Men are packrats. I am so depressed, what to do?

Hi, I come from the opposite side. I am the packrat. My ex told me that our house was a fire hazard, and that I needed help, etc. He called me a hoarder. None of it was true. Not even close. He took pictures and then refused to talk to counsellors when they wouldn't agree with him with his assessment.

However, I admit, the more he pushed, the more I stood my ground, right or wrong. In addition, it caused me to keep stuff instead of throwing it out just because if I threw it out, he would go on for days about how he was trying to get xxx out for years and he would tell everyone about it, about how he was right the first place. If you think that is okay behavior, you need self esteem therapy.

I suggest a few things: 1) Negotiate how much space he, you and joint, are allowed in the new house (e.g. he can line the garage walls with his stuff as long as it doesn't go more than 4 feet in depth) Be fair. 2) Tell him whatever does not fit, needs to go into a storage unit. Do NOT comingle your stuff in that storage unit 3) Help him find a person (not you) to help him pack his stuff (Notice, I did not say sort.) Professionals are good. 4) When he asks you whether to toss or keep, tell him it is his choice however, since he has felt that it was important to keep, you suggest keep. The answer is always KEEP. Don't let him force you into a different decision. Put the item in the storage unit(s) Get him all the storage materials he needs to pack his stuff. 5) Give him a mutually agreed deadline. Whatever you do, do NOT pass judgement on his process, what he chooses to throw vs keep, his reasoning, the amount of money this will cost, etc. You need to support him to get his packing done on time, no matter what it is and whether it goes to the new place or to the storage unit or gets tossed/donated.

After you move, stick to your agreement (e.g. if you want to move more stuff into the new home and he has reached the limit on his space, then something else needs to go to the storage unit). For your part, you have to stick to those same rules also.

Let him spend time at the storage unit. Remember to him it is like a big teddy bear. When I rented my first storage unit, I was amazed at what people were able to rig up in their storage unit(s), the common factor was that their spouse no longer wanted "it" at the house.

After a few years, especially if he is paying the rental fee(s), he will reorganize and be open to start tossing/eliminating/donating. Be empathetic, not critical. Depending upon your behavior, he might even allow you to be part of the project. Make it a fun time together He needs to make the decision to keep or toss, not you. It is his stuff, all his stuff. He needs to take ownership of his stuff.

There is a reason he is keeping a lot of his stuff. He might not know what it is. However, your understanding and willingness to acknowledge his need for that stuff, is critical for his mental health which will eventually allow him to let the stuff go and perhaps not be replaced.

For you, out of sight hopefully is good enough for you to feel that you have some breathing space in your own home so that you can begin to enjoy life again. If that isn't good enough, I suggest you go to marriage counselling to find out and take action on the real issue.

I wish you luck!

Been there too. Here are two tips that DID work for me.
1. Don’t argue, or raise your voice. My husband had/has the most ridiculous collections… One specific collection I simply said, “You have a decision to make. Either you can live with your collection or you can live with me. You decide.“ Yes, he did pout for a while, but not as long as I had been frustrated with the collection!
2. We recently had to move his mother, again. After having been the problem solver for elderlies through many moves, I let HIM take care of EVERYTHING. I didn’t go over to her place at all. Interestingly enough, he got pretty ruthless in sifting through JUNK. Joyfully, that has carried over to our house and he is throwing out things he has hauled around for four decades. Let HIM take care of his problems that he has created. Don’t enable.

Since the items are put in the storage unit I suggest that after a month or so YOU go and begin removing items. Donate, Keep, Sell, Toss.
I am sure that once items are in the storage unit it will be "out of sight, out of mind" and he will not even realize things "went missing". If he does happen to ask for the "long black coat" you can tell him that you looked for it but still can't find it.
I also was married to a stubborn man, couldn't tell him anything and he also "collected" lots of stuff. His collecting did get worse as he developed dementia, and since he could no longer repair items he would get new so I had lots of chainsaws and other things that were broken.
Hang in there and do what you can getting rid of items as you can.
(one thing that made it easier for me, our sump pump failed and I had to haul a lot of things to the curb that got destroyed, no choice in the matter just put everything in a black bag and he never saw the stuff)

I wonder—could your therapist help you come up with a way to very calmly say to him: "I'm not going to insist that you get rid of these things, because I understand that they mean a lot to you. You can keep your things. But I will no longer help you keep them. You rent a storage unit for your stuff. You pay the monthly rent. You hire someone to box your things and move them to your storage unit. I am no longer going to find homes for these things." [You can play up the angle that it's not safe to meet strangers from the internet and you don't feel comfortable with it anymore]. "When it's your turn to leave this earth, it will be your daughter's responsibility, not mine, to deal with your storage units full of stuff." [Let that image sink into his head—that someone else will have a huge job of sorting through his things when he's gone.]

