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He got upset yesterday as I threw away a chocolate fish that was 6 years out of date but he wanted to keep it as a memento.

You will never get to grips with this as his primary relationship is with his hoard

This, 100%!

Of course his parents didn't tell you how bad he was they want someone to deal with the difficult side of him so they don't have to and telling you how bad he was might have made you run a mile, they don't want that it's not in their interests.
And of course they don't like you, they only want to see him as their golden boy who should be aiming for someone better than you!

I’ve only read your responses op

Have you ever asked him to see his GP? Does he understand this is a genuine illness? Does he like living like this or does he want to get help?

Why can’t you afford to go back to work? Has he refused to pay childcare costs?

Can he afford to run two homes?

If I was you I would only allow him to bring clothes to your house and nothing else. You have everything already

Hoarding can be cured though

google hoarding TV shows maybe he would watch one with you? It might give him some insight into himself

No. Don't watch hoaridng shows with him - all it will do is show him that he's "not that bad" or "those people have a real problem, I don't." He needs proper mental health support from a professional. If he can admit it's a problem.

Google Hoarding TV shows - maybe he would watch one with you?
It might give him some insight into himself

I do not recommend this at all. He'll just watch and say his hoard is a "collection". And therefore more valuable than the people on the telly's hoard.

Hoarders never see their own hoard as anything other than wonderful.

And he will not gain insight into himself by watching other mentally ill people. If that were the case, people with schizophrenia would gain insight into their illness if they watched a TV show which featured schizophrenics.

Hoarding is a very serious illness. The whole problem is that hoarders spectacularly lack insight. That's why some of them can't throw their own shit away.

"It's not happening because he is committed to something other than me, and I refuse to accept second place in his life. And it's also not happening because bringing a person with a serious addiction into the lives of two children would be unforgiveable."
Fixed that for you...

........
I see you use the phrase "as is" - you are really not understanding the scope or scale of what you're dealing with here.

The hoarder is in the grips of a compulsion. Whether the shite is organised in boxes or higgledy-piggeldy makes no difference - it's still all shite, and the compulsion to keep on accumulating it has taken over his life.

You are peripheral to this man's existence. You need to understand that. You are not the central, important element in his life any more than you would be if he were addicted to cocaine or alcohol. His reality consists of the hoard and the hoarding behaviour. Not you or the family life you hope for. Your attempts to break through into his reality and get him to accept yours have been greeted by anger.

He is not available to you emotionally or psychologically. You deserve someone who is.

Yet you've settled for someone
(1) whose parents have completely screwed him up and who don't like you, and
(2) who will ruin your life - who has already severely impacted your choices and income and possibly jeopardised your future in your home.

Why have you embraced this person who could only be a net negative in your life and your children's lives?

We had equal drawers and wardrobe in my house and he filled his with crap and his essentials barely fit if you cram it all in. So far there is nothing on the stairs or hallway or outside of drawers and cupboards so I guess to strangers you wouldn’t know. Unless you go in the back spare room. There was nothing in his house either. There was some accumulating in the living room and I kicked up a fuss on the weekend and told him to sort it so he got in a strop and took it back to his. The rest he has shoved in the garage and shed unorganised just thrown in. It’s thrown me the weekend as we went to de weed the back garden as it’s empty and I saw just how much stuff there was. I haven’t been for a while as I had a difficult birth and a long recovery. Now the furniture has gone and it’s all pulled out it’s just a mass of small stuff. I panicked hence the realisation. I don’t think his stuff is in the loft as I said it’s not going in there till it’s organised and the rubbish thrown.

@mathanxiety I thought he just worked too many hours which he did and so was untidy. I thought that by seeing what he has and sorting it would mean he would see what he had and not buy more. Like I said I was wrong. It wasn’t until the weekend when I saw him for who he was, a mess over stupid possessions, anxious and angry. I never seen him or his things like this. I didn’t know he saved all his shoes or sticks of rock from decades back

OH MY GOD OP. The only place his stuff AND HIM need to go is HIS. HOUSE. Not in the shed, not in the garage, not in his drawers, not in the loft - it needs to go TO HIS HOUSE. He is NOT going to sort it. organise it, throw it away or do ANYTHING with it except keep it and add to it.

