Is my husband a hoarder or just disorganized and messy?

[Anonymous]

OMG Both of us in our 60's and my Boyfriend does the same thing... He Yells at me if I pick up candy wrappers around HIS CHAIR! He yells "LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE" We live in a 2 bedroom Apartment.. the Second bedroom is my Art and craft Studio.. He Tries throwing whatever in there when I ask him to put stuff away.. today went out to the kitchen and there is a banana peel stuffed in a glass on the counter! The garbage can is rt next to the counter! I think it's Part Hoarding and part Laziness! Then we wanted to trade the truck in.. i got a whole bag of garbage out of it.. I asked him why he can't keep the Truck Clean? He says "It's a Truck" I'm like What? I can't believe I eve there are more like him out there.. it almost as if I wrote that post myself.. He gives Anxiety Attacks!! We don't have room here to be "Disorganized" I get Claustrophobia from all this stuff.. here I thought I was Being OVERLY organized instead of just wanting my hone CLEAN!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - to continue - his excuse is always that he is too busy and he doesn't want to waste time going through stuff. He is very busy - extremely busy working and remodeling our house. So, I tell him, I have more time and I don't mind cleaning/organizing, but you have to let me do it. and he will say, No, I have to go through it myself. But the problem is, He never, ever goes through anything ever. I think he just enjoys clutter and enjoys keeping every single item he has ever owned just in case he needs it later (of course, he can never find it because of the disorganization.)

Meh my husband is like that. So I just toss and organize his stuff. He doesn’t complain. I started as soon as we got married and now I just keep his stuff all clean and organized. I go through his clothes regularly too.

I think if you don’t make someone organize, they just get more and more rigid.

[Anonymous]

Imagine if he died. It would be horrible for you to have to spend so much time clearing out his stuff.

[Anonymous]

He is a hoarder.

Hoarding is, in my view, a very narcissistic tendency.

It gives me great pleasure to donate items to Goodwill.

I dated a man like this.

At first I thought he was depressed.

It's not depression.

It's like Citizen Kane, where the wealthy media mogul man just wanted more and more stuff. He was trying to fill a childhood wound and void.

[Anonymous]

My cousin started hoarding at a young age. She would hoard Halloween candy.

She secretly kept a dresser drawer filled with Halloween candy. And my aunt did nothing about it.

I visited her apartment a few years ago. Every square inch was covered with stuff. She had a hamster or something in a crate. She had two dogs that pooped on the floor. She and her soon to be ex DH and adult daughter were each waiting for the other one to pick up the poop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband never puts anything away and never throws anything out. I have gotten "his" stuff down to our storage room/his hobby room and our garage, but disorganization and wasted space bugs me so much.

I don't mind cleaning and organizing, but the problem is he gets all upset when I do this and he refuses to do any organizing or cleaning himself. he still has VHS tapes - stuff he copied from the TV!!! I have said, Can I throw these out? And he will say, Oh, I will go through them, but he never does. Years go by. I say, do we need to keep this old broken VHS player? Do we need to keep this old microwave that we haven't used in 10 years of marriage that is taking up space on the floor of the storage room?

He drives me crazy. You can barely walk in the storage room or the garage. The rest of the house is competely clutter free and clean.

I know I should give him this one room, but it is a wasted room. If it was cleaned and organized, we could actually use the room. And if the garage were organized, we could park our cars in there!

Plus, what drives me bananas is the waste of money. Because he cannot find anything, he is constantly buying more stuff/household supplies at Home depot. Cans of paint; lightbulbs; car oil; doorknobs, anything and everything.

Are I being ridiculous for wanting him to help clean up his mess?

same! I even built him a third story-office and big living room-its disgusting, filthy and cluttered, 2 year old toys when youngest is 10, garage a mess, he has to get my bike because i cant even get to it from clutter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, my problem is completely the opposite. DH cannot stop throwing away stuff. He cannot stand to see things out of order or things piling up. Our house is always organized to the absurd. His closet is ridiculous and sometimes spends hours organizing the kid's closets (for what?) I keep telling him he has a compulsive dissorder and he agrees. Our kids have had chores since they could walk lol, it's crazy,

Im PP, yup=married an obsessive
signed a compulsive

[Anonymous]

Our husbands are twins. Drives me crazy and drives me to discard more things of my own. Our different degrees of tolerance are a constant source of fighting. We are now thinking of downsizing houses and he wants to use storage units. What???
No advice. Just know you are not alone.

