I've realy hesitated to post this over the past few days but I need to get this down. Understandable name change. I've been engaged since the beginning of the year and we're due to be married in early September. We've only lived together since last summer and I have 2 dc, 7 & 9.
Before we moved in, dp lived in a hovel. I'm talking something you'd see on TV, it was that bad. I didn't know for a very long time, since with the dc it was easier for him to come to mine. When I found out I was appalled. I was upset for him, and absolutely raging tbh that he'd told me he'd tidied up and there were piles and piles of things so that the floor couldn't be seen, nowhere clean to sit down, and filth about two inches thick in every surface of the kitchen, as well as cupboards full of plates just left with food on to go mouldy. I was shocked, our friends had told me it was bad but I had no idea how bad. I asked him to clean it up, went back a few weeks later and nothing had changed. I spent a whole day scrubbing the kitchen and it still wasn't clean. It became a massive issue for me, even though it wasn't my house. He'd lived there by himself for close to a decade and even his parents didn't know how he was living. I bought him curtains for his bare windows, new crockery for his kitchen, but the curtains were never hung, and the crockery never used.
The time came last summer when my landlord was selling up so I had to move, and we agreed to move in together. This, I see now, was my big mistake. We'd been together two years at that point, and I thought we were ready to move in. The problem was, he still wouldn't see a problem with his flat. He left it right til the last day and brought literally everything with him, and left it in our new garage. He's insisted he'll sell it, it's mostly comics and computer games (he's nearly 40 btw...) Nearly a year later it's still here, and this stuff is beginning to migrate into the house.
We've been to lots of boot sales recently to pick up things for the wedding, and he'll buy stacks of games at each one saying they're for eBay. But they never get listed. I don't understand, truly, why he'd buy more stuff when our garage is rammed with things that need selling.
Last night it came to a horrible head, I asked if we could clear a shelf in the dining room which was loaded with games he'd just left. I started to help and he basically told me to get lost and he'd do it. He ended up throwing a glass award he got from work about 15 years ago into the bin with such force it smashed. I went upstairs, and goodness knows where he went but he went off in the car for a few hours. I went to bed and haven't heard a word since. I was up in the morning with the dc and he didn't say a word before work.
I get that hoarding is a real problem. He has lots of issues from his parents splitting up when he was about 13, and I think that's when his started. Somehow, this stuff makes him feel safe. But I am fed up of playing the nagging wife. We've both been selling on eBay to raise money for the wedding, but so far I've paid for absolutely everything, the church at £700 and everything for the reception so far too. I'm a sahm so this is starting to grate. I'm selling everything I don't use and he isn't stumping up anything. I'm starting to get resentful. I had a truly horrible night last night where I suddenly realised I don't want to do this anymore. I won't tiptoe around this issue, but nor will it ever be solved because I don't actually think he wants to change. He's totally blind to having a tidy house, but to me it's important. He never proved to me before we moved in together that he was capable of living normally, for want of a better word. I was about to end all this by saying ...'but I do love him' but now I'm here I'm not actually sure it's true :(