And then stick with it. And live your life knowing that his junk is *his* problem, not yours.

Maybe the therapist can also help you word a way to say that he can keep his street rod, but you are 75 years old and you need to park at the house. Because if you break a hip walking in from the parking lot, who's going to take care of him?

Just a thought.

I hope he comes around. He did come around on the apartment, so there's hope.

It isn't just men.

https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/people-with-adhd-have-an-increased-likelihood-of-suffering-from-hoarding-study-finds-62851

Call it hoarding, saving for a rainy day, "when I need it syndrome", and any of the myriad other ways of keeping way too much stuff, there isn't a way of forcing the behavior change. It is rooted much deeper than just keeping stuff.

My family are "true" hoarders (pack ratting would be a wonderful upgrade LOL) and all of it started and was passed down through generations by the anxious/traumatized women in the family.

A friend of ours dealt with the same OP problem by selling their big house first. In the selling contract, they insisted on 6 months to move. She then found and purchased an AL condo and instead of including DH at the time of the final move part, she sent him to visit their children/grandchildren. She packed her clothes, his clothes, their most favorite personal items (photos, grandchildren's toys, etc), hired a moving company to take the boxes to the new condo, hired an estate sales company on commission (it was 35% I believe), and when DH returned, it was to the new clean and organized house. They lived in a community property state so that made a difference in what she could do.

Another friend used the proceeds from the joint house to buy another little house just for her. That way she had an escape when the junk became overwhelming.

To be blunt, there is always divorce.

There are no easy answers. Advocate for yourself, even in marriage. If you don't, no one else will.

The truth is, obsessive saving stuff is something that is both genetic and learned or a symptom of denial of aging. Also, what a person is at 84 is often very different than what they were 20 years before that. You don't throw the good years of marriage away because your partner's age is affecting his/her behavior. I have a friend whose husband is in his 10th year of Alzheimers, so I feel fortunate I am not going through that. She is watching their savings drain away and will eventually be left behind with nothing to live on.
Many of my women friends have gone through this - too many men just won't accept their own mortality or prepare for it and most of them were stuck in big houses filled with stuff until their husbands died - then they got rid of it and moved as they wanted to years before. We are now the oldest couple on our street, the last ones left. I have some minor health issues and although 8 years younger than him, I knew I needed to get out of the big house asap. He is moving for me because he loves me but still says he could manage the house and yard for another 3-5 years. (yes, ridiculous) He just can't let go of what he has always had and been when he was younger. Some people cannot accept that at some point in their lives they must change and accept that it cannot be (well, maybe if you are really rich and can pay someone to do it all for you but how many of us can do that?)

Its not just men though. My mother lived to be 101. When her second husband died when she was 85, she refused to move from her house. My sister and her husband had to do everything for her, of course. 7 years later, when we saw she was not really capable of staying there, we forced her to sell the house and move to an apt in IL. She locked herself in the bedroom and wouldn't leave. (It took 6 of us 2 weeks to clear the place of her husband's awful collection of junk) She was in Independent Living (a gorgeous place) for 8 years, a year of AL and 6 months of NH and complained every day of it. (lol, the IL is the same place my sister lives, and where we are moving to!)
So, yes, some people just are incapable of admitting they must change their lifestyle and my husband is one of them. The junk will go into storage and we will have to pay for it and maybe (but probably not) he will get around to going through it.

Umm… forgive me for such a blunt question, but why are you moving to a new place with him? Because your marriage doesn’t seem too great. And it sounds like you’ve been miserable for awhile.

His being a pack rat isn’t the issue. It’s that he has no regard for your space or feelings. His things mean more to him than you. Can you truly live with this until one of you dies? It could be time for him to stay with all the junk he loves, while you move to the senior community alone. Don’t be second place to someone the rest of your life!

