Had a baby with a hoarder but I can’t cope anymore with him moving in.

[Onetwothree45]

We have been together 3 years and have a 6 month old. We lived in separate houses. His house was always a mess and full to the brim. I then got pregnant and he has moved into my house. His house is going to be rented.

I can’t cope anymore every drawer and cupboard is getting filled with things he has never used or did 15 years ago. He brings empty packages and rubbish. He won’t sort through and organise anything. I can’t put his clothes away as his drawers are full of crap like memorabilia or wires and old tablets etc. He has clothes from childhood in them when he’s 33 now. There is shit absolutely everywhere. He keeps going to charity shops and car boots and getting more when his house is probably only 30% empty. He gets quite angry when I put my foot down. We’ve got 5 bookshelves full of dvds now and several drawers. So nothing can be put in them.

I can’t cope anymore and have been crying all morning. He’s thrown a strop and filled up his car and taken a load back to his house. I can’t see this working. I’m really unhappy and don’t like being in my house. The baby will be crawling soon so it’s dangerous. Every time I speak to him he has an excuse or say Im just moaning again. It’s never going to end we will be surrounded by rubbish.

He got upset yesterday as I threw away a chocolate fish that was 6 years out of date but he wanted to keep it as a memento.

Hi OP...there's a few seasons of a programme on TV called 'Hoarding - buried alive'. A hoarding problem will just keep getting worse unless the person recognises they have a problem and consents to therapy. It's an addiction just like any other and if you're not addicted, then it's hard to understand. There's some helpful things on the Mind website:

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/hoarding/helping-someone-who-hoards/

Also there's a thing called 'stirring' which is were a hoarder appears to be clearing/doing something but they're really only stirring the hoard, moving things to different locations rather than actually letting it go. It must be so painful and frustrating for you! But he definitely needs help.

I mean I'm not being funny you knew what he was like and moved him in anyway

This sounds really tough for you OP.
I think there are a few steps you should take. Firstly, he should move back into his home and take ALL his stuff with him. Explain you just cannot live like this, but you want to remain with him and work through it together.
Therapy. And lots of it. He needs individual therapy to tackle his hoarding issues, and I would recommend couples therapy, so he can see how his hoarding affects you, and you can learn to understand his difficulties with letting go.
financially, obviously he should be paying 50% of the childcare for your baby when you return to work. Universal credit will also help as you will be classed as a single person living separately.

you can co-parent successfully whilst living apart. Don’t think you have to move in just because you have a baby.

I take issue with this because it's obvious from the thread that OP didn't realise just how serious a MH hoarding is. Someone said upthread that he hasn't even recognised that this IS a problem nd plenty of people with direct experience of hoarding and hoarders have contributed valuable comment.

Absolutely zero contact from that moment on.

It's a form of abuse, plain and simple - not mere neglect, abuse. It isolates, it endangers, it traps, it utterly controls the victims and tells them every second of the day and night that they are worthless compared to The Stuff.

And then I read in all of these threads 'Oh, but they can't help it, they've had something really sad happen to them once upon a time, you must #bekind. Fuck that. When somebody is prepared to have you scarred for life and says it's your fault you got hurt, punishes you, puts you in danger and gaslights the entire world into thinking oh, they're so lovely, they just can't cope with the tidying, they're helpless, fuck off is it something to be kind over. The kids deserve to be rescued and the houses/flats/fucking middens need a flamethrower taken to them.

I'm ND, but fairly free of other issues tho I did have some hoarding traits. He will be particularly anxious because he's in transition. Transitions are really difficult.

That said and as I said before, send him home.

He has sold some really big items like a ride on lawn mower and and 2 trailers and some little motor bikes. Furniture wise also he has got rid of the lot. It’s just all the things he’s accumulated from decades like the clothes and the bits and bobs, dozens of chargers and cables etc. Things I suppose can be useful. I get that they can be useful potentially at some point but if we need it we can go buy it at that point. It really wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t a disorganised mess. So if you want say a padlock you can go and get it. Instead of having no ideas where it could be then buying another, then another as can’t find that one. I honestly thought if we’d organise he’d stop buying duplicates. He does seem so very overwhelmed at the moment. I can imagine having to move in with me and my daughter, having a baby and a really fussy one at that has been challenging. I’m a very accepting person and I only wanted to help him organise his things. He seems completely overwhelmed at the thought. I never realised every little space in his house was filled with multiples of little things.

I’m sure there’s complex reasons behind his hoarding, but unless he’s prepared to recognise his massive problem and seek psychiatric support, I’d be telling him to move himself, and his piles and piles of absolute garbage out of my home. Forcing you to deal with his shit show, a new baby and an existing child is just not on.