I get the feeling you are right.

I really really hope you are finally getting it now.

The Hoard WILL take over your home and your life.

He needs to go back to his house and take The Hoard with him.

The Hoard is like a living thing that will NEVER stop growing.

Something else OP; you keep saying he can only bring his "essentials.". Part of the illness of hoarding is that, to the hoarder, EVERYTHING is essential.

"This might be useful someday"
"This is still worth something"
"I want to do something with that one day"
"No, I want to save that for now"

Yes @Elliania I get that now.

"This might be useful someday"
"This is still worth something"
"I want to do something with that one day"
"No, I want to save that for now"

Yes, that is a well known script for hoarders. Every item is justified.

Re watching the hoarders programme with him, no it doesn't work. I watched them sometimes when my DH was in the room. He just could NOT see that he had anything in common with the person on the programme. He had collections which were valuable. ( in actual fact he did have stuff that was valuable) but he couldn't see that any of it caused issues, even when walking around rooms became difficult. At one point he wanted to put stuff into the kids rooms. That was the first time I lost my temper, I was not going to let that happen. So he carried on filling other rooms to the ceiling.
They really don't get it.

Living with a hoarder is HORRIBLE. DO NOT put your children through this. Living in a hoard will ruin their lives. Hoards become uninhabitable; many hoarders end up dying under heaps of their own accumulated rubbish, and houses end up having to be pulled down. Get rid of this man and let him spend the next 50 years destroying his own life, health and house.

I posted earlier but it's good to see you are coming to terms with the situation
It must've been a shock to realise you can't rationalise the hoarding because it's a symptom of a mental illness, which by nature is irrational
There are 3 of you in this relationship His priority is his hoard over you
Wishing you well

Children of hoarders lead lonely, sad lives. He will never be able to prioritise his child's wellbeing.

"I want to do something with that one day"

I remember Matt Paxton, who did house clearances for hoarders, on that American programme "Hoarders" (CBS Reality).

He said that all hoarders had many, many projects. They were "always fixing to do something with those things" except they never did. It was just a series of possible projects, which the hoarder mentions because it makes him or her sound like there is a POINT to the hoard. (It will, somehow, become useful).

The things they're going to do never actually happen, but the possibility that they might is held tantalisingly over the person who is trying to help the hoarder to get rid of the hoard.

"You can't throw this out! I need it for that quilt cover I'm going to make for my friend's bed!"

Hoarders say this, or a variation on this, all the time.

I freaked out the other day when he said it will probably all end up getting dumped in the garage and sorted through later so we can get it rented out. I fear this has always been the outcome. I thought he was too busy with us to sort it but I now see he never has intended to sort it all along. I’ve just held out and 9 months later it’s still all there.

I’ve just held out and 9 months later it’s still all there.

And still all there and much, much more in 9 years, 19 years........

I also remember a man on Hoarders who had a lot of land, and he collected old cars, buses, lorries and vehicles generally, because he believed they would be a valuable inheritance for his grandson.

His house was also full of unfinished projects, and it was unliveable.

He was threatened with jail if he did not get rid of the old vehicles (they were an eyesore). Eventually, someone came to estimate their value, to demonstrate to the hoarder that they were worthless.

They WERE worthless. He would have had to pay someone to take them all away. He was utterly heartbroken and actually cried.

He still resisted having the scrap taken away, though. And he was fined a lot of money, and eventually promised a judge that he'd get the old scrap removed.
So the judge told him he wouldn't fine him...........and that's where the programme ended.

I'd love to know what happened in the end.

The judge told him he would not put him in jail, I mean. He was fined.

I have always wondered if he did end up in jail.

Some hoarders actually cannot part with their own faeces and urine.
That is the extreme end of this compulsion.

One woman who did this had thousands of bottles of human waste in her house and it was removed because she was sectioned.

Just before they took her away she asked if she could "just have one more bottle to take to the bathroom, for the last time".

The mind boggles.

If you research hoarding and recidivism, you will find that the recidivism rate for people who have their belongings thrown out without additional support is 97%. Getting rid of the clutter doesn't get rid of the problem if it's due to a mental health problem.

The above is from a post from the other hoarder thread mentioned.