I see what you’re saying; I do have a strong aversion to clutter, but I can agree that it is my personal preference, not an absolute.
I’ve noticed that my hoarding has gone down since I got my computer-instead, it’s “hoarding” on my computer that happens!
Hoarding in it’s extreme has some people not being able to flush the toilet ever because that is also throwing out something - ew.
Hoarding is not the same as collecting.
Owning a huge amount of books that you have read and enjoyed, and want to keep for possible future re-reading, is not the same as - for example - buying boxes of boxes of books in bulk from second-hand shops or discount sales, and never reading them, but just stacking them about so you have them.
A bit sad but also fair enough would be buying books for decoration purposes - eg to fill up shelves to give a room a library look. It might be kind of pointless if you’re never going to read them, but it’s still not hoarding, if they serve a specific purpose.
I lived with a hoarder for many years. Life with a hoarder is not about a neat freak versus a charming packrat. You don’t have to be a neat freak to find life with a hoarder unbearable. Life with a hoarder is, without question, pit material.
The OP’s husband does sound like a hoarder. The situation IS being forced upon the OP - the husband acquires stuff, the husband is aware that there is a problem (if nothing else, there is a huge disconnect between his comfort level and hers), and he is neither doing what she asks nor offering constructive alternatives that might satisfy them both.
What I read is:
- The OP’s husband acquires and keeps stuff because it makes him feel good;
- The OP’s husband has enough stuff that it encroaches upon or occupies space that they both must use (e.g. the coat closet);
- The OP has tried to manage the clutter;
- The OP has asked her husband to reduce the amount of stuff, put the stuff away, or otherwise cause the stuff to no longer encroach upon or occupy shared space;
- The OP’s husband is aware of the conflict but his behavior has not changed. Perhaps he cannot see the clutter, perhaps he likes the clutter. In any case, his behavior has not changed.
At this point, it seems to me that he is either insensitive to her desire to live in a home that is comfortable to both of them OR his need to keep and acquire stuff (and to keep it visible) exceeds his desire or ability to compromise.
widdleytinks, I feel your pain. I don’t think you need advice at this point. Eventually you’ll do one of the following:
- Leave. That’s what I did. If your husband can (and wants to) modify his behavior, this is what it’s going to take anyway. That’s what it took for my other half to realize that there was a PROBLEM (and it wasn’t just that I was a whiny prick).
- Stay and not cope. Let him do what he wants, waging a one-sided running battle and trying to get him to change the way he behaves. Get bitter because it doesn’t work. I and others have tried this. Sounds like this is what you’re doing now.
- Stay and cope. Carve out a space that’s yours (yours personally and yours shared) and a space that’s his. Wage a constant battle against the expansion of his space. Accept that his space is a disaster area. Accept that he will never take responsibility for items of his that disappear when they wander out of his space. This works for some people, but I hear one has to have a thick skin.
You nailed it. Great example, too.
Collecting books is rational (“I like to re-read books if I have enjoyed them once.”). Buying books for decoration is rational, if silly (“I want the rec room to look like the library from one of those houses on Masterpiece Theater.”).
Hoarding is not rational (“I have to keep this book that I don’t particularaly want to read because I might possibly want to read it one day and I’m a failure and a disappointment if I don’t keep it.”). When you press a hoarder about the need to keep a particular item, the answer generally has little to do with the item itself. My partner did this. A typical conversation went:
Me: “This phone, it’s broken and not fixable. I’ll throw it out.”
Partner: “Don’t do that. I want to keep it.”
Me: “It’s broken - when you dial, it randomly doubles some of the keypresses.”
Partner: “I’m keeping it to donate to Goodwill.”
Me: “It randomly doubles some of the keypresses - it generates a wrong number about 25% of the time. It’s not appropriate to donate it.”
Partner: “It doesn’t do that all the time, so it’s not broken all the time. It’s better than nothing for someone who doesn’t have a phone.”