He is certainly a hoarder and impelled by this thread I went back and had a look at some academic papers. One says that about 30% can overcome or reduce the hoarding, but the rest either stay the same or get worse. He must be in turmoil because his behaviour is being seriously challenged. He is at a crossroads and can choose his stuff, or relationships with real persons. All you can do is state your position very clearly and do not cave in- you can’t be his enabler. Your and your kids’ life will be miserable, as all the PPs have outlined.
I also went back and watched the BBCs Mr Trebus- a life of grime . Trebus was the granddaddy of all the hoarder docs. He chose his junk over his wife and kids. Even in the last months of his life he was pinching stuff from the care home and slyly sticking it in his pockets.

OP you're still seemingly determined to help him to organize his hoard.
It won't work.
He will always choose his stuff over you and the children.

He actually didn’t go to the 2 car boots he had planned on the day I cried and he went to the shop and bought a whole load of plastic boxes. (Not put anything in them though). I don’t doubt it’s causing him much anxiety. His mum has said to rock the boat gently when dealing with him and his stuff. It’s such a shame as otherwise a really kind person, will do anything for anyone, works hard, doesn’t complain about doing stuff, works lots of hours, doesn’t complain about money. Friends family and colleagues can’t say enough good things about him. It’s just the stuff and wanting to start hundreds of projects but never starting or finishing them. I can see he is trying.

You are fast becoming an enabler, which means that not only will he not get help or get better, he will wreck your children's home and life while you make up new excuses for him. He's not really a hoarder, he's an addict. So he bought boxes to hoard rather than some other random junk...what's the difference? - more stuff taking up your space, squeezing you and the kids into less and less until.....?

I couldn’t agree more and (sorry if this sounds patronising) I think you’re very strong to distance yourself from your mother. It’s a taboo thing to do but only you know the truth about living that reality.

My SiL

It's a form of abuse, plain and simple - not mere neglect, abuse. It isolates, it endangers, it traps, it utterly controls the victims and tells them every second of the day and night that they are worthless compared to The Stuff.

TBF it does exactly the same thing to the hoarder, thats why some people find it easier to take their lives than to throw it all away.
Throwing it all away is to them, throwing their life and themselves away. Faced with it, going through one act of self destruction seems more sense than 100.

@Onetwothree45 Being able to make decisions over big stuff including to get rid, generally is easier than dealing with huge numbers of small items, especially if those items are in good condition and eminently usable.

I have a large cupboard full up with with cleaning materials, from when I was still compulsively buying. Yes I could get rid, and buy more each week, but logically rather than spend more on replacing what I already have, I’m keeping them because I’ll work my way through them, and tbh having sufficient cleaning materials of all kinds, (clothes, human, and house) makes me feel secure.

(I blame my childhood, and your daughter could become me in a few years.)

Your partner is seeing absolutely everything he has, the way I see disposing of the accumulated cleaning materials.

He does sound overwhelmed, but he also doesn’t sound ready for what he needs to do. There is a journey from the point that you realize you have too much stuff, and try to do something about it, to discovering it's not as easy as it ought to be, and that you have an actual problem with acquiring and discarding.

Until you’ve realized the problem isn’t the stuff, it’s the symptom of what's wrong with you, moving forward is entirely random.

You are clearly also not ready, and not seeing that the problem isn’t how much stuff, what kind of stuff, if the stuff is organized or not. The problem is he has a disorder and the stuff is the symptom, not the actual issue. As long as you are only able to see his symptoms (the stuff) as being the problem, you will be confused and of little use in him addressing whats wrong.

My 'stuff' is clean and organized, much in storage. I'm pretty in control of acquiring, and am slowly discarding, but the underlying condition still has me firmly in it's grip, no matter how the 'stuff' is presented. The 'stuff' is the symptom that's forced me to stop ignoring the underlying problem.

Sorry, my Sil is a hoarder. 18 months ago, she and her family moved into a new home, they spent a fortune getting it nice.
Their old house was to be emptied and put up for sale, all her crap has slowly migrated from the old house to the new and there are now piles of stuff that smell damp/mildewy all over the beautiful parquet flooring they paid a fortune for and covering every surface of the lovely kitchen, plus the garage is full.
We called up to the old house and other than the furniture, it looks just as full of crap as it always was, but worse as the walls that were hidden before are covered in black mould. There are huge piles of clothes going back 30 years that she was sorting through saying they were ‘too good’ for charity when in reality no charity shop would take them. Her kids are now adults and they’ve grown up not being able to take friends home. BiL is an enabler and instead of just getting a skip and junking the lot, he’s let her carry on. There are even boxes of my late FiL’s stuff that were meant for charity - he died 3 years ago.
Don’t put yourself through this, it will only ever get worse.

