How do you get your DH to get rid of...

[Ema]

Fill in the blank! For me right now I need him to go through his old CDs from junior high when he was mad at that world. Small two bedroom house, 6 people, we need all the space we can get! What is your DH’s collection that drives you nuts, or you just want to downsize? And what are your  techniques to get your way?

[zimom]

Get rid of it when he isn't home   LOL  

[medawyn]

T shirts from last century! Some are more holes than shirts but all are apparently precious.

[katilac]

I mostly try to pack things up and away as opposed to convincing him to get rid of them, because I know that I have my weird emotional attachments to useless stuff as well. Look around the house for weird little bits of space that aren't really usable. I have the impossible-to-reach cabinets above my fridge, some under the bed space, a few weird spots in the linen closet, and so on. I pack things in sizes that will fit in the weird spots (even if it means splitting up a collection, mark it really well, and keep a list in a notebook of where everything is. 

[Arcadia]

My husband is a hoarder of free and cheap stuff. What works to make him get rid of some stuff is

1) fire hazard - when we can’t get from bedroom to the main (and only outside access) door easily

2) when I “threaten” to pay for external storage like those Public Storage space. He is a tightwad so he would throw rather than pay for storage.

3) he has a designated area for his stuff as a compromise so if he exceed that area, he has to some how manage to fit all his “junk” there or throw some of those “junk”.

[Guest]

🙄 I generally haven’t been able. Here is the short list of stuff I really wish he would cull:

1. A couple decades worth of Sport Aviation magazines. (He remains convinced that if he divests them, the next moment he will *need* an article he just knows is in one of them...never mind he couldn’t pinpoint an article in that heap even if that did happen...)

2. T-shirts from motorcycle races he attended in the 90s. We did just have a bit of a row over this one because I do his laundry and return things to his drawers but there’s NO ROOM for the shirts he wears, on account of his drawers stuffed with shirts he has no need to wear. 

3. VHS tapes of motorcycle stunts. 

I doubt he will ever budge on these things except possibly if/when we move to a much smaller home. 

[marbel]

In my experience with a packrat/potential hoarder, I have found that containment, not elimination, is the best thing.  Like katilac, we keep things packed away rather than get rid of them. So, LPs, CDs, books that will never be read, are in boxes. We have our books inventoried and in numbered boxes so we can find them.  Other things are also in numbered boxes, different series of numbers, and records kept in a spreadsheet.  We can find pretty much anything in our house.  

I have stuff that I want to keep too (though not as much) and I would be mighty angry if my husband decided to get rid of any of my things without my permission.  So I get rid of nothing unless he agrees.  But I will move it/contain it.  

[Carrie12345]

I’m not terribly bothered by much of his stuff, I just wish he would PUT IT AWAY!!!!  It would be nice if he would get rid of more things, but my main priority is not having to see any of it.  

[marbel]

4 minutes ago, Quill said:

<snip>

2. T-shirts from motorcycle races he attended in the 90s. We did just have a bit of a row over this one because I do his laundry and return things to his drawers but there’s NO ROOM for the shirts he wears, on account of his drawers stuffed with shirts he has no need to wear. 

<snip>

Why not put them in boxes?  Or unused suitcases?  We have some nice-looking storage baskets at the end of our bed that hold stuff like this.  They aren't gone, but they are out of the way. 

I also use old souvenir t-shirts to wrap fragile items for storage. Like, Christmas snowglobes and other larger, fragile items.  Or the precious but never used antique teapot. 

[fairfarmhand]

I keep all his stuff in "his" space. The trick is that nothing but HIS stuff can be in that mess so that if he needs to find something it's all HIS stuff that's making the mess.

Then one day, I will ask him for or need him to retrieve something important. (Bonus points if he's in a hurry or in a bad mood)  I will not fetch it for him or offer to hunt for it. The idea is to make finding stuff or putting away stuff HIS problem. So @Quill , your dh's laundry putting away might need to be HIS problem. My dh is a packrat until it inconveniences him. Then WATCH OUT. 

Yes, there will be muttering and frustration. Yes, there may be irritation. But generally, he's just in a foul mood until he can figure out what he's got, what he needs, and how to find his stuff. And I stand by with the black garbage bags. I don't suggest he get rid of anything, I don't offer to help him sort. I just have to be willing to haul off the debris when he's done. 

