Hoarding DH - At the end of my tether (Long)

[Eatriskier]

Before I launch into the bad stuff, I should say that DH is a generally a lovely and very honest man. He doesn't abuse me in any way, he would barely say boo to a goose and he is a wonderful father to our two young DC. But he has a hoarding issue.

Now, I have always known he has had a tendency towards this. Its always been an problem between us. When we bought our first home together he promised he wouldn't fill it with crap especially as its a small home and I was due our first DC. He agreed to an area he could fill and that it was all he had and he wouldn't encroach anywhere else - he promised to scale down and not buy more.

Unsurprisingly he has massively stuffed this, a large part of our living room, the garage, the loft and half our bedroom with crap. Crap is harsh, some of it is useful but for the main its not useful nor necessary. In massive rows he's promised to get rid but he just boxes stuff up, moves it to a storage locker (which is now pretty much full) and then slowly fills it all back up or buys a new piece of furniture/storage to absorb the stuff.

I can't move all the items of storage and junk to clean properly, my house is becoming filthy. I am ashamed of my own home, I won't invite anyone in. I cannot live like this anymore. I've told DH loads that I am at the point where the kids and I are going to have to leave. He still won't do anything.

He promised me that in a couple of weeks, as he has some time off work, he would sort it. We had a discussion where he promised not to buy more storage (he has hoard of empty storage boxes!!!!) and he would actually get rid, not just move. Then today a load of storage arrived. He said it was to move some of the stuff out.

I'm afraid I lost it and told him to take his stuff and GTFO, his young family aren't going to live like this anymore. His response? He's not leaving his house. Not that he didn't want his family apart, not that he didn't want our marriage to end, but that he wouldn't leave his house and things (which he still didn't say when I called him out on it).

So here I am, whilst he is driving off to storage squeezing more crap into it despite promising yet again he wasn't going to do that and knowing he won't fully empty the furniture so I can't get rid of it and he will refill it with crap again, knowing that the crap means more to him than his wife and kids.

What on earth do I do now? I don't really want to leave and take the kids, but I can't have them living like this, learning this or growing up mortified by their parents and home.

[cozietoesie]

That would likely be the end of the relationship though, Kits. (But then I guess that's the thread that's underpinning this whole situation.) Eat probably just feels that she has to have tried everything.

[MistressDeeCee]

Good luck OP. I hope you take heed of what Offred has posted, though. Hoarding is a mental illness - you simply aren't going to be able to cure it You say you are giving him another chance yet he has already clearly shown you his stuff is more important than you & DCs. Another chance is just another chance to fill the house with crap. He will make a half-hearted attempt to clear a few things just to shut you up. But he won't have a huge clearout. When a man shows you who he is, believe him. & if he cared about you & DCs more than his stuff then as soon as he knew you didnt like it, he would have had a clearout of at least some of it.

I believe hoarders are also controlling bullies. They want people and things to be their way. Even if their hoarding brings you to the point of illness, they wont stop. & you can be sure, any little thing you have in the home will be noted as 'mess' but, their stuff isnt. How you feel isn't important. & your DCs will also be subjected to this as they grow older.

The only thing that may work - and still not guaranteed - is a short sharp shock. Kick him out. See if he comes to his senses. & while he is out, clear his stuff. Although you need to be very aware that clearing his stuff will enrage him. Its not going to be a case of clear his stuff, he repents, then he is back with you. He will aggressively re-fill the house with crap at probably twice the speed he did it before, and he will never forget what you have thrown out.

Sorry to sound pessimistic but sometimes it is what it is, in this life. Many people just do what they want to do and couldn't care less about those around them. The fact he isn't interested in seeking help should have spoken volumes to you - he doesn't see his hoarding as a problem. He will, however, see you as a problem soon enough

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

"I am definitely considering leaving him. Not yet. I will give him another chance as he is doing something and I plan to totally rearrange our house so he has no cupboards".

You need to examine closely your own reasons for giving him another chance in the first place; are you on some level still hoping to rescue and or save him and/or this situation?.

