Anonymous wrote:He's got some old family issues, parents physically abusive. He loves to shop and spend a lot of money. So he will by a pricey gadget and never use it and it's hard for him to get rid of bc he spent a lot of money on it. Also in general he is horrible at organizing. I just found a laundry basket filled with papers years old that he needs to "go through".

Anonymous wrote:He's got some old family issues, parents physically abusive. He loves to shop and spend a lot of money. So he will by a pricey gadget and never use it and it's hard for him to get rid of bc he spent a lot of money on it. Also in general he is horrible at organizing. I just found a laundry basket filled with papers years old that he needs to "go through".

Anonymous wrote:Box it and put it in the garage, basement. Tell him that if he gets anymore stuff that he'll need to rent a storage unit and display it there.

We had accumulated too much stuff not long ago and we all worked to sell, give away, throw away what we didn't need. And we boxed things that we wanted to keep but didn't need out. Makes a big difference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you guys in a condo or apartment? If so, do they have a little storage closet/area you can rent? If so, for the short term, use that and tell him he needs to move all of the stuff he doesn't use frequently in there. Then, when he doesn't use any of the moved stuff for a period of time, note that for him and ask if he can start removing things. It might take many months / a year for this to sink in to him, but he kind of needs an "aha! moment." My DH is a horrible clutter person but we actually made great progress when I made him box up stuff and put it in our unfinished basement (I'm talking music magazines that he may someday want to read again, etc.). Once he didn't even open those boxes for a year, I convinced him to throw them all out PLUS much more of his stuff. He is still programmed to keep random stuff, but now I just tell him I'm throwing things away and he doesn't protest unless it's something he really wants.

Once you have the baby, you are going to have SO MUCH MORE STUFF. He is just going to have to purge stuff to make room for the baby stuff. I would point out to him that the closet needs space for the three of you, that you've purged your stuff NOT to give him more space but to have space for the baby and tell him he either needs to find another place for the stuff (rental space like I mentioned) or get rid of some things.

Or you can win the lottery and have some massive storage facility

This is all good right here.

Very practical advice: What finally "clicked" for DH was stumbling across a graphic called "Unf*** your closet." Google it and send it to him. It goes step by step asking if you've worn the clothing in a year, if it needs a repair, are you going to repair it right now, etc to convince you that "no, really, you can get rid of that." He generated two big moving boxes of clothes using that graphic. A lot of it would apply to regular stuff too.

General advice: I have hoarders in my family, so I'm already pretty good about getting rid of clutter, despite having been programmed at some level to think everything has meaning and that getting rid of something someone (my hoarding relative) gave me means I'm essentially throwing away love. It's tough stuff. Does he have any of that going on in his family? Or ADHD, anything like that?