1500 square feet not bad.

When I first got married my husband had clothes he never wore. He was a blue collared worker wearing jeans and Tshirts to work. Only needed a suit and some slacks if we needed to go out. I didn't get to the drawers till I was home on pregnant leave. This was 1985. I found leisure suits. I found slacks from the 60s I KNOW he would never have worn. He was a mans large since he was 13. I found mediums. I asked him where he got these clothes. They had been his brothers who were both married and had been since 68 and 72. They left the state years before. They had shared a room. Really! Neither him or his Mom thought to clean out. I had 5 black trash bags stuffed full of clothes. Very few were mine.

Your husband does not need all those clothes. The rule is if you haven't worn them in 2 yrs get rid of it. Me, maybe five. Same with his tools. At 84 if he hasn't used them in 15 yrs, he isn't going to.

I did some downsizing after my Mom passed. My husband, he won't get rid of the girls VCR tapes or his Cassette tapes. Books, we have a whole wall of bookcases full of books. Lps, most are mine and have given some away. Hard to part with but sometimes we just have to.

I am with Alva, try selling what you can. He may enjoy finding he can get a lot for his junk.

I think you have to look at the floor plan of the new place and negotiate with your husband what's fair about how it will be used.

Once he sees the constraint, I think he has to think about what's fair and feasible.

One or more storage units would solve the problem, but you have to look at the cost. Retirement runs the danger of running out of of money. If this hasn't been calculated, then it should be before the ongoing cost of a storage unit is taken on. Just multiply your husband's life expectancy times the annual cost.

Rather than spend money on a professional organizer, you might try spending money on:

1) A financial advisor to see if you can actually afford the storage unit
2) A marriage counselor if your husband will not divide the new space into what he can have, what you can have and what should be an uncluttered common area for guests, entertainment and cooking

BTW, packrats can be either sex!

Must of us use denial about the end of life. We accumulate stuff that will last at least 200 years or more.

Oh my! I read your post and thought I had posted it in my sleep!

My DH and I recently moved from our 'starter home' which had 1800 sf with a single car garage that he had hoarded out with so many tools and so much junk we couldn't park in it. I cleaned and cleaned and packed as I went, and threw out about 1/3 of my stuff. The day we moved he simply put EVERYTHING he owned in boxes and milk crates and moved it all to the garage (double car) and left it there. Now I am still parking in the driveway, and the garage is FILLED with his crap.

He's got 2 HUGE shelf systems filled and keeps buying more stuff. Our HOA is on us to get the garage cleaned out b/c we are supposed to keep our cars in the garage, not 46 years worth of junk.

He has 3 'bankers boxes' filled to the brim with what were his 'junk drawers' in the bedroom. He did put his clothes away, but he has 18 drawers and 2 closets filled to the brim. He has probably 40 coats, jackets, etc. And I know he owns over 40 pairs of pants. They're in bins under the bed, he just moved them, unopened from one house to the next. And one bin full of casual shirts.

Yes, we're still trying to get this place remodeled, but everything takes 6-8 weeks to get done, so we're living in a war zone. But he gets caught up in weird little projects and spends hours and hours looking at stuff online--like the front porch light--took him a week to chose one. I had looked at all the choices and picked the one we wound up with in 10 minutes.

Most (75%) of his tools are still in the boxes. For some reason, the day we moved in here, he went and bought a new belt sander. I can't remember the last time he needed or used one. Same with fishing equipment, snowshoes (he's never used them) skis, an inflatable raft that's so heavy it's a 4 man job to inflate and launch the thing.

Oh--and this place is 3500 sf! He feels that with this much space he can buy more stuff. I'm still culling through my crafts and such and he's coming home daily from Home Depot with something else we don't need. Instead of looking for a tool he needs, he goes and buys a new one.

He's very, very spacey, always has been and when he can't find something immediately, he just goes and buys a new one.

We had a 'chat' a couple days ago and I told him that Saturday (today) we were going to get the garage in some kind of order so I could park inside. If he wants to stay parked in the driveway and keep adding to the hoard, he will be cited and have to pay a daily rate for not parking in the garage.

I know he struggles seriously with ADD (and at age 70! it's awful) and he won't treat it...so he just keeps on acquiring more stuff.