 

Currently, my dh has like 12 winter coats in our coat closet. He's the only one with any coats in there. It's jam packed. One of these days, he will get frustrated with the situation and donate some of them. I force myself to only store HIS coats in there so that when he can't get anything out or in without trouble, it will be 100% his own fault.

[medawyn]

Chiming back in, because one of our other big dilemmas is actually getting rid of things.  He’s sure everything has value, and we can’t get rid of it without selling.  Setting aside the fact that he has absolutely no time to sell things, he has ridiculous notions about what we could get.  We’re moving soon (like half the board, it seems), and I don’t want to move our (very heavy) patio set.  He literally pulls out the EIGHT YEAR OLD receipt and wants to list it for like 10% less than we bought it for.  Um, no, that’s not going to work.  I’m at the point that I’d practically pay someone to take it away for me.  

Usually I just designate space for his things and let him cram in whatever he wants, but with a move coming up, I’d really like to be a little more aggressive about divesting ourselves of some belongings.

[katilac]

1 minute ago, medawyn said:

We’re moving soon (like half the board, it seems), and I don’t want to move our (very heavy) patio set.  He literally pulls out the EIGHT YEAR OLD receipt and wants to list it for like 10% less than we bought it for.   

 😄 oh, my, lol

I'm torn between laughter and being impressed that he could find the receipt. Maybe you can put a hard number on what it will cost to move the patio set? I seem to remember we were charged so much per pound for boxed stuff, I'm guessing something that sucks up more space might be even higher. 

[prairiewindmomma]

The only success I have had was in getting him to come at it from a different perspective.....

In your case--6 people in a small 2BR home---I'd say that every square foot of space matters.  I actually calculated up how many square feet we had in a space and told him how much his stack-o-stuff took up compared to other things that we needed to store.  The initial purchase cost is only one part of the total cost of owning something. Spending time to clean, store, and care for a collection is an on-going cost.  When he was able to view it from that perspective, we then talked about what his collection represented. What value did he continue to derive from owning this thing?

I would say I've won several battles but I haven't yet won the war.  His current pile-o-stuff is in labeled rubbermaid bins. It's about 1/10 of what it used to be (but it's not as small as it needs to be).  

People have piles of stuff in different categories: sentimental, aspirational (craft supplies, y'all!), etc.---identifying the purpose and function is often something people don't automatically connect to. Don't be surprised if he looks at you like you're crazy. 

[prairiewindmomma]

7 minutes ago, medawyn said:

Chiming back in, because one of our other big dilemmas is actually getting rid of things.  He’s sure everything has value, and we can’t get rid of it without selling.  Setting aside the fact that he has absolutely no time to sell things, he has ridiculous notions about what we could get.  We’re moving soon (like half the board, it seems), and I don’t want to move our (very heavy) patio set.  He literally pulls out the EIGHT YEAR OLD receipt and wants to list it for like 10% less than we bought it for.  Um, no, that’s not going to work.  I’m at the point that I’d practically pay someone to take it away for me.  

Usually I just designate space for his things and let him cram in whatever he wants, but with a move coming up, I’d really like to be a little more aggressive about divesting ourselves of some belongings.

Give the guy a reality check. Make him do the legwork of either trying to sell it or seeing what comparable values are. It may be really eye-opening.

Also, be sure to drag that man to the grocery store lately if he hasn't been. Dh is shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to discover that milk is no longer .99/gallon and ground beef is no longer .88/lb.  

[medawyn]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Give the guy a reality check. Make him do the legwork of either trying to sell it or seeing what comparable values are. It may be really eye-opening.

Also, be sure to drag that man to the grocery store lately if he hasn't been. Dh is shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to discover that milk is no longer .99/gallon and ground beef is no longer .88/lb.  

Ongoing problems, lol! He’s unfortunately out of town (and mostly out of the country) from now until our move date, but I’m getting the cost per pound estimate tomorrow.  We’ll see if that changes his mind!! 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I would never dream of telling another adult what they can keep or not keep.  That seems so disrespectful towards a spouse. 

[prairiewindmomma]

2 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I would never dream of telling another adult what they can keep or not keep.  That seems so disrespectful towards a spouse. 

I think this makes sense when there is adequate room.  When you are stepping over others' piles of stuff and it becomes a tripping hazard/spider deluxe resort/asthma trigger, it's likewise disrepectful to refuse to address the issue.  If owning the thing is still meaningful and valuable, then a compromise should be sought to store it elsewhere, minimize the collection (so that is no longer a literal stumbling block), or rearrange things.  

