Usually I do most of the cleaning, but every once in a while, my SO goes on a mad binge of what he considers cleaning and throws away things that belong to me. He considers me to be a hoarder because he is the kind of person who would throw away all of their long pants in the spring if nobody succeeded at convincing him not to.
It’s pretty upsetting to find stuff I wanted to keep in the trash, often ruined from garbage, but I worry more about the stuff I don’t find. Any missing item could have suffered this fate, and he is not a reliable source of information about what he has discarded.
Since he genuinely wouldn’t care if I threw away his stuff, he does not seem capable of understanding what is wrong with this behavior. Enough time passes between episodes that all past discussions of it seem to be forgotten and he makes the same excuses–I didn’t know you wanted to keep that, I didn’t want to bother you by asking, I forgot you took that out of the trash last time I threw it away, etc.
Is it normal to chuck items in your household without consulting others? Where is it reasonable to draw the line? Is this a common point of controversy and has anyone resolved a similar situation?
We never throw each others’ stuff away. Never. That would feel incredibly inconsiderate.
The one exception is that, after several years of marriage, my husband gave me carte blanche to throw away items of his clothing that become too worn out to wear in public.
The throwing-stuff-away disagreement we’re most likely to have occurs when I have thrown away something of mine, and he digs it out of the trash to give to his mom or sister. That drives me up the wall.
Having recently moved, throwing out stuff out that has come to clog our lives like plaque in an arterial stent patient, has been a trending topic for us. We threw stuff out while packing and continue to do so while unpacking.
My wife, having read something recently about a Japanese life coach that specializes in advising people to simplify their lives by throwing out things that clutter their lives, has convinced me to embrace this method: Hold the object of dispute in your hand and ask your self the question, “Does it make you tingle with happiness?” If the answer is no, in the trash or donation pile it goes. It’s quite liberating, actually. But not for the highly sentimental.
But of the two of us, my wife is probably the one more inclined to want to throw away something of mine. She tends to resist the temptation however, and waits for me to come around.
I would never even think of throwing away anything belonging to the spouse. Ditto him and my stuff (because he knows that’s a Huge Deal for me).
He thinks I have too much shit (which I totally do–I admit it. I’m not a hoarder, but I am definitely a packrat). But we discuss it when he wants to get rid of stuff. Really, the problem for us is not willingness (I’ve got a lot of things I’d like to divest myself of) but finding the time to go through it all and finding places to offload it (Goodwill is good for some things, but other stuff is valuable and I don’t want to just give it away, but that entails Craigslist or Ebay ads, shipping, etc.)
I have never thrown away something that belonged to someone else. If it’s not mine or not in the trash can, I’m leaving it alone. If someone who lived with me threw away something of mine, they would no longer be living with me. Wow. I cannot even conceive of tolerating that!
Virtually nothing anyone has been “holding on to” for years has any value to anyone else. If you drop dead tomorrow, do you imagine for a second that someone you know will find value in the things you’ve been keeping in the back of the storage closet?
In the past, I have. Now I am reformed and don’t throw things away. Result: we are piled high with way too much stuff! I regularly throw out my old stuff but he has a hoarder mentality and I fucking hate it. Be responsible and throw out your old stuff! When it comes time to move we have sooooo much stuff to move.
When we moved twice in two years (long story) I got rid of a lot of stuff that we literally moved in boxes to both places. I don’t get the mentality, at all, and if it was up to me, I’d live in a very bare bones sort of place.
My wife and I throw stuff out by consensus. When in doubt, we ask. In decades, I don’t think either of us has ever thrown out something that the other person later said, “Aw, honey, why’d you do that…?”
My husband has mostly digital stuff, and even a gazillion apps and play station games fortunately don’t take up physical space. I’m usually the thrower-out. Clothes I always check with him, but I do make suggestions about what clothes look bad or don’t get worn.
Well yes, they actually would, but how is that the point? I’m still alive, and I value them. After I die, people are free to do as they wish with any and all of it.
We both do in theory, she does in practice, and at times it drives me crazy. Just because something hasn’t been moved/used within a randomly-generated period of time doesn’t mean it needs to be thrown out. Especially if the reasoning is “because it was taking up space”. “Space” for what?
Nobody throws out the other person’s stuff in our household. The only exception is if I find socks or underwear with holes, I throw them out, but I tell him.
Whenever we need to purge stuff from the household, it is done together and we agree what stays and what goes.
It’s visual pollution. Men don’t get that most women don’t want to live in the “bachelor pad” or “warehouse” styles.
I live with two near-hoarders and I’m on them all the time about their clutter. If it weren’t for me we’d be living in waist-high piles of paper. I’m one of those “inconsiderate” people and recycle computer mags from 1998 without asking. OMG!
Packed up; in my bins; in the attic; on the garage wall; in the (never entered by her) backyard shed; on my bookshelf; in my daughter’s room, etc etc etc.
The only thing I insist to be “left out” is the power cord for my laptop. Otherwise, our house is like a museum, everything in its place. Which is nice, but we still don’t have to throw away the extra fencing in the woodshed or the extra hammer on the garage wall or the Christmas lights in the attic to keep it that way.
He has redeeming qualities or I would not. He is incredibly kind, tolerant, and generous. It’s like he just doesn’t get that he keeps repeating the same horrendous action and is hurt and mystified that I am upset every time I find out about it. I’m sure he is so firmly convinced that he is making the best choices about what should be discarded and thus being helpful, that nothing I say or do will ever really sink in.
The first time a SO trashed my stuff without permission he’d be out of the house on his ass, so I, personally, draw the line at MY STUFF. You are only allowed to throw out what belongs to you.
Jointly owned property requires input from all owners. This is typically “Hey, there’s mold on this, let’s toss it - OK? OK.”, it doesn’t need to be elaborate.
Now, if you’re cleaning house and you wants to ask if something should go, fine. On occasion when I’ve had trouble getting rid of something I’ve asked the SO or a friend to “make it disappear” but in that case I have clearly given permission for someone else to do what they see fit.