Rant about hoarder dh.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHopeful]

He's a hoarder. I have no sentimental attachment to things at all.

We are in the process of decorating the nursery, I am 28 weeks pregnant we have one dd (2.5 years). So the most painful part if the process has begun, clearing out the nursery of all the hoarded crap.

Dh spent 8 hours doing it yesterday, I am not allowed to help as I'm pregnant I think this is just an excuse and he doesn't want me interfering

The trouble is he isn't so much getting rid of things as moving useless crisp to other areas of the house. So far I have found a box labelled Sept 06 cd singles and a huge box of old videos (we don't have a video player anymore) to be kept. He has been secreting other items in various already overful places.

I don't really know why I'm posting. There aren't really any solutions to this until he is willing to accept he has a problem with hoarding and willingly get some help. At the moment he is not ready to do this.

bluecarrot poor you, although crying is par for the course when you are pregnant. Best if luck clearing up (oh if you do start another thread can we have a link to it, would love to see how you are getting on).

teen the affect on dd and the new baby is something that worries me. Dh is pretty good at keeping dd room clear and downstairs is ok. I don't want them embarrassed to invite people round incase they go upstairs though.

starry I started that thread I'm clearly a bit obsessed with hoarders.

Carpe was amazing, made me think a lot about the emotional reasons for dh's hoarding. I personally think he never learnt how to socialise properly as a child (he's ok now). His parents lived in a really rough area and didn't like their kids to mix with the locals. Plus he was off sick a lot as a kid, I think he got attached to things rather than building friendships.

Would he freecycle stuff? Could you appeal to his altruism and suggest that things that might be worth a bob or two had he the time to fix them could be passed onto someone who has the time and needs the money more?saving them from going to the tip? Just make sure you join (not him,) and get the daily digest so that anything worth having has already been snapped up before you know about it.

I can sympathise with OP. DP hates to throw anything away, whereas I like to have a good purge. This is mainly because I'm naturally messy and hate housework. It's so much easier when you hardly have any stuff!

DP has to keep everything 'just in case' and because it might be handy, or getting rid of it would be wasteful. We have a massive outbuilding and it's now basically full of junk. We have only been here 4 years.

The house is getting pretty bad. DP has accepted loads of the stuff that family has donated palmed off on us to us. I think we have too much clutter and too much furniture.

Then again, I'm due to get rid of a load of my junk again. I have to do it when DP isn't around though, otherwise he tries to stop me. The only things that have sentimental value to me are a couple of models DS made at school, hospital band, my gran's wedding ring and pearls. Everything else can feck off.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHopeful - that is very pertinent, and really has hit home. DH was bought up by an Amah, then had a few moves when they came back to the UK, then his mum was offered a full time job so he was left with an old lady and didn't really play with other children. As he got older his dad didn't like him playing outside with other children and playing in the street was 'common' . That would go a long way to explaining his attachment to things, and his hatred and fear of any change at all.

I sympathise OP. My dad is a hoarder and clearing out my childhood bedroom was a nightmare. He wanted to keep a load of wire coat hangers destined for the tip as they might come in handy one day... Ditto three broken old TVs (don't know how they ended up in there) and a random assortment of other tat. Since me and my brothers have left home, our rooms gradually seem to have filled with his junk - though if we ever ask about who this stuff belongs to, it's attributed to one of the others amongst us. As we're scattered across the globe, this myth is easy for him to perpetuate as we are rarely at his at the same time.

Would this work? Presumably he's keen for your pregnancy to go well. And he doesn't want you to be stressed out at all. So tell him the lack of a finished nursery and all the associated clutter is extremely stressful for you, which in turn is bad for the baby? It might make him think!

Good luck, what a hassle, with the added complication that soon you won't be in a state to move any of the stuff yourself, so it's him or him to sort it.

The same thing happened to me when I was heavily pregnant with DD. We live in a small 2 bed terrace and the baby's room was full of boxes of DH's crap to the point where you couldn't actually open the door properly.

I nagged and nagged DH to sort it out and he didn't. So one day when I was on mat leave, my mum came round and we went through the boxes together. OMG you have never seen so much pointless CRAP. He had every single bit of paperwork he'd ever come across including jobseeker allowance claim forms from the early 90s, a McDonalds Uniform from 1986, his old Cub Scout socks, a packet of contraceptive pill that was 10 years out of date (from before I met him), EVERY single pair of glasses he'd ever worn (he's been bespectacled since age 5). Basically he'd never thrown anything away.