Demanding someone get rid of their stuff, or throwing their stuff away without permission isn't loving or respectful.  But, loving and respectful spouses can and should be able to negotiate their shared living space.

[HomeAgain]

I occasionally will put on an episode of Hoarders.  And then a few days later, watch a Marie Kondo episode on Netflix. 🙂 

Dh tends to "invest" in baseball cards.  His term, not mine.  I found two bookcases that are the perfect size for the boxes of cards and we set them up for him along with a table to sort them at.  When he starts to run out of room I might suggest he bring some down to the barber shop - they give kids a few cards of the local-ish teams after their trims and dh has very little interest in those teams compared to others.  The cards are packaged up neatly with candy at Halloween to hand out to T-o-Ters.  And when all else fails, I suggest he gives some to the 9yo who likes to collect, too, but thankfully has a mother who has no problem culling his collection for him. 😄

[Shoeless]

DH has kept dress shirts from the late 1980s/early 1990s.  Blue and pink striped dress shirts.   Because what if he has to go on an interview? These are perfectly good shirts, donchaknow. 😕 Yet every interview he's had since I met him, he buys a new dress shirt. Still can't get rid of these pink and blue striped dress shirts, though!

We have also dragged a set of 3.5 foot tall black cabinet speakers around the country several times: Texas to California to Illinois to Texas.  They've never been hooked up in all the years I've known DH. I desperately want to sell them, and he insists we can't because they are great speakers that were so expensive back in the day!  To which I counter that Victrolas were expensive in their day, too but technology marches on and *we never use these speakers*. They currently function as giant, black, monolithic stands for the xbox controllers. I hate them. 

There's also a boatload of junk from my MIL that we apparently can never get rid of: ugly art, souvenirs from *her* mother's travels, and ugly furniture.  MIL didn't want any of this crap in her house, but cried and cried and cried when no one would take it off her hands.  DH caved and now we have all this nonsense.  The last time we saw MIL, she tried, (for the 3rd time), to give us these ugly, ugly, ugly giant brass 1970s reproduction Gone With the Wind style lamps.  "They belonged to great aunt so-and-so and are just toooo precious to give away".  I told her if she gives them to me I will sell them on eBay and not feel bad at all.  Suddenly she found the space in her own home to keep them.  Stop trying to decorate my house, MIL! 

[Shoeless]

38 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Give the guy a reality check. Make him do the legwork of either trying to sell it or seeing what comparable values are. It may be really eye-opening.

Also, be sure to drag that man to the grocery store lately if he hasn't been. Dh is shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to discover that milk is no longer .99/gallon and ground beef is no longer .88/lb.  

 

My DH has kids from his first marriage.  The kids are in their early 20s, so not really kids anymore.  DH still thinks of prices in terms of what everything cost when his kids were little.  When our DS10 was a baby, DH was convinced that if I simply looked harder, I could find daycare for about $200 a month, because that's what he paid in rural Texas in the early 90s.  Surely daycare could not possibly be much more than that in suburban Chicago nearly 20 years later!  🙄

 

[Ema]

28 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I would never dream of telling another adult what they can keep or not keep.  That seems so disrespectful towards a spouse. 

I am not telling him he HAS to get rid of anything, I am simply requesting he goes through old papers, CDs, etc to see if he really want to keep them all. Sometimes we all just need a push to help us let go of things that need to be let go. He does the same for me, and I have downsized a lot of my own things because, as I said, we have a Tiny house for 6 people with no possibility of moving. If we didn’t encourage each other to get rid of things, we would have no room at all! And he hasn’t listened to s lot of those CDs since we were married. Besides, who wants to be so attached to STUFF? 

*Says the woman who won’t let go of her acceptance letter to Trinity College Dublin to gain her Doctorate because it proves to my kids that once I was smart!!!😁

1 hour ago, ZiMom said:

Get rid of it when he isn't home   LOL  

The above being said, however, I did actually do this to one book on the history of the founding of the University of Minnesota. I mean, really, when will that ever be read? He didn’t even go there!  Bookaholics that we BOTH are, that one needed to go!

[Carol in Cal.]

I don't tell my husband things like this, but sometimes I talk about how I want to get some stuff out of the kitchen and into the basement because I only use it once a year, but still want to keep it, and how I have a box of stuff to donate that I never use, and he gets kind of inspired by that.  Also, sometimes I 'run across' old boxes of his and ask him whether we can keep them in the garage since they are not in use, ditto.

