My husband breaks things - long, sorry

[WitchWay]

Oh, where to start. Married over 20 years. When cross breaks things. Often my things. First happened over 15 years ago when he pulled a favourite pair of my knickers to pieces - no he wasn't ripping them off & since then has broken various things including his own briefcase (by stamping on it - god he looked pathetic) & more worryingly three pairs of my spectacles on separate occasions, pulled from my face while I was reading in bed. Once he also destroyed as many of my pairs of single-use contact lenses as he could get his hands on as well - that rather backfired as I had to wear my spare glasses that he doesn't like. He was very remorseful. Last weekend he threw his alarm clock at the wall - cross because he was late getting packed for a trip - all my fault apparently for having a "dinner party" - the friend who was travelling with him stayed the night & we had dinner which I cooked. Wine was drunk. Fun was had. He was disorganised. It missed me by six inches - apparently he wasn't aiming at me, but was just cross. He is still away & I have texted that I'm thinking very carefully about our relationship. He is apparently horrified, loves me so much, needs my support, is very stressed at work (he is - he has loads piling up, but a lot of that is because he just leaves & leaves & leaves stuff till it's so late he's getting into serious trouble). There have been occasional violent acts towards me over the years - pretty low-key & not very often (I know once is too often) & I must admit I've given as good as I've got. I don't want to leave him really - deep down I love him, but I must say I no longer find him particularly attractive - I find his attitude to jobs & the piling up of tasks, including piles (literally) of unprocessed stuff in the house a complete turn-off. He knows this. He knows there'd be sex if he made me happy, made me feel appreciated. I suppose I withhold sex deliberately which is pretty crap especially if we had more sex he'd probably feel more like tackling the other stuff but it seems we've reached an impasse. He tells me he loves me often & effusively. I hardly ever say it to him. I texted yesterday that telling me wasn't enough, he does nothing for me & doesn't show me he loves me. He texted "SORRY!!!" He rang tonight & we had a calm conversation about DS's school project - neither of us mentioned our relationship. We both had affairs around 12 years ago & worked hard to put things right, but I'm not really sure the marriage was ever that good, even before the affairs. My main reason for making the marriage work afterwards was to prevent the OW (my "friend") "winning". The house is a tip & we have to shift piles of his stuff in order to sit on the chairs in the lounge which I hate, so mostly I spend my evenings on the hard chairs at the kitchen table probably getting piles & we hardly ever have visitors because he reckons he's too embarrassed by the mess, yet won't bloody well do anything about it. It's 90% his stuff too - ok I could chuck it out, but I'm frightened about what he might do to my things - I know they're only possessions, but I don't want to risk it. I'm intelligent - how the fuck have I ended up like this? I sound so pathetic.

It is also worrying that he has been violent with your personal things. He could move on to you at some point, particularly if you are leaving.

It would work best if you left, preferably with little warning or with people around you.

Yes, you're right. I'm thinking it through very carefully.

I run a decluttering business so this is my take on him. The reason he goes away, is because he doesn't like the mess but he is either too depressed or lazy to tackle it. He doesn't mind leaving you in it does he.

A lot of hoarders are depressed but there are a lot who are downright lazy.

He says he doesn't know where to start and he is probably right, he doesn't so it's easier to give up.

What I suggest is that you start gathering your own belongings together and move into your own place. Its got to be better than this and if you own your home tell him it's being sold and he better get rid of the clutter.

If he starts on about his clutter being important and precious just remind him that if it is precious and important then he would take better care of it.

Either that or he gets in a professional declutterer to sort it out.

I think I will have to move out at some point - we actually have a rental property that I could use. DS 16 is in the middle of GCSE revision atm so I'd have to get the timing right. I am going to attack some of it myself though - a few years ago I attacked the piles & piles of magazines in our bedroom while he was away & he was really pleased, once he'd established that I had moved them, rather than thrown them out After about six weeks, they began colonising the room again, like some fucking malignant fungus It's at least as bad again of course, because more have been bought & all have been kept "because he likes to look back through them" - he hardly ever looks back at any older than a few weeks

He gets to hoard all the shit and you do all the hard work of finding storage space for it - win-win for him. It's almost enabling the problem by making it less visible.

That said, I know from MN that hoarders find it immensely stressful to have their stuff thrown away, but in this case (if you must do anything at all), to make the point I would ship it all to a storage unit charged to his account.

He is a nasty fucker. That's the problem. Not the hoarding.

Don't chuck out his stuff, don't put in storage, don't do anything with it. Move out. Tell him you're moving out AFTER you have moved out.

DS might be better off moving asap with GCSEs coming up. It can't help him if he is living in a shit heap seeing his mother being mistreated. I'm sure I'd have done much better in my A-levels if my parents had divorced before I left home.