In which I pit my lazy husband and I don't give a fuck if this is lame

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m DONE–clean up your own shit! I work full time. I take classes. I spend all day Saturday wading through the crap you have STREWN ALL OVER THIS HOUSE trying to clean it while you GO OUT!!! You have THREE DAYS OFF…and spend it with your lazy ass in a chair watching TV while I work MY ass off!! I have my OWN STUFF TO DO!!! I am not going to spend my life ORGANIZING YOURS!!!

At what point did you elect me family slave?

I BOUGHT a shelf for you to put your shoes on. You piled up LAYERS of shoes on it until it started to bend! I took the shelf back! Figure out what to do with your own shoes or find them out in the trash!!! Here’s an idea…stop buying MORE SHOES when you can’t keep the ones you have from piling up!

I’m SICK OF YOUR FUCKING PILES!!!

I BOUGHT you a TV stand with storage room and “we” (other family members) bought you cases to put your copied DVD’s in (your new compulsion) and you can’t seem to STOP YOURSELF from renting more DVD’s to copy and now there are PILES OF THEM ALL OVER THE LIVING ROOM!!! What the fuck is wrong with you? Here’s a little tip–if you don’t have a place for what you have…don’t buy more shit!!!

I BOUGHT you a 4 drawer filing cabinet, file folders to organize the papers and bills you have PILED KNEE DEEP IN OUR BEDROOM, STUFFED EVERYWHERE IN THE KITCHEN, AND STACKED UP IN THE LIVING ROOM and offered to HELP YOU!! And you haven’t TOUCHED IT!!!

Get OFF YOUR ASS and DO SOMETHING FUCKING CONSTRUCTIVE!!!

Your clothes!!! You dragged your own dresser down into the basement in an adult tantrum YEARS AGO and proceeded to take over the hall closet. FYI: The hall closet is a COAT CLOSET not a place for you to stuff YOUR CLOTHES INTO so much that the door is now BREAKING!!

And where are the coats? Well…they used to be hanging on a coat rack that I BOUGHT. There were so many coats piled on it (that should have fit into the COAT CLOSET THAT YOU STUFFED YOUR CLOTHES INTO --see preceeding paragraph) that it BROKE! It’s going out in the trash and I’m not replacing it!

Do you see a recurring theme of me BUYING stuff to make adjustments for your DYSFUNCTION???
You (you know who you are) are A COMPULSIVE HOARDING-MONEY-WASTING- TIME WASTING-LAZY ASS-DO NOTHING-EXCUSE FOR AN ADULT HUMAN BEING!!!

Why are you complaining about the heating bill?

You have:

A dozen cars
A small arsenal of weapons that you continue to buy, store and don’t USE
No house payment
TWO incomes of your own plus mine…

And you can’t keep me warm? Fuck you!!!

Fuck your shit, fuck your piles, fuck your money wasting habits, and FUCK YOU!!!
Thanks for listening…
widdley

2

And you’d rather he… used them? :smiley:
I suggest you put aside one room of the house and just throw all the loose junk into it. Or dig a pit pit in the backyard.

3

Surrender the house to him–and go find yourself a nice place of your own.
You lost me with the coat closet.

This man seems to think that the world owes him something because he’s here–or maybe just his family does. He sounds very Peter Pan with a touch of Prince Entitlement.

Walk away from his mess–to a nice new life for you…

4

Sounds like my ex. I’m glad he’s my ex.

5

Suggestion: have him read your rant, if you don’t have the 'nads to do it verbally; give him 30 days to clean up his act, then dump his ass if he doesn’t. Otherwise, this will just fester. Trust me on that; I was married to a packrat for 20 years and it drove me fucking insane.

6

It is not lame at all, but it sounds like you are going about it the wrong way. You are buying things YOU would use to organize, these ‘systems’ don’t seem to work for him. I don’t think you can solve this problem, it is a issue he must be able to conqure, and he might need outside help to overcome this and a push from you to seak it.

As for the heat issue, if money is no issue he should not complain.