Expecting a different result this time around is doomed to failure. He is not deserving of any more chances. Whilst all this is going on your children are also all too aware of what is happening as well. Your only real option going forward is to completely remove yourself and your children from his hoarding.

[Kitsmummy]

Yes cozie, but if it didn't get cleared then for me it would be the end of the relationship anyway, but I guess the OP has to decide if this is a deal breaker or not

[Sparrowlegs248]

My DH is a hoarder. He wouldn't admit to 'hoarding' but does realise he has a problem with 'stuff'. Out of our two bed, two reception room house, with 4 sheds, he has stuff in every room/shed other than the bathroom and living room. He bought a new big shed and was supposed to kit it out with shelves etc to put his tools and stuff in. Its full, there are piles of magazine, newspapers, tools, clothes, bits of motorbike, general crap.

We need to get it sorted as i hate living like it. No children as yet.......

I can't do proper housework. Its ridiculous. I can"t actually believe i put up with it.

So I ferl for you OP. I realky do. And those saying 'just bin it' just don't get it. I guess it is a form of control. I binned a tv mag several weeks out of date and DH looked for it for over an hour and got very pissed off.

[Offred]

I get it I think, certainly the rage about people touching/moving/disposing of the stuff and the undermining/attacking of things like a wife and children that might be in competition with the stuff but that's why I think the only choice is to clear him out along with the stuff. I can understand the op wants to make sure that he really understands that he is making the choice to keep the stuff over keeping his family though before she does that.

[TheShimmeringPussycat]

A guess at your husband's catalogue:

People that he loves:
1 Family
made up of
1 DW
2 DCs
DParents, DGPs, DSis(es), DBs (if still alive)

(he doesn't need to catalogue this stuff so doesn't put it on the actual database)

Stuff that he loves and is interested in: Infinite
In reality, there isn't time for anybody to catalogue the stuff - but of course he will when he gets A Round Tuit.

[TheShimmeringPussycat]

• Better, perhaps, to have put Relations rather than the list beginning DParents
  
  and of course there are also Friends.

[lamonicbibber]

Eakriskier - my mum is like this. She has always been like this. We grew up in squalor. It was awful and it has lasting effects. We could never have people round, even family didn't want to come over. My dad was off the scene, there were no other adults to monitor her, at least they weren't invited into the house. It was filthy too. I envied all my friends houses, their parents, their lives in general. She collected EVERYTHING. Plastic bags, pens, tins of food, tv sets, perfume, old clothes and shoes, any old rubbish.

I now cannot stand any sort of clutter and untidyness, I'm not OCD about it, but I am very, very diligent. Anything that might lead to hoarding behavior is discouraged. I wish I could relax but I have this latent and gnawing fear that any moment I too might start saving stuff.

It's horrible and it leaves a horrible legacy. I can't say whether your husband will change. It may be that he becomes like my mum. Left to his own devices he will cram his own house with so much stuff that his kids will never want to visit him, this is what has happened to us, she wouldn't clear out one room so we could sit and have a cup of tea together with her grandchildren. They've never been to her house.

You clearly care about him and you have to find your own path through this, but it's very serious and it won't go away with ultimatums. I'm really sorry, but it's good that you haven't been sucked in to enable him.

Good luck.

[TheShimmeringPussycat]

lamonic did your DM come from a chaotic, tidy or ordinarily messy house herself? (Mind you, back in the day, there was less stuff (though more children)

[struggling100]

I realise that hoarding is a mental illness, and like other mental illnesses I think it depends whether the person is willing to work really hard at minimising the symptoms and their effect on those around them. If not, or if they're blithely unaware of a problem, I don't think I could put up with it. OP, I think you need to have a conversation with a counsellor and your partner present to discuss why he didn't keep to the reasonable agreement that you had previously about him having open corner to fill

[lamonicbibber]

theshimmeringpussycat - not a particularly messy house, but a somewhat chaotic childhood, although none of her siblings hoard.