[Sherry in OH]

Should dh die before me, there are boxes in my garage that I won't even bother opening.  They were packed more than 10 years and 2 moves ago and have never been gone through.  They are all labeled "[dh's] stuff."  

OP if your dh is willing to forgo the plastic jewel cases (mine won't), CDs take up much less space.  

[Ema]

19 minutes ago, MissLemon said:

There's also a boatload of junk from my MIL that we apparently can never get rid of: ugly art, souvenirs from *her* mother's travels, and ugly furniture.  MIL didn't want any of this crap in her house, but cried and cried and cried when no one would take it off her hands.  DH caved and now we have all this nonsense.  The last time we saw MIL, she tried, (for the 3rd time), to give us these ugly, ugly, ugly giant brass 1970s reproduction Gone With the Wind style lamps.  "They belonged to great aunt so-and-so and are just toooo precious to give away".  I told her if she gives them to me I will sell them on eBay and not feel bad at all.  Suddenly she found the space in her own home to keep them.  Stop trying to decorate my house, MIL! 

I am afraid we will have to deal with this when DH’s parents move to a smaller house in a few years. I love them, but they have a lot of Knick knacks, old files of football plays, clothes. At their lake cabin FIL has shelves full of old National Geographic magazines. They are musty, moldy, and eaten by mice, yet they remain! We live closest to them, so will probably be “offered” much. I am pretty sure DH will kindly refuse most stuff, since one room of their house would fill our whole house up completely!

s

[marbel]

20 minutes ago, Ema said:

I am not telling him he HAS to get rid of anything, I am simply requesting he goes through old papers, CDs, etc to see if he really want to keep them all. Sometimes we all just need a push to help us let go of things that need to be let go. He does the same for me, and I have downsized a lot of my own things because, as I said, we have a Tiny house for 6 people with no possibility of moving. If we didn’t encourage each other to get rid of things, we would have no room at all! And he hasn’t listened to s lot of those CDs since we were married. Besides, who wants to be so attached to STUFF? 

<snip>

So what does he say when you ask him to go through the CDs?  Does he refuse, or just put it off?   

Re: The bolded - I got rid of a bunch of CDs when we last moved, stuff I hadn't listened to. Now every now and then I want to hear something, but I can't, and I can't find it online, it's just not around anymore.  I wish I had kept them.  I mean, it's OK that they are gone, but I miss that music now. I also can think of some books I wish I hadn't gotten rid of; my kids could really use them now.  He may be thinking the same way.

But I think your comment in the OP about getting your own way set a tone for the conversation, for me, anyway. It came across to me as "how do I bend my husband to my will" rather than "how can I encourage him to work with me on this?"  

And re: possible in-law stuff coming in - my husband and I talked about that a long time ago before it became a thing, and agreed that there were a few items we would accept but most we would not. His parents ended up having an estate sale when they downsized. It was hard on my MIL to see some of the things go to strangers, but she got over it.  We also throw away any mildewy things they send us now, like old books/magazines, even clothes. 

Edited May 28, 2019 by marbel

[Guest]

1 hour ago, marbel said:

Why not put them in boxes?  Or unused suitcases?  We have some nice-looking storage baskets at the end of our bed that hold stuff like this.  They aren't gone, but they are out of the way. 

I also use old souvenir t-shirts to wrap fragile items for storage. Like, Christmas snowglobes and other larger, fragile items.  Or the precious but never used antique teapot. 

He wants them where they are. At one point, he moved the most ancient ones to a drawer in his nightstand. It’s a waste of space but - whatever, his nightstand drawer; I don’t care. But now his drawer is too full of shirts again because he never culls the old ones. 

I don’t really care whether he trashes them or just puts them in his garage attic; I just want room in his drawers for the clothes he actually wears. The conflict is that he wants them to stay where they are. 

[Sherry in OH]

20 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

You know, these are CDs.....you might consider converting them to computer files.  Then he could still have the music, but the actual CDs wouldn't be taking up space.  

OR, you could suggest that he do it.  He might decide for himself that keeping the music isn't worth the time to do so and get rid of them all himself lol.  

 

Or if he is like my Dh, he will keep the CDs as proof that the computer files are not pirated.  

[Garga]

My basement is atrocious right now.  Like, I’m not being coy or cutesey because one little thing is out of place..  It’s really, really bad.  Hang on...I’ll take a picture...