7

Is your husband at all interested in cleaning up his act? If not, you can’t change him, but you can change YOUR reaction to him. If he is not going to change (and he probably isn’t), can you stay with him, or are you done with this relationship?

8

Maybe he’s just lazy, but the thing about the shoes made me sit up. I hate to say this, but it sounds like he is in the early stages of what my mother-in-law has. She’s mentally ill: she’s got “hoarding” OCD.

Back when my wife was born she became a little obsessive about stuff. She would take photographs, but would always take three of everything, regardless of whether she was happy with the first or not. She got them printed but rarely looked at them.

She started ‘collecting’ newspapers “to read later”. She has never read any of them.

She would buy stuff spontaneously, whether she needed to or not. She rarely used anything she bought. This includes houses, of which she now owns about a dozen, all with tenants in them, though she’s never paid any tax, so when she dies, her family will probably go bankrupt.

Eventually things got so bad she drove her entire family away - divorced, and all the kids moved out as soon as they could.

I am not exaggerating when I say that today, nobody has been able to get in her living room for twenty years, because it’s full of crap, piled as high as the ceiling. The curtains, which are scorched by the sunlight, are rotting off their rods. The entire house is full of piles of newspaper as high as the ceiling. She has a little corridor fashioned through it to get to her bed. That’s the space in which she lives.

A few years ago her kids rented a dumpster and cleared the house out (apart from the living room) while she was in hospital. They thought they were doing her a favor. First she went batshit at them, and secondly she began the difficult task of filling her house again. It’s back full again. We don’t talk to her any more.

If you think this is what he has, my advice would be to try to get him some help. He will either be incapable of seeing it logically - or he’ll see it logically but not be able to help himself.

9

Bryan, you don’t understand! His shit is ALL OVER THE HOUSE. Is it my job to throw it anywhere besides the trash can and why should I be digging anything? One room of the house, huh? His stuff would take up the whole house and I’m afraid that’s exactly what’s happening.

Have a nice day,
widdley

10

He doesn’t need to read my rant. I ranted at him for a good two hours before I ever posted this. I said nothing here that I didn’t say to his face! He came home and found a heap of shoes blocking the door where the shoe shelf was. Asked where it was and I said GONE. When he asked what to do with is shoes (oh the temptation!) I told him to figure it out! He did manage to unbox the file cabinet. Big deal.

For the poster who mentioned OCD…that is exactly what I mentioned during my rant to him in person. That I was sick of making adjustments for his dysfunctional COMPULSIONS. He doesn’t have room for the things he owns let alone room for the things he continues to buy.

I think someone mentioned counselling…he’s a mental health professional!!! No, really!!!

I have never posted a rant here in the Pit and hardly ever post here at all. Thank you all for “listening” to it. Banging it out on the key board did me alot of good!

widdley

11

? In England, are surviving family members liable for back taxes not paid by the decedent?

12

And mental health professionals don’t seek help from other professionals? Is he on medication?

He’s not going to change this under his own power. It probably is a personality disorder or brain glitch (technical term) of some sort. And it may be a problem that can’t be changed at all. (I’m not a shrink.)

May I suggest that he should either pay for maid service, come up with another workable solution (a duplex?) or you need to decide whether living with him is worth it.

I certainly don’t blame you for being really angry.

13

I’m afraid I don’t understand part of your comments, Zoe. You ask if mental health professionals don’t seek help from other MHP’s? I didn’t mean to imply that he hasn’t or wouldn’t. He’s been to a therapist, been on medication, yes he does have personality disorders on account of his being an ACOA, but the other thing that no one seems to notice say on the job is what his family notices…the guy is a walking case of Attention Deficit Disorder!

All of the things I mentioned are symptoms of ADD (as well as other things I didn’t mention) and believe me when I tell you that I know whereof I speak. I have mentioned this to him before and I don’t think he takes it seriously. There ARE ways to overcome compusiveness and chaos, but you have to want to do them.

Over the last few years or so, I tried to be as diplomatic as I could in providing him with organizational types of tools and helps…male ego and all that… but today I just HAD IT.