[lamonicbibber]

By the way offred is spot on. It's an awful thing to witness in your parents. The neglect of one's children in favour of rubbish leaves indelible marks on your heart.

[HopefulHamster]

Sadly I believe it's extremely rare for any hoarder to truly change. They assign too much value and security to their collection, that losing it is devastating. It seems mad that they would risk their family, but so it goes.

Really feel for you OP.

[MaryWestmacott]

OP - I think you need to realise as far as you are concerned, you have reached crisis point, so it has to stop, and completely stop. Which means no more empty threats. Saying "well, he's ill so leaving him will make him worse" is not going to help you know. Can you get PIL round and sit him down and explain that this isn't acceptable or normal, he has a few weeks to see if he can change without help if he really doesn't want to admit he has a problem, if he's incapable of clearing and not aquiring more stuff, then he needs to admit he has a problem.

But remember, just because he's ill doesn't mean you have to live like this, you are allowed to end the marriage if you don't feel you can live like this, you don't have to just put up with it. He has a choice if he admits he has a problem and seeks help or not, you can merely point out he's got a problem and you're not prepared to live this way.

[Eatriskier]

Like cosie says I want to make sure I've tried everything first. We've got 2 young's kids and I don't want to take them away from their father without knowing I've tried. Because if I can't get him to deal with this on some level then I'm always going to be worried for them when they have contact with him. And besides this, he is fantastic. However I also need to discover whether I can live with being a nagging fishwife, whether he can live with me being like that too.

I have calmly today pointed out to him today that this is the last time he ever gets away with it in our home at least. He can have the argument with his parents over storage. They all know it isn't coming here and if they want to enable him then that's their call. I am calming down from the rage so will attempt to get him to plan what he is going to do, but with stipulations and that I won't ever let it lie again. I will allow him time to do this but he will have deadlines.

I know to facilitate the then the house will have to remain cluttered to some extent, so that he can't pile stuff on surfaces etc. But I can ensure less cupboards. And some more space for the kids to mess up

[Fairenuff]

If he won't clear any more, get rid of it when he's not around. If he gets nasty, call the police.

There is no excuse for aggressive behaviour.

If he wants to talk to you, calmly and rationally, about why you are removing his belongings then fine, you can sit down and discuss it and agree some ground rules and compromises.

But if he won't talk, then it would be perfectly reasonable to clear your house yourself.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Eatriskier,

So the sunken costs fallacy yet again rears its ugly head again in Relationships. You are a victim now of such a fallacy.

So you want to try everything first, do you not think you've already spent enough time and effort?. DO you not think you've already tried hard enough?. What has he really done here, he has really made no real effort at all or at best a token one to keep you quiet. Also how much more time in terms of months and or years (god forbid) will you be prepared to give him?.

We think of our years together in a relationship as a cost or specifically a sunk cost. So when we think of breaking up, we say to ourselves ,“I can’t break up. No way am I going to waste the years of relationships we had together.”

By continuing the relationship, we think that we can redeem all of that ‘wasted’ years.

But we fail to heed the trite adage – the damage is done.

We shouldn’t proceed with our decision on breaking up based on how many years or how much of our emotions we invested in a relationship; they are irrelevant.

It’s the future that matters and not the past.

Honestly putting your children through any more of this is completely unwise. Would your children want contact with their hoarder dad anywhere other than a contact centre?. They certainly could never go to his place of residence. Also they won't thank you for staying with their dad.

I doubt very much he is "fantastic" actually other than this, women tend to write similar when THEY themselves can think of nothing positive to
write about their man.

Nothing that you do or say will change this hoarding problem; its too deeply rooted, goes back to childhood and you are certainly not his therapist. You are too close to the situation to be of any use to him and he neither wants your help or support. You cannot help anyone who does not want to be helped.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Anyone affected by hoarding should look at this UK based website as well.

