wouldn't. You have the right to your own space, especially when you've squashed yourself into smaller and smaller demarcated zones, so that the majority of the house can be as he wants it.

I couldn't live with someone who disrespected my boundaries like this.

Just imagining this from the husband's side:

Yes, I throw things away sometimes. But if I discuss anything with her - an old receipt, a ripped t-shirt - she comes up with a reason for keeping it, and gets upset.

Our home is becoming more and more cluttered. She can't even get into her own study because it's full of piles of stuff. And now it's slowly taking over our bedroom.

I asked her to keep her hoard out of our bedroom, but she disrespects my boundaries as her "stuff" is more important to her than I am.

@CapitalAtRiskyou forgot to add the bit where he eats her food and drinks her drinks…

and where his punishment is ‘colossal’ if she subjects him to similar behaviour.

Show us the not hoard so we know if your husband is being unreasonable or if you're a hoarder