Me, F45. Husband, M46. Three kids – all teenagers now. Been together 20 years and for all that time we have had very different philosophies on “stuff”.
He likes things, and buys them, right away, from Amazon or wherever.
I do not like things, spend lots of time deciding on the “right” thing to buy, and try very hard to shop second hand.
But here’s the thing. The house eventually fills with the stuff, and then, because of all of the stuff, even if it’s out of sight in the basement, I lose my shit. Like absolutely lose it. And because I’m the one who doesn’t like the stuff, it’s MY job to get rid of the stuff. And I try very hard (and it takes a lot of time!) to get rid of the stuff in as useful a way as possible (donate small items to school to be given as prizes, worn out bed sheets to the animals shelter, food to the food bank, etc) And husband says “If it bothers you, just throw it out” but that makes me feel even worse. I know everything is destined for the landfill, I just want to slow the process down in getting there!
So, my house is filled with stuff I didn’t want, stuff I specifically said “This is stupid, don’t buy it”, it’s stuff the kids never played with and then, because I feel so shitty if I just throw it out, I have to spend my weekends sorting and delivering items to their best places. He gets all the fun of making the fun purchases, I get all the work and guilt of disposing of it.
The whole process makes me feel so gross. All I see is pollution and all this money spent on pointless garbage just means I have to work longer.
This has been going on for TWENTY YEARS. I don’t think Reddit will be able to solve this problem. Maybe I just needed to vent. I just… I don’t want to be pissed every time I have to clean out stuff. So either I need less stuff to clean out (he changes) or I need to be less pissed (I change)
And before anyone is like “Just divorce” please understand that, truly, aside from this, he’s freaking amazing and awesome. I won’t go into all the ways he’s the best, but that’s part of my issue too, is I don’t want to be a raging bitch about this one thing because, his great qualities a million times over outweigh this.
2 comments
Can you change slightly – move the stuff to a designated area that is his to manage. When it is full tell him to sort his stuff.
Oh I hear you OP! It’s not hoarding or anything. It’s just accumulation. Are we hosting Christmas and only have a 10 person setting but there are 14 people coming because there are kids? He’ll go buy another 4 settings whereas I would give the kids melamine or plastic plates they don’t care.
And he likes art which is great, lovely, but if we have to instal one more damn shelf to display one more damn pot or retro tea set or collection of interesting vintage photographs…
If it was straight junk it would be easier. But it’s just a difference of opinion about how much stuff we need. And he’s the one complaining about being old and wanting to retire at 55 and yet the damn packages roll in.