As you can see, really bad.  That’s half of the basement.  The other half looks the same.  The plan is for me to clean it out this summer.  I started working on it yesterday by throwing away (recycling) 7 years of homeschool papers so I could free up some bins to store things we actually want in them.

I was talking to dh about how we have to get the old, broken furniture out of there and mentioned that the old Lazy Boy chair probably has spiders or something in it and I’m never sitting on it again.  And DH said, “Oh, I don’t think we should get rid of that.  When I take the frozen groceries downstairs to the freezer, I set the bags on that chair before I put the stuff away.”  

So, he wants to keep an old, broken, possibly buggy chair in the middle of that mess, so he can put groceries on it when he’s unloading groceries into the freezer?  I need the fainting emoji.

I stared at him.  After a beat he got a bit fidgety.  I told him that we’re getting rid of the broken stuff and when it’s all cleared out we’ll find a nice table for him to put the bags on that won’t be infested with spiders.  

Oh, help.  Wait until we get to something that’s actually sentimental, and not just a chair to set groceries onto.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Garga

[fairfarmhand]

For years I’ve been talking about how my mils stuff is nothing like my taste and style. How there’s nothing that I want from her home. How I have all the stuff I need. My hope is that when the time comes, my dh will know that there is nothing that I want in my house. That time is on our horizon and I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that he will hold firm.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

For this, I recommend very sweetly telling him to put his own clothes away lol.

I mean, still fold them, put away whatever fits in the drawers where its supposed to go, but the shirts that don't fit, just set them gently on his pillow.  When he asks why they are there you just tell him "I did the laundry and got the other stuff put away, but these things just wouldn't fit in your drawers and I wasn't sure what to do about that.  If you can figure out where you want them, just let me know and I will start putting them there."

That’s where we landed. I just piled them on his dresser and said, “sorry. They dont fit in your drawers.” The down side of this is, he’s not too particular about them stacked on his dresser. So im still the one feeling annoyed. 

[Ema]

25 minutes ago, marbel said:

So what does he say when you ask him to go through the CDs?  Does he refuse, or just put it off?   

Re: The bolded - I got rid of a bunch of CDs when we last moved, stuff I hadn't listened to. Now every now and then I want to hear something, but I can't, and I can't find it online, it's just not around anymore.  I wish I had kept them.  I mean, it's OK that they are gone, but I miss that music now. I also can think of some books I wish I hadn't gotten rid of; my kids could really use them now.  He may be thinking the same way.

But I think your comment in the OP about getting your own way set a tone for the conversation, for me, anyway. It came across to me as "how do I bend my husband to my will" rather than "how can I encourage him to work with me on this?"  

And re: possible in-law stuff coming in - my husband and I talked about that a long time ago before it became a thing, and agreed that there were a few items we would accept but most we would not. His parents ended up having an estate sale when they downsized. It was hard on my MIL to see some of the things go to strangers, but she got over it.  We also throw away any mildewy things they send us now, like old books/magazines, even clothes. 

Okay, sure, to be fair I did say “how do I get my way,” but this is where online communication fails. If you knew me, you would know I am so not a “bend to MY will or else!” Kind of person. Trying to keep it light failed, I guess. Although, if we are all honest, we do like to get our own way, flawed being that we are🙂

[Ravin]

To get DH's prodigious DVD collection to go away, I got on board with assigning space in what would otherwise be my craft room for a server to hold all those movies.

Nothing else he has comes close to taking up an excessive amount of space, except books, and being a bibliophile myself, it would be rather pot calling the kettle black to object to his book collection!

[Selkie]

Dh and I both grew up with packrat parents and are pretty minimalistic as a result. The only way we differ in that regard is that he keeps every single book he ever buys (which is a lot), whereas I only hang on to the ones that I'm fairly sure will be read again. Good thing we have lots and lots of bookshelves.🙂

[frogger]

I make it his problem. In other words we discuss fair space and I put his stuff in his space period. I'm lucky that he has a garage and I just put stuff out there for him to deal with or stack it on his side of the bed or on top of his dresser. He doesn't complain because he has way more space than I do and he knows that otherwise he is taking space and time and comfort from the kids and I. 

 

6 people in 2 bedrooms is super tight so my guess is he has already pared things down. That would require ruthlessness. Is he willing to help find space for things?Maybe it would help him see the situation better or maybe renting a small storage area is in order. Usually I would say that is a waste but 6 people in 2 bedrooms is not the average poster here and can't do things like everyone else.

