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He got upset yesterday as I threw away a chocolate fish that was 6 years out of date but he wanted to keep it as a memento.

I wonder how much money has been wasted in her quest to acquire every piece of shit under the sun. I wonder what that money could have done for him and his family instead.

@TheGander yes, it’s quite a complex subject. It’s also multi-faceted with different parts of behaviors made stronger or weaker by different things. It isn’t a one size fits all condition.
Emotional voids and loss are some of the most common things hoarders are filling up or burying. Lots of people of course deal with theses things in different ways, but anecdotally I’ve met many like me who didn’t get to grieve

I think generally wanting to hang onto one’s children’s things is usually to do with not wanting to lose the memories and connection to happiness. If deaths involved it becomes more complex.

I know the need for excess food and cleaning stuff is a direct result of childhood conditions. Some children of hoarders become minimalists; I became obsessive about cleanliness and subconsciously afraid of insufficient food.

A lot of my issues are connected to lack of security, sudden loss of people, relationships, property and trust. But there’s another part which is seeing and realizing the potential in a large range of things. Being creative and making money from it doesn’t help.

I find it helpful to split up acquisition from disposing as issues. The first is much easier to deal with. It’s mainly just willpower. Not letting stuff in that isn't actively needed, in the first place, is part of the battle won. Dealing with what’s already there and loosening its hold, is more complicated and time consuming.

OP is in shock at finding out here that his quirks are in fact a severe, virtually incurable mental disorder. That is why she is still trying to apply reasoning, compromise and logic.

The getting rid of some of his stuff via her mum is part of this.

I feel the constant repetition in our posts may help her to finally acknowledge that she cannot control his hoarding and more importantly HE cannot control his hoarding.

He is very creative and when he actually uses things he hoarded for a job later on it often looks good. It’s just that the amount of projects he has on his mind and the accumulated stuff to complete those projects that don’t happen that’s the problem.

His mum is definitely a hoarder. His brother is a complete minimalist. I’m wondering if it’s his mum during childhood that’s caused the emotional side. She lost her mum as a toddler and as a mum she is quite cold and matter of fact and at the same time needs to know the ongoings of everything in the place she lives. Anyway knowing doesn’t change it.

I thought he would be anxious living away from his house but he doesn’t and he keeps saying he doesn’t want to move back home away from me and baby. He must be so torn.

The top of his mums kitchen is covered in packs of food. 4 freezers and drink crates everywhere and cleaning products. She always bulk buys.

It does have a strong genetic link.

@TheShellBeach genetic in that he had no choice or that you copy your mum. So the baby could be the same whether she sees it or not?

Every single hoarder says that. Every single one.
They also say they collect, not hoard.
They also say it will be useful some day.

Your DP is not unique. It's not a little problem. He likes to feel he's got a bargain, whether it's charity shop, reduced priced, skip. Because it's not full price he "wins", and he can't let it go because that equals "failure " as he doesn't have it anymore.

He might be giving it away now, he might be on a high from it....but watch out for the crash. It might be a week, month or years but it will be like grief. Red hot anger, depression, fear...and the only thing that will help him is to find a bargain...and another...and another.

No choice. Yes, look out for it in his child.

I have a feeling that I know why his mother doesn't like you.
You are not prepared to keep any of his stuff.
I might be wrong about that, but hoarders become extremely obstinate about their stuff. They get very angry when other people start saying it's worthless trash.

I always thought perhaps his mum didn’t give him the emotional support as a child so he has transferred it and now it’s a safety net. I mean she has offered him and us no real support with the baby. Despite being poorly as I had a massive bleed. The baby and her allergy and the fact she screamed 17 hours a day and night for 3 months. She didn’t see the baby for a week after she was born.

My partner's Dad definitely has hoarding tendencies. I don't know if he's a full on hoarder as he does use the things he buys but he didn't get rid of much until recently when he's finally decided to have a big sort out & got rid of a lot.
My partner also has these tendencies and I do find myself keeping an eye on him & encouraging him to have clearouts. He's nowhere near as bad as your partner but it's certainly something that can be passed down or learned.

Sadly, yes your baby may have no choice in it.. I've managed to keep my children from being affected directly, and have brought them up in a normal enough home, encouraged to pass things on, or dispose of them. But one of them was reasonable as a child but has developed hoarding issues later.

@Pixiedust1234 , do you actually know every hoarder?
Not all hoarders do say that.

BTW the NHS link above is very out of date with understanding of the suject. ‘A hoarding disorder is where someone acquires an excessive number of items and stores them in a chaotic manner’

A hoarding disorder is where someone acquires excessive number of items for the space, they have available to them, but that is hoarding, not hoarding disorder.

The important distinction is: suffers significant difficulty and distress attempting to dispose of them when wanting or needing to.
How they are stored doesn’t make one less of a hoarder, just more socially acceptable.

If his mother is a hoarder, your baby will not be important to her.

The hoard always comes first.

I feel for you OP
Some souvenirs can be photographed and the actual items "recycled" 🗑️
My Dsis has a hoarder friend who is a lovely person. I popped over to help feed the cats and it's horrific, and she's had a good few years more.

@TheShellBeach that's just not true. People with hoarding disorder come in many shapes and sizes. Some are isolated and disinterested in family relationships, just as some non-hoarders are. Some are close and loving Grandparents just as some non-hoarders are, and a whole range in the middle.