[Anonymous]

True hoarding is a mental illness that involves not being able to let stuff go. Do any of these men y'all are describing collect things? Buy lots of stuff they don't use but store up in the house? An acquaintance of mine needed help moving and her apt was full of "collections" that were either junk (coupons that were expired, or old, wrinkled up, dirty magazines with a particular celebrity on the cover, things like that) or random things she doesn't use in large numbers (there were like 40 unused makeup/toiletry bags, tags still on, never used, many still in the shopping bag from where she bought it. Oh, she had a bunch of pencil bag things as well). Here apt was also full of literal trash she couldn't part with for weird reasons (bags and bags of receipts from years ago, just grocery store receipts or whatever, that "had part of the credit card number on them" so she was saving them to shred -- and I mean garbage bag sizes of bags full of this stuff). And I'll add the apt filled up so much there wasn't any carpet showing on the floor; every surface was piled with junk or bags of junk.

So not quite the same thing as being messy and feeling a bit crowded by your spouse trying to pick up after you. Both frustrating for sure, but not the same thing.

[Anonymous]

My DH and I both tend to be messy / disorganized. He seems to not care whereas I get overwhelmed about starting or figuring out better systems. One a system is in place I’m decent at following it. Can you afford an organizer? I have ADHD and the mirroring / hyper focus when I have an organizer work with me is amazing. I hire one a few times a year and I LOVE seeing all the bags of stuff go. I think that’s a difference between clutter : organized and hoarder. My home looks cluttered often, but I’m very happy to get rid of things. I think I’d find it stressful if my DH were deciding what to get rid of, but it’s so freeing.

[Anonymous]

He does sound like he has hoarding tendencies.

Mine insisted we keep an old air filter that is probably 15 years old. Finally, I got permission to toss it. What a victory!

There’s another item spouse swears to sell but never does. It’s been taking up space for eight years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved from a larger house and ever since moving into our current house our basement was used for storage. I worked out deals with my DW that I would purge and for every trash bag she would reward me (which would be considered a reward for her by most DWs). After over 8 bags and several years, my DW has never lived up to her side of the deal on any of the huge stuffed contractor trash bags. Since moving into the house, I have purged enough to put my office, my closet and a lot of new family stuff in the basement.

My DW nags me about the basement, but I never have the free time that she has... Which is another irritation...

Since the Trash bag deal.. We have had several deals where I make progress towards what I commit to and she makes no effort but to complain. The marriage has other issues that have made me want to end it.. Ironically, I need to clear out the basement before we can end it. So I have started to find the items of value new homes via eBay and other places that would value the items. To my DW, all of my stuff is trash and I should just throw it all away.. But it is worth more than $10k if I find the right buyers which I have started to look for... One annoying thing is that sometimes when I have found people to take some of the items the plan falls through...

Just because you paid 10K for it some time ago does not mean that it is worth that now. Just hire a service to haul the whole mess away.

lol.. As I have mentioned that I have already purged a lot of my "stuff". After the 8 large contractor sized trash bags, I shredded several of my old documents and papers that resulted in several contractor sized trash bags full of spreading. What is left of my "excess" stuff makes a small percentage of what is in the basement. It would fit in the back of a regular sized SUV. I have less than 10% of my original stuff that I had when I moved into current house. The value of several of these items has been increasing over the last 2 years. I would actually make a profit on some of them. And I would feel guilty throwing away rare collectables that are not replaceable. I need to re-inventory my collection and revalue it based on what the current market in actually paying for similar items. I am realistic and not jaded by shows lime antique roadshow. If I cannot find a buyer within a realistic timeframe, I will bundle it and give the different bundle to an enthusiast for shipping cost. Just as i should not jaded in thinking that everyone of my items would get me a featured spot on Antique roadshow.. People should not be jaded in.thinking that everyone with a collection should be featured on an episode of hoarders.

i will admit that the basement looks messier than it needs to be.. But part of that is me being pissed at me wife for how she has been acting.

You’re delusional

[Anonymous]

Child of hoarder here and yes this is hoarding.
Throw out the old electronics and if he finds out tell him that you gave it to a friend in need, it may soften the blow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He does sound like he has hoarding tendencies.

Mine insisted we keep an old air filter that is probably 15 years old. Finally, I got permission to toss it. What a victory!

There’s another item spouse swears to sell but never does. It’s been taking up space for eight years.

Tell him you sold it and show him some cash, done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH and I both tend to be messy / disorganized. He seems to not care whereas I get overwhelmed about starting or figuring out better systems. One a system is in place I’m decent at following it. Can you afford an organizer? I have ADHD and the mirroring / hyper focus when I have an organizer work with me is amazing. I hire one a few times a year and I LOVE seeing all the bags of stuff go. I think that’s a difference between clutter : organized and hoarder. My home looks cluttered often, but I’m very happy to get rid of things. I think I’d find it stressful if my DH were deciding what to get rid of, but it’s so freeing.

Why do you get more stuff between the organizer’s visits?