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, Garga said:

My basement is atrocious right now.  Like, I’m not being coy or cutesey because one little thing is out of place..  It’s really, really bad.  Hang on...I’ll take a picture...

As you can see, really bad.  That’s half of the basement.  The other half looks the same.

 

My dining room aka. hoarders paradise is a lot worse. The whole floor is covered by things my husband bought to give to his parents, brother and his wife, sister and her husband, when he flies back or when his relatives come over on a business trip and help bring some back. Containers/storage totes are filled with his e-waste. 

My patio actually looks very minimalist with a table and some chairs because of HOA rules (thank goodness for HOA sometimes). Else my patio would have become another store room as he wanted to put a few Rubbermaid sheds there.

1 hour ago, ``` said:

  And the only person in our family who can't grasp that seems to be my dh.    

 

My husband hoard less than his parents only because we live in an earthquake prone area and we could not afford as big a home as his parents. Ours is a one bedroom 865 sqft condo, his parents home is a three bedroom 1313 sqft home. He would be as bad as his parents otherwise.

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

He wants them where they are. At one point, he moved the most ancient ones to a drawer in his nightstand. It’s a waste of space but - whatever, his nightstand drawer; I don’t care. But now his drawer is too full of shirts again because he never culls the old ones. 

I don’t really care whether he trashes them or just puts them in his garage attic; I just want room in his drawers for the clothes he actually wears. The conflict is that he wants them to stay where they are. 

 

2 hours ago, Quill said:

That’s where we landed. I just piled them on his dresser and said, “sorry. They dont fit in your drawers.” The down side of this is, he’s not too particular about them stacked on his dresser. So im still the one feeling annoyed. 

 

I think you should do his laundry and put whatever doesn't fit in the drawers out in the garage attic. If he wants to know what happened to his clothes, you can tell him you thought he might like to start wearing all of those old shirts that he likes so much.  ;)

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I would never dream of telling another adult what they can keep or not keep.  That seems so disrespectful towards a spouse. 

I kind of agree but what about when you only own 1/3 of a small wardrobe anyway and spouses stuff starts moving into that limited space?  Or when you are expected to put the laundry away in and orderly manner but you can’t because the space for clothes is taken over.  I agree you can’t tell them “what” but I do think there’s a point where if you’re responsible for maintaining order you can tell them that they are out of space so need to figure out another storage solution or cull.

all that said it’s kinda going the other way now with books and curriculum for me.

[Farrar]

Dh's collections aren't that wild and are out of the way. I wouldn't mess with them. But one of the reasons he doesn't hoard is that his parents totally did. So if you're looking for a cure, maybe it's put him in a house of hoarders with too much crap for a month and see how he feels at the end of it.

[Shoeless]

Yes, homes have limited space.  DH and I were disagreeing about stuff in kiddo's room.  I don't think kiddo cares one way or the other about what is in his room, with few exceptions.  I cull his stuff regularly and sell what has value.  He has never, ever asked "Where is my..." in his entire life. 

Selling out-grown toys makes DH really squirrely, because his dad used to sell DH's stuff to punish him.  As a result, DH doesn't want me to sell or get rid of anything of kiddo's EVER. Yet he buys him new stuff, and then complains there is no space in kiddo's room for anything.  DH insists if we just get some bins and tubs and reorganize it all, it will be better.  Except, kiddo will not play with stuff he can't see.  If it's in a tub, it's forgotten, and then DH complains that he spent alllll this money on these toys and they get ignored and it was such a waste and blah blah blah. 

Like, dude...stop buying the stuff.  Problem solved. His room is a finite container.  It will only hold so much stuff.   

[Shoeless]

4 hours ago, Ema said:

I am afraid we will have to deal with this when DH’s parents move to a smaller house in a few years. I love them, but they have a lot of Knick knacks, old files of football plays, clothes. At their lake cabin FIL has shelves full of old National Geographic magazines. They are musty, moldy, and eaten by mice, yet they remain! We live closest to them, so will probably be “offered” much. I am pretty sure DH will kindly refuse most stuff, since one room of their house would fill our whole house up completely!

s

I don't know how she does it, but my MIL has a never ending supply of trinkets and doodads from when DH was a kid or "precious treasures" from some long deceased relative DH met once in 1983.  MIL has been "downsizing" her junk for easily 5 years now and it never ends. 