@FilthyRich Of course not all hoarders say that, but tbf there is a sub-section that do. You have to expect exaggeration on a thread like this. People have after all even suggested he intentionally got her pregnant to rehouse his hoard!

The only person who has any chance of addressing his issues is himself, and the desire to do that has to come from within, not without. When it comes from without it can help spotlight the problem and make the person wish to change and try and take some action, but to truly tackle it, the person has to deeply want out of it and be ready, but there's still no guarantee of success.

He isn’t a recluse. He’s well liked. He isn’t ashamed of his house. He doesn’t really care whether people say anything. He is very kind and will do anything for anyone (apart from bin it all). Holds a good managerial job etc. Everyone knows he likes his bargains and jokes about it. Is not bothered that his hoard is in a different house currently. His mum doesn’t seem that into her stuff but she is just not very warming.

@Elleherd You're right. I was generalizing too much there.

I'm feeling irritated now, as these are the same sort of deflections and diversions as hoarders use to turn attention away from the great mounds of shite.

Right. You have an abusive ex. He's obviously got away with the abuse as he has contact with your older daughter. The one who isn't keen on your bloke or the stuff he's forced on her like Lego. And you've had a new baby, plus moved this man in, something your ex isn't happy about.

But Mr It's Valuable You Just Don't See It (and you if you waver and start trying to excuse, explain or take the blame for it) is gifting your ex the greatest, clearest, most compelling case for him to be awarded sole residence and to prevent any unsupervised contact between you and your daughter. Safety.

Your boyfriends hoarding will come above you having your daughter. It will. He's not even related to her and hoarders already rank Stuff over and above their partners and children. Why should he stop to prevent her father taking her legally? There'll be another spare room to fill, for a start.

@Onetwothree45 When I mentioned being creative and money, what I meant was my actual livelihood depends on me having a large variety of materials on hand to create from. Not hobby buying and selling.

I do also however hoard items for DIY projects and yes it often takes a long time to achieve them. This is what sheds are for - to house things that are going to be used for upgrading home and garden but would be in the way of normal living in the meantime.

You mention his mother bulk buying. This can be about using money wisely, thus being able to afford things, but it also suggests he's probably been brought up with the 'it's a bargain' mentality.

I've been a member of both camps, and still bulk buy things I use a lot of regularly, or where I'm sharing it out with others. Bargains are anything from a sensible opportunity ie a discounted air fryer replacing oven use, to a simple dopamine hit- buying something you had no previous need for because it's available cheap.

I'm also well liked, not a recluse, and help others a lot. If you met me I doubt you'd peg me as having a MH condition. Most of us aren't Mr Trebus, and those who end up on TV programs. The condition isn't chosen, and for me it was simpler to let go of life, than to just get rid of everything. He can't just bin it all for you. There are a lot of things he can do, but right now you need his stuff out and to stop chucking, charity shopping it, and making him throw it away if you don't want to entrench him in compulsive hoarding deeper, because that's what you are doing.

I will say again learn properly about hoarding, But also learn about Co-parenting, because what you're currently doing to him trying to mold him to fit, is going to destroy your relationship anyway, outside of what him doing, will.

@TheShellBeach Thanks. 🙂 We all generalize, but I suspect generalizing about who hoarders are, what it looks like, and how they behave, is part of the problem and why the Op is struggling to recognize facts in an otherwise OK man.

I didn't recognize my own problem for a long time because I absolutely wasn't like my mother who was an archetypal squalor hoarder, my home wasn't like hers, my habits weren't like hers, I didn't behave with my children as she did with hers, and my relationships weren't like hers, so I couldn't be a hoarder could I?

Even the NHS describe hoarding as ‘A hoarding disorder is where someone acquires an excessive number of items and stores them in a chaotic manner’
and makes no mention of the biggest symptom which isn't the amount of stuff, or how it is stored. It's: they suffers serious and significant difficulty and distress in attempting to dispose of items when genuinely wanting or needing to.

If it was organised it wouldn’t be so bad

Please stop saying this.
To him, it is organised, he doesn't need to "organise" it.
I have a close friend who has recently opened up to me about the situation in his family (he is still living in the parental home due to health issues). Another family member is a hoarder. The whole place (apart from my friend's own room) is rammed with crap belonging to the hoarder. Most of the hoard is electrical items, wires, tools and stuff like that. To others in the family it looks like utter chaos but the hoarder knows where every single item is and to him, the hoard is organised. Nothing can be thrown out because the hoarder notices when anything is missing. He never comes home without bringing more stuff he has found. My friend told me he cannot cope any more and the hoarder has recently started going round to the old phone boxes in the area where people swap books and coming home with boxes of books (instead of swapping the ones you don't need any more for someone else's books as you are meant to do).

No amount of organization is ever going to make the situation better.

Is there any way you can encourage him to turn his worrying tendencies into a virtuous cycle via a job in recycling or mending?

I know you were trying to be helpful but no, for the love of God, no. Don't you see that would just give him access to more shit to rescue and bring home?
I have a friend who isn't a hoarder and he used to work in a recycling type job - encouraging people in the community to recycle and collecting stuff from people's homes which could be recycled. Even he, a non-hoarder, regularly rescued stuff and brought it home. He actually got some really good, useful items but someone who already has a hoarding problem would be unable to be selective and end up bringing shit loads of crap home all the time.