He wasn’t always like this. It’s been in the last 5 years or so that most of this has escalated. I’m not sure why people here have repeatedly suggested leaving the relationship. I suppose that fairly brief marriages are very common these days. We’ve been together for 36 years. No one is going anywhere.

widdley

14

For this shoe thing, I gotta say, I’m not with you on it. It sounds to me like organization comes difficult to him, but he made a real effort in order to please you, and then he gets home and finds out that his effort didn’t suffice because the shelf was bending. Not because his shoes were all over the place, but because the shelf was bending. And you’ve taken away the shelf and made a mess out of his shoes.

I can’t really see where he’s gonna feel motivated to make further efforts to please you when it comes to getting his shit organized.

Daniel

15

He knew when he left the house that the shoe shelf was bending and that I was going to take it back. I’m not after anyone to “please” me, I’m after a house that is comfortable and well kept, you know…where people can live in it and not have to wade through crap and…where I don’t spend my time “off” devoting it to picking up after other adults. Who in the hell picks up after ME? No one!

FYI: If he were a big boy, he wouldn’t have tried to pile up 30 pairs of shoes on a rack that can hold 9 pairs. The shelf wasn’t bought only for him. He “takes over” any available space there is. Let me explain in real terms…

We each have one side of a closet
He has taken over another whole closet to cram his shit in that is supposed to be a coat closet

We share a bathroom with three compartments.
I have one, he has two.
He has prescription drug containers that go back as far as 1990’s.

He HOARDS SHIT. Get it?

16

Okay. I get that he hoards shit. I get that this bothers you.

Does this bother him?

It doesn’t sound like it does. So what’s his motive for not hoarding shit?

One possible motive would be that he’d do it in order to make his beloved wife happy.

One other motive would be that he’d do it in order to keep the woman he lives with from yelling at him for two hours.

In either case, he’d be doing it to please you. So you ARE after getting other people to please you. There’s nothing wrong with that: indeed, if your husband doesn’t want to please you, your marriage is essentially dead. But you need to be clear on what you’re needing him to do, and you may need to think through your strategy a bit.

Daniel

17

I have been clear on what he needs to do. His children have also been clear. He’s not 14 you know! What sort of strategy would you suggest?

widdley

18

When you tell him what he needs to do, it sounds to me as though you think he’s a child who can be told what to do. He’s your husband, not your subordinate. Have you listened to how he feels about the situation?

YOu ranted at him for two hours, you say. Give him two hours of listening to his own frustration with the situation.

He may not talk to you. I’m not at all trying to suggest that he’s innocent here; it sounds as if communication has pretty much broken down between the two of you. But I think you need to know whether he’s comfortable living in a mess, and if so, you need to figure out how the two of you can compromise on your preferred lifestyles. And if there’s no compromise possible, it’s best that you know that as well.

Daniel

19

I feel for you. I do. My husband has hoarding tendencies. I get that you’re at the end of your rope today - hence the rant bubbling over.

However, things just aren’t as black and white as you think. There’s really nothing intrinsically wrong with a pile of shoes. Or stacks of newspaper. Or buying lots of things you don’t use.

You’re going to have to negotiate on this one - you don’t occupy the position of extreme truth/fact that you think you do.

20

Use some of one of those three incomes to build a large storage shed out back.

Every time he piles stuff up, hire some neighborhood kids to come move it out to the shed. If he brings it back in to the point it piles up again? Hire the kids to haul it out again. (Note the phrase “if it piles up again” – bringing in reasonable amounts of stuff wouldn’t be an issue.) Closets too full? Arbitrarily select 75% of the stuff to go out to the shed. 27 pairs of shoes? Arbitarily select 9 to keep in the house and the rest go out to the shed.

When the shed gets full? Hire a dumpster for a day, hire said neighborhood kids to fill the dumpster, and have it hauled away.

He may still collect stuff. But all you’ll have to do is pay kids a few bucks and point to piles to be carried out. And in the meantime, you’ll be living in a house that’s not so full.