My favorite was when DH came home with the bowling ball he used when he was 14.  DH is nearly 50. MIL kept an old bowling ball for 35 years "just in case"!  DH brought it home and made a to-do about giving it to kiddo for him to use.  Except it's several pounds too heavy, so it will be a few years before kiddo can use it, and we'd have to get it re-drilled for his fingers anyway!  

This might make sense if DH was some sort of bowling aficionado and wanted to pass on a legacy, but he is not.  He has not bowled probably since he was 14. There are no special memories or significant events associated with this bowling ball.  It is not a fancy, expensive, pro-level ball.  It's just a regular bowling ball that he got from camp or VBS or Scouts or he-doesn't-really-remember-where-it-came-from.  But we can't get rid of it, and now kiddo is stuck with it in his room.  Now it's A THING.  It's a MOMENT between father and son!  If I get rid of it, I am not only denying kiddo some sort of bond with his father, I'm erasing part of DH's childhood.  

Just whyyyyyyy.  

[JustEm]

When there were 7 people living in our tiny townhouse I would simply declare that our things were getting out of hand and we needed to spend a day going through a room or two.  Then we would schedule the day to do it and dh and I would do it together.  There were things that didn't need to be culled because I would forever find room for them.  Things like books and board games.  But things like the boxes of knick knacks from dh's childhood that he hadn't opened since moving into the house 9 years ago,  I simply declared it was the day to go through them.  Most of it was stuff he was fine to get rid of.  Other stuff we found room for and I just kept it in the back on my mind that we'd need to go through those again in a year if he hadn't done anything with them.

This works well for us because while he is going through the things that need to be culled I am organizing and finding room for the things that he wants to keep.

[Amy in NH]

7 hours ago, Ema said:

Fill in the blank! For me right now I need him to go through his old CDs from junior high when he was mad at that world. Small two bedroom house, 6 people, we need all the space we can get! What is your DH’s collection that drives you nuts, or you just want to downsize? And what are your  techniques to get your way?

There are a lot of posts here, and I really haven't read any of them, so forgive me if this has already been suggested...

Load them into a desktop or laptop that you can use as a music server, hooked up to the stereo or a nice bluetooth speaker, make a backup copy of them all on an external hard drive, then sell them to Newbury Comics.  Or just buy a Spotify Premium account and sell them.  Either way you'll still have access to all that music without it taking up space.

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, Seasider too said:

 

Ok here is where I totally draw the line. No stuff sent home from MIL stays without negotiation, unless it is very small and of significant sentimental value. The bowling bowl dh used to win the state championship? Maybe that could stay. A vintage LEGO set? Keep. But 99% - old pots and pans, FIL used clothing (yes really), wall art,  VHS tapes - goes straight to the giveaway box. 

I've gotten way better about tossing the junk from MIL.  And since she's moved 3.5 hours away and DH refuses to drive down there, (long story), the steady flow of junk has been reduced to a trickle. Woohoo! I just have to find a way to sneak that bowling ball out of here! 

[MercyA]

2 hours ago, Amy in NH said:

Load them into a desktop or laptop that you can use as a music server, hooked up to the stereo or a nice bluetooth speaker, make a backup copy of them all on an external hard drive, then sell them to Newbury Comics.  Or just buy a Spotify Premium account and sell them.  Either way you'll still have access to all that music without it taking up space.

Loading them on a server and backing them up is a good idea. But you have to own the music to do that legally. You don't own them if you sell them. If he wants to save space, he can do as you suggested and then toss the CD's and keep his rightfully owned and much smaller digital copies. 🙂

Edited May 29, 2019 by MercyA

[Garga]

24 minutes ago, MissLemon said:

I just have to find a way to sneak that bowling ball out of here! 

If only you lived on top of a very steep hill with a very deep pond at the bottom.  

Edited May 29, 2019 by Garga

[SereneHome]

I gave up. 

I agree that  I can't tell another adult what to do with their stuff.  And I am not in a business of changing people and my husband is a " things" person and I can't change that. To be fair to him, he has TONS of interests and hobbies and very knowledgeable about all of it.  He also likes to collect things.  He has many various collections, but again, he also has  lot of knowledge on those topics. All of that is completely foreign to me. Either bc I had to leave everything behind when we moved to US or I was born that way, I have noooo idea, but I can walk out of the house with my laptop (bc that's where all my pictures of the kids and family are) and never look  back.  I don't collect anything and never did and my interests (except for books) are not "things" related

My husband lost some of this stuff due to flooding and he was mourning and grieving it.  He was feeling an actual, real loss. I tried to be supportive and loving and he knows that, and he also knows that I will never understand those feelings.