Me: “Look, you don’t give poor people broken shit just because they’re poor. This phone cost $5 at Target. You want to help someone, buy another $5 phone and donate it. Throw $5 in the pushke so someone can buy the phone themselves.”
Partner: “Don’t throw it out! It’s not broken all the time! Please don’t throw it out!”
He’s just convinced he’s a terrible person if he doesn’t wring every possible bit of use from something.
As in, diagnosed by a medical profession and being helped, or as in, “I exhibit a few of these characteristics that I looked up on the internet, so I must be”?
But then again, it seems that you are “hoarding” posts.
That is a most curious post of yours RedFireEngine.
Any particular reason why* Guin’s* mental health matters so much to you?
I think that OCD fits into one of those categories where most of the people who think they have it, don’t. OCD affects your entire life. Of the conditions that Guin has said she has, I haven’t noticed OCD to be among them before.
Ah…we have an internet diagnostician on board do we? :dubious:
Interesting. For all the rules and regs here barring people seeking medical advice, we have RedFireEngine who seems to be happy to dispense it.
Surely that is a big no-no?
Where the fuck was I dispensing medical advice?
Also, after conducting a search through Guin’s posts, she has mentioned being diagnosed with OCD. It is not very often though, I only knew of her two other disorders, which due to their severity, must make life a lot more difficult than her OCD does.
People tell me I have OCD all the time. I tell them I don’t, and to say so is stupid, and lessening the plight of people who do have OCD. Find a medical board, there are tons of people who self-diagnose (or get parent-diagnosed) as autistic, ADD or OCD. It is quite horrific to the point that the people who have actually been diagnosed as slowly becoming a minority.
So sorry. Maybe I misinterpreted your posts, but it seemed to me that you were challenging Guin’s OCD diagnosis even though you are not her medical practitioner, and (I suspect) knowing nothing about her apart from her online persona here. Your implication (perhaps misread by me) was that Guin is not suffering from an OCD, and that constitutes medical advice, as far as I am concerned.
Again, I apologise if I have misread you.
Wow. You follow posters’ medical conditions around the board?
I bow before your committment. :rolleyes:
No. I just happened to remember that Guin had another disorder when I saw her post. If I actually followed it I wouldn’t have had to ask about her condition would have I now?
I bow before your committment to be an ass. :rolleyes:
Guin didn’t say she was diagnosed as OCD. She said I have OCD. I was asking if she was diagnosed. See the later posts for clarification as to why I asked.
Darls, if you think that…
…is a sincere enquiry into Guin’s condition, then you are the one suffering under some sort of delusional dysfunction. Stop fucken weaselling. You were being cuntish so just bloody own it.
BTW, it’s ARSEHOLE in Australian. And I am a fully paid-up, card-carrying member of the Federated Arsehole Union (Inc).
Go bite me. 
You have a great talent for putting words in my mouth. Where did I say I was sincerely enquiring? I wanted to know if she had been diagnosed, or self-diagnosed. If that is “cuntish”, then so be it. I have just learnt not to trust anyone who says that they “have” a disorder.
The person with the highest post count on a message board of thousands can surely expect a quip about their post count every now and again can’t they?
That’s hilarious. You should do stand-up. No. Really.
BTW, I said “ass” not asshole, but thanks for showing how great your reading comprehension is.
And again I will say,* what the fuck* does it matter to you whether Guin does or does not have an officially diagnosed OCD, given that she is not the OP nor have her posts in this thread been monumentally influential in the compot of the thread?
You wanna pick on Guin and her OCD and anybody else who thinks they have an illness or disorder that doesn’t scan with your self-referential radar…go start another thread.
Have fun but.
What the fuck does it matter to you?
I was just making a slight hijack, as I was curious. Why no starting of a pit thread? Because we have enough lame-o ones already.
So my OP would’ve gone like so:
Or I could’ve just asked her.