And somehow, in all this, he blames ME for 'having too much gardening stuff'. I left 80% of my gardening things back at the old house for the new owners. I have the minimum amount of tools and I can't even get to them, there's a cabinet in the way that he thinks he going to re-purpose.

He's going out of town next Saturday and I am going to reach out to my SIL to come down and help me dispose of all the extra junk. Duplicates will go to GoodWill and I'll have my SIL help me create an organized space. I can't do anything about the construction waste in the garage, as I have no idea when the contractor will return to collect it, but I can call a waste disposal place to do it.

I'm rambling--but this post hit a nerve. We DID do Kon-Mari a few years ago and he did successfully clean out some drawers, and has sort of maintained them.

He's still working and I watch him work and he applies the same dynamic to his job--he second and third and fourth guesses every decision--and he is a brilliant guy--just super messy.

I don't know how to encourage him to organize through cutting back. I never have and I never will. Moving to a MUCH bigger place has been a blessing and a curse, since the garage is not huge. It's adequate for normal needs. I don't think he'll ever organize it.

You know, I had a friend once who had a Honda with 300,000 miles on it. He wanted a new car, but felt disloyal to his car somehow by not waiting until it died of natural causes.

I finally told him that he was depriving some college kid with no money of a car, and sure enough, he decided to sell it to a kid who was thrilled to get it for $500, and his conscience was clear enough to buy himself a new one.

Try that with your husband. If he finishes the rod, then some kid just starting out won't have a project car, if he keeps all his workshop stuff, some kid won't have tools to work on their car, etc. etc.

Sometimes people just want to know that their things will go to someone who'll use and appreciate them as much as they did. Encourage your husband to mentor younger people with similar interests by helping them get set up with some of those items.

Can you bring in a paid professional Organizer to help? Neutral party? I am a Realtor. You need to figure out what to trash, donate, keep. Some Clients allow me to purge rooms & box up or donate prior to coming on market. Those are my FAVE people in the world. My MOM is a huge packrat/borderline hoarder, but you can walk in & out of every room just fine. Every closet & countertop is loaded up. She attaches emotion to every item. She screams at me when I suggest we purge.. Keeps every piece of clothing-greeting card-periodical.. OMGGGGGG!!

Oh dear. Sigh.

Take him by both ears and shake him until his teeth rattle. NO DON'T!!! - obviously, but you can relieve stress by fantasizing about it.

After that, try the ''forward perspective" approach. He is not allowed to look at his stuff. He is only allowed to look at the allocated space in your new home. While he is looking at that (you can use diagrams, photos, floor plans) he can label areas with what object is going where.

Those items are then selected and packed, and the rest is handed over to specialist dispersal people of the sell/donate/recycle/trash variety.

I have been through this hideous process myself and feel sincerely for *both* of you. The important reward is that when you get to your new place you can enjoy and use the possessions you have brought with you, and fondly remember the rest.

It doesn't seem fair that he gets to bring all his clutter and you get only a tiny spot in the new house. I don't know what you can do other than tell him he gets to have this amount of space and anything of his that doesn't fit gets tossed.

He is selfish yes but you allow the selfish behavior by giving in. Tell him you will be parking your car in the garage and he is going to have to accommodate that. Draw your line in the sand and stick to it.

Same with the storage unit. That is an expense you don't need monthly just to store stuff he will never look at.

Make him watch Marie Kondo on Netflix. Hopefully he will come to LOVE cleaning stuff out and will keep only those things that "spark joy" which to some means any toll every created.
Our first downsize came when we moved out of a large flat into a smaller upstairs unit of a building we bought. It is when I came to love downsizing. I have always been a collector, especially of different potteries. I loved making profit on things that had gone from 50 cents at a flea market to 100.00 for a big McCoy vase. As we were nearing 80 we both came to love a more clean and spare look, and we began to eliminate a whole lot. I even tore down photo albums and neatly labeled them in small boxes after ridding the collection of duplicates.
In short, it became "fun".
The fact hubby cleans off the shelves and then KEPT the shelves speaks of some difficulty of letting go of stuff. Not necessarily hoarding, but fringing on that.
I sure wish you luck and wish I had the answer.
I do say watch Marie on Netflix for fun, but quite honestly it IS FUN, and it does kind of make you look for stuff to clean out.