So.....my new mantra is.....accept things you can not control.  Bc I know that in reality, that's all I can do. 

 

[Arctic Bunny]

9 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Give the guy a reality check. Make him do the legwork of either trying to sell it or seeing what comparable values are. It may be really eye-opening.

Also, be sure to drag that man to the grocery store lately if he hasn't been. Dh is shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to discover that milk is no longer .99/gallon and ground beef is no longer .88/lb.  

I made DH start grocery shopping when we moved, for this very reason. He could not grasp the amount of money I was saving by cooking oatmeal or eggs, instead of cold cereal and milk. I mean, I know I do it because it’s healthier, but it sure helps to weigh the $0.25/egg against $8 box of cereal and $5 four litres of milk.

My DH also has issues selling stuff online. He’s turning into an old man. Honey, nobody wants that junk.

[scholastica]

16 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

My DH has kids from his first marriage.  The kids are in their early 20s, so not really kids anymore.  DH still thinks of prices in terms of what everything cost when his kids were little.  When our DS10 was a baby, DH was convinced that if I simply looked harder, I could find daycare for about $200 a month, because that's what he paid in rural Texas in the early 90s.  Surely daycare could not possibly be much more than that in suburban Chicago nearly 20 years later!  🙄

 

For a split-second there, I thought you were going to say you made him give the older kids away...

[Pink and Green Mom]

I wish I knew. 

Here, it is an entire collection of 1978-1983 baseball cards.  That sat in his parents damp basement until 1998 (when we bought our first home and they made him take it).  That and an entire box of stratomatic baseball, which was apparently some fantasy baseball thing from the early 80s done entirely on paper.  We have a whole bankers box full of that.  Thousands of pages of decades old baseball stats.  We have lived in 5 houses since 1998 and those moldy cards and completely useless baseball stat nonsense have made every single trip with us.  Interestingly, I have never seen DH look in either box except when we move.

He also has a large moving box (from our last move 2 months ago) full of baseball hats.  Major league, minor leauge, college, throwback, and every single hat from each little league team he coached.  He has coached little leage for 20 of the last 25 years.....  He has some grandiose idea of putting up hooks and "displaying" them.  He saw it in someone's garage one time - a full wall, floor to ceiling, of baseball hats...Not on my watch.

Whew, that felt good to get out.

[Ema]

15 hours ago, frogger said:

I make it his problem. In other words we discuss fair space and I put his stuff in his space period. I'm lucky that he has a garage and I just put stuff out there for him to deal with or stack it on his side of the bed or on top of his dresser. He doesn't complain because he has way more space than I do and he knows that otherwise he is taking space and time and comfort from the kids and I. 

 

6 people in 2 bedrooms is super tight so my guess is he has already pared things down. That would require ruthlessness. Is he willing to help find space for things?Maybe it would help him see the situation better or maybe renting a small storage area is in order. Usually I would say that is a waste but 6 people in 2 bedrooms is not the average poster here and can't do things like everyone else.

He really hasn’t pared it down much yet. One CD here, an old paper there. Periodically I put his bin full or papers and things from college and his journals from high school (!) in the way of his desk. He pushes it aside and in a few months I ask him to move it back where it came from. Sigh. As he spends his days away from home, the tight space doesn’t bother him as it does me. I get that, but dude, one paper isn’t doing much to get more space!

 

12 hours ago, MissLemon said:

I don't know how she does it, but my MIL has a never ending supply of trinkets and doodads from when DH was a kid or "precious treasures" from some long deceased relative DH met once in 1983.  MIL has been "downsizing" her junk for easily 5 years now and it never ends. 

My favorite was when DH came home with the bowling ball he used when he was 14.  DH is nearly 50. MIL kept an old bowling ball for 35 years "just in case"!  DH brought it home and made a to-do about giving it to kiddo for him to use.  Except it's several pounds too heavy, so it will be a few years before kiddo can use it, and we'd have to get it re-drilled for his fingers anyway!  

Haha, Mil just gave DH a blanket made from old t-shirts from when he was in little league and high school sports. DH is 37! But that is her, so we will put it i the car as a snuggle blanket for long trips.