We kept anything that might be of sentimental value like postcards, brrthday cards, letters, photos and took the rest to the tip

DH was angry but I asked him to tell me what was actually missing - and he couldn't. Because he'd not opened those boxes for years and didn't actually know what was inside!

surChenjin wow that's really interesting. Your dh and mine sound like like have similar ish childhoods with regard to their friendships.

I'm really keen that the same doesn't happen to our kids, dh is still quite mistrustful of others and is a very very private person. If he had his own way he would avoid all but his best friends, he has maybe 10 people he actively wants to socialise with.

paul sorry your dh is the same, it pisses me off the lets keep everything incase we need it. Especially if it is all buried under a mountain of crap so you can't even get to it if you want to.

viper it might be worth a try but as much as I love him he's not the most community minded or altruistic person in the world.

wibbly I'm using the pregnancy to spur him on a bit. Was two weeks early last time so I keep reminding him we've only got 10 weeks left before I might pop.

Thanks for listening to me complain about dh, it sounds like it is a simple problem to fix but it is a bit tricker to deal with then if looks and tonnes more frustrating.

Ooh Velma that sounds like a cracking idea.

Just how angry was he? I think mine would have gone down to the tip to retrieve said treasured items. Although bless him he has earmarked several big boxes to go to the tip tomorrow.

I come from a family which doesn't tend to throw things out, and while it's really interesting to have papers from the 18th & 19th centuries, it's still a burden.

When we cleared my childhood home, my mother had boxes of all the bits of paper that had been through the house. This included things like shopping lists, and notes to please get the washing in if it starts raining, things like that.

I'm not that bad. I know there are things which could go, but the effort of carrying it down the stairs and taking it to the charity shop/recycling centre/tip is... Well, I don't have anyone to help me*, and it makes me feel very tired. If I have to move house again (and chances are I will in a year or two), then some of it will be done then.

I do know what's inside my various boxes and can put my hand on anything I want, even if I haven't looked at it for years. It's just the way my mind works - I know where to find the books from the various homes from my childhood (e.g. my grandparents, cousins and so on,) even though those houses don't exist any more, or at least, aren't in the family, and have been gutted and rebuilt inside.

• Not having anyone to help me is a key point. The stuff I have is all I have. Pretty poor substitute for a hug, mind you.

Good luck Whenshewas - I'm about a week behind you in pregnancy terms so fingers crossed we're both organised by then. I think it's sometimes hard to convey the need to get stuff done early, but who wants to be schlepping round the shops at 38 weeks? Has DP taken that on board? If not, maybe that could be used to spur him on as well.

ebear your post is really . Don't know what to suggest but having things instead of people sounds familiar.

wibbly congratulations, I'm trying to urge him on dd was early by two weeks so I've told him we've got 10 week till b day (I actually think I'll go overdue on this one but I'm not telling him that). Best if luck getting everything ready for yours.

Eh?

Thanks for the post tv we don't live in squalor. The downstairs of our house is fine, downstairs loo needs decorating but that's it.

If you visited us you wouldn't know dh had a problem with hoarding unless you looked in the nursery, his attic, under the stairs or the outhouse.

But yes I am prepared for decades of fighting his hoard, the worst bit is when it starts creeping out of designated hoarding zones. He does have many great qualities, loving father and husband, great shag and is a very responsible person. I don't think me and the kids are less important than the hoard.

At the moment his hoarding is slowly improving, I did an online survey "are you a hoarder" and dh shockingly wouldn't fit the criteria for hoarding (which is baffling). He isn't ready to admit he has an unhealthy inability to let stuff go easily so wouldn't go for professional help.

Sorry if I sound annoying, I'm complaining about dh without sounding like I'm willing to tackle it.

Another definition of squalor from Oxford Dictionaries

I read that other hoarding thread because my parents tended to keep everything (3 skips full on clearing the house after their death), and I tend to keep lots of stuff too.

Have been decluttering a lot lately - chucked out all the videos and old stuff no longer needed or relevant.

There was a link on that thread about children of hoarders and I was amazed on what I read on there, realising I or my parents were never hoarders to the extent that you couldn't sleep in the bed anymore, due to stuff on it, or corriders in the house through the hoards.

childrenofhoarders.com/wordpress/

Right, off to declutter