//www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/

[mathanxiety]

There is a huge amount of denial and avoidance going on in the head of a hoarder, and along with that a huge impulse to create an environment he feels he can control. Inanimate objects are assigned a role and have a power in the hoarder's life, and the people (who are obv not controllable and do their own thing) are not important. This causes massive hurt (you are already feeling this). Their loved ones are there but they do not give the hoarder what he thinks he needs -- security, comfort, a sense of being insulated against reality. There is a lot of anxiety in the hoarder along with OCD traits and sometimes a lack of executive functioning. CBT can help and sometimes it takes medication for the anxiety and often for underlying depression.

Hoarders often have a defensive mindset. They can also be determined to resist reality.

Your DH sounds avoidant and in denial but you and his parents have to present a united front and get tough.
He needs to get help and that is the bottom line in all of this. Everyone who loves him needs to agree on this and stick together when dealing with him.

The message that he needs to get help needs to be relentless and consistent and it needs to come from all sides. So the ILs need to stop the enabling. You need to take a deep breath and bring up the matter every single day. He will resist and get very upset. You should reassure him that nobody is going to take his stuff away, but at the same time you need to calmly insist he open his mind to the possibility that what he is doing is a problem.

You can say 'I hear you saying you are anxious and I sympathise.' when he gets upset and bogged down in details of storage and how important it is to him to keep this or that specific thing. Then you say 'Moving on though, your preoccupation with your things is not good for the rest of us who also live here, and therefore it is a problem that you must try to help us solve'.

If he seems open, you could ask him how hard he thinks that might be for him to participate in finding a solution (not sarcastically). If he seems dejected, say 'I sympathise. This is a problem.' If he insists the problem is one of not enough storage and therefore the solution is more storage, assert that storage is not the problem, it's the preoccupation. Tell him nobody is judging him and everyone feels you can all work together to find a real solution. Stay on message.

You should talk to your GP and ask for a referral to your local community mental health team.

OCD UK may be able to help you find support too. It might be very useful if your DH is very resistant to go yourself to any therapy you can find for him in order to figure out ways around his defensiveness and also for support for you. A therapist might be able to give you a script to use with him that would make you feel less helpless in the face of all of this.

It's really hard to deal with this problem because you are hurt and you are waking up and going to bed each day with all the stuff in your face all the time, day in and day out. But try to step back from yourself and engage with him consciously, being careful to repeat back to him in a sympathetic voice what underlying feelings you sense in what he says while gently insisting that your pov is reality and he needs to accept that.

If you'd like, you could wade through this really long facilitator's manual (pdf) for hoarding group therapy. It will give you a lot of insight into the mental processes and beliefs that your DH has to break through before he can start understanding your feelings and accepting them, and maybe you can borrow some of the language.

ocfoundation.org page on family in the context of hoarding, including a video for family members seeking to approach a hoarder.

[mathanxiety]

Take a long hard look at all that and also at the hoarders site Attila linked.

You need to ask yourself if you are willing to live until old age with someone who has this compulsion going on with potentially varying degrees of backsliding and deception and certainly struggle happening every day.

There is more to it than you drawing a line or you getting rid of the stuff. An approach that puts the stuff at the centre of it all means the real issue gets lost, just as more storage is not the solution.

[cozietoesie]

mathanxiety

I hear what you say and I agree with much of it - but what would be supposed to be happening to the OP's DCs throughout all that? That adds an almost impossible to deal with other layer to the problem, particularly because a hoarder on the defensive will use anything to deflect - including kids. That would be dangerous in my view.

[LillianGish]

Sorry if I've missed something, but what sort of things does he hoard? Is it of any value - could he make money by selling it? Presumably it costs money to keep his stuff in a storage facility. Would the prospect of cashing in appeal to him? Otherwise you could at least stop the problem escalating by negotiating a one in one out policy.

[mathanxiety]

It is exactly the same as your alcoholic ex.

[mathanxiety]

I agree 100% Cosie -- I suppose my point there in my long post and especially with the links I posted was to illustrate that supporting him through all of this to get to the light at the end of the tunnel is a monumentally huge job to assign yourself. Even if Eatriskier is willing to put herself through the long haul, is she willing to put the children on board too?