If the hoarding is the symptom @Elleherd what is the actual problem? I’m genuinely baffled ( my dad was a hoarder and now my brother has taken the baton). I suspect a fear of mortality lurks in there somewhere but can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe the hoarding is a distraction and a nurturing of an ongoing problem, to shield from a more disturbing reality ie we are all going to die, no exceptions. Just a suspicion

TheGander The stuff takes on meaning and importance, emotion gets transferred,

In general terms the stuff fills an emotional void in the person. There can be many and multiple reasons why that void exists. Some subtle, some obvious.It's common but not automatic that a tragedy is the onset.
It gets more complicated when it's 2nd & 3rd generation hoarding because when you grow up with goat paths and teetering piles as normal, space can look amazing but feel anxiety making. For some it may just be replicating their normal.

I had signs of hoarding disorder as a child, but I was living in a squalor hoard and limited food so who knows. It was just food and soap that seemed irresistible then.

I went into care and no possessions, constantly moved on, so no idea if I would have collected if allowed. Was always acquiring food and soap and hiding it. Had no income as a young wife so again no opportunity, other than quietly hoarding food and cleaning stuff.
But it manifested properly and very suddenly following consecutive deaths of my children. I wasn't able to let go of anything connected to them in any way. But although I didn't realize at the time I also started holding onto all sorts of random things and feeling guilty if I didn't use everything properly or 'save the planet.'
I also had the urge to save and repair things and protect things from destruction.
Later after my stepchildren where killed I had to clear their homes. I took most of it to mine and just couldn't deal with it. Various things also happened that made me feel I had to keep paper evidence in case things came back to bite us if I didn't. I stopped being sure what exactly might be needed so edged on the side of caution. I now know I was suffering serious anxiety but I didn't know that was what it was at the time. Same with food and cleaning materials, they allay a low level constant anxiety that I never previously recognized as anything other than normal. Being self employed and holding on to equipment that would allow a return to that industry when you've switched didn't help.
At some point I also started acquiring for a life I didn't lead, though I didn't know then it was what I was doing. It's like the frog, it doesn't know the water around it is getting hotter even though there's steam and bubbles.

It’s definitely had an effect on the way I look at him. To see him fret the other day over throwing away old shoes with rips and soles hanging off was an eye opener. He wanted to keep 2 pairs for “garden shoes”, he doesn’t need garden shoes then he took all the laces off the rest. I’m finding it difficult lying next to him in bed. I am scared, he’s only 33, how much stuff is he going to have. I think I’m going to sit him down and have a discussion about what is going on. I can’t believe I’m in such a stupid position after escaping a previous abusive relationship I now have another child with another man. I feel stupid. I love my children don’t get me wrong.

I'm no expert but as far as I'm aware hoarding is a mental illness, he needs professional help. Also, you seriously need to leave him.

You are becoming completely enmeshed with the hoarding.

Can you see what you're doing as analogous to buying booze for an alcoholic? Or weed for a pothead...
Getting the stuff sorted and organised is like rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic.

You're showing very concerning signs of codependency. You're accepting the stuff as long as it's organised. You think life would be easier if it were all sorted and findable.
Why????????? None of this is acceptable at all! You're dealing with a man whose primary relationship is with shies he wore when he was 22 and pieces of chocolate he bought in Ireland a few years ago, plus tones of other detritus.

Please read about codependency and make changes in your response to this man's problem. It is not your problem. It certainly isn't your children's problem.

Your 7 year old child must be asking herself what the hell has happened to her home.

@Onetwothree45

I was going to ask about your previous relationships.

I'm not surprised you experienced an abusive one previously.

Can you see the behaviour of your P as 'unavailable to you', or 'insisting your life is lived on his terms, not yours'? This is all abuse.

You owe him nothing.

I recommend the book 'Codependent No More' by Melody Beattie.

@mathanxiety I’ve been feeling like its our home now not mine and he also needs to feel comfortable. After all it’s all my decorating style and my furniture. I wanted to accommodate him but it’s going too far. Is it fair of me to make him get rid of all his stuff in order to move in? I was ok with the garage stuff and the tools etc. I just didn’t expect the drawers to literally come as they are, I thought it was get sorted before it left his house, instead the rubbish is coming. The dvds are driving me insane. The back room which I was intending to be a play room with spare sofa bed is full with bookshelves with dvds in. They now have spread into the lounge and fill the drawers under the tv. He filled it with ones for my daughter but she doesn’t watch them.

You are ignoring the fact that this is a serious mental health disorder that will affect the lives of your children. Why are you still considering moving in with him?

Multiple posters wrote about their experiences growing up with parent who suffered from the same condition and how it affected them negatively.

He is not ready to admit that he has a problem or seek help. This will only get worse.

He might be a nice man, but that doesn't mean his illness won't very negatively affect your children's well-being.

Nothing in your posts suggest he is even willing to admit that this is an issues