Help Wife Hoards Junk!

I dunno, she seems rather active for clinical depression, to me. Obsessive/Compulsive maybe...

You're probably more on the mark, but something is going on in her head that is making her do these things.

You could try hypnosis. But she's got to want to change.

I don't want her to change per se, I simply want the conditions to be more this side of easy-going. What she feels internally and what she does with the areas set aside for her personal use (two decent sized rooms on the top floor of the house plus one outside storage shed) are her individual province.

I quite agree. She's a pack rat, and so what? If you've got the space, and it's not a fire hazard, so what?

Someday, she may discover a2k, tell us all about Chumly without knowing his screen name, and I'll say "So what?".

What do you mean by this?



What's the problem then?

No problem then!

Does all this stuff your wife hoards have a strong smell?

I'd be worried about the potential fire hazard of keeping such paper and cardboard products next to any heating elements and such.

There is so much useless-throw-away junk that it takes up a goodly portion of real nice spare room on the main floor and a goodly portion of a big room on the ground floor. It's kinda depressing and yucky and I for one would much rather use the space in a homelike happy manner.

Ya, sure! You could turn it into a room for your musical electronics.

Drool!! A hell of a lot better than a room full of plastic shelves holding old paint tins, boxes of useless old fabric, useless old books of no valuer that no one is ever going to read read again etc. In fact the multitudinous Rubbermaid plastic shelves that were bought for all this junk has much more remaining value than the junk sitting on them...rather ironic and annoying.

I did not work really hard to live in a nice big house on 1/2 an acre with ocean, mountain and lake views, at the end of a dead end road, surrounded by trees, just to deal with this crap.

The contrast between the beautiful land, the nice house and all this crap is a major piss-off!

And don't get me started on what she has done to the property, there are tarps all over the place cover mounds of dirt she has yet to use, about 100 plastic pots with various plants strewn about but not yet planted (thus many are rooting but this does not stop her from buying more regularly), wheel barrows and hoses strewn about and all sorts of related gargade...all of which again she claims as somehow being needed but for the most part sits and rots.

And don't get me started on this old mildew-ridden, rusting, falling apart Trillium Trailer (she way overpaid for) that is an eyesore of the worst kind, and is now covered with an ugly green camouflage style tarp.

Barf!

Sorry about the typos it's late and I'm pissed off...I am tempted to simply hire some kids to come and clean up all the crap in the house and on the property and take it all to the dump...if I did however she would completely freak out...guaranteed she would then threaten (and possibly follow through with) throwing out my expensive guitars and computers and such (she has threatened to do so many times when I have started to clean up the junk either inside or outside).

She has told me a number of times that she needs this junk to somehow assure herself of her position...none the less the fact that she identifies her status with garbage and thus equates my clearing up of the house as requiring retaliation by threatening to throw out my expensive gear is a sign of problems.

I have not brought up all these mess concerns with the counselor but if I do I expect she will start in with the accusatory yelling, followed by crying, followed by claims that there is no point in staying together because I do not like anything she does...at least that was the result when I bought up her discourteousness and rudeness and yelling with the counselor previously.

I will say however that after she worked through the three above stages with respect to her discourteousness and rudeness and yelling she was better for a while...but in truth why the hell should I have to be involved in all the crap she can't get straight in her own head?

I mean I am not some infinitely tolerant, maximally patient, understanding to a fault, perfect being; I'm just a man who expects to have a clean organized yard and house and is more than willing to do his part to achieve and maintain it.

Because she's your wife? No, really, being married means her problems are your problems too.

What I don't really "get" is what you two have been doing all these years. Didn't you say once you've been married for 12 years? That seems to be time enough to reach the many compromises marriage requires.

If I were you, I would bring this up at a therapy session, and take the heat there, in a relatively safe environment. Then I'd be ready to make a deal: She cleans up one room, you do something she wants you to do... and so on.

Make deals to make peace, is all I can suggest.

The fact that she's my wife does not mean we are somehow wholly responsible for each other in all aspects, nor does it mean we are somehow in some sort of complete unity. In fact in a very real sense we are each alone, born alone, live alone and die alone; we are unto ourselves. Unless or until there is the human equivalent of a hive-mind, the romantic idealization of unity is at best an illusion driven by conditioning, genetics, instincts and sex, in other words all the human elements of pair boding.

Now as to whether or not monogamous, life-time, pair bonding of opposite sex human adults is normal, natural, healthy, and desirable is very much open to debate, but that's another can of worms!

Yep we have been married for 12 years however, exactly what sort of compromises would one exact to be more likely over time, given that the longer a marriage lasts the less likely it will continue to last, not the more likely it will continue to last. Them's the indisputable statistics.

Good point that it may be safer to bring these things up with a counselor. Bartering is fine as long as Mrs. Chumly functions from a rational consistent reasonable basis, however given that I do not see that she is (in the examples as given here and otherwise) that means there is an unsubstantiated expectation that Mrs. Chumly would magically become rational consistent reasonable by simply being in the presence of a counselor.

That is why I said in an earlier post "I don't want her to change per se, I simply want the conditions to be more this side of easy-going. What she feels internally and what she does with the areas set aside for her personal use (two decent sized rooms on the top floor of the house plus one outside storage shed) are her individual province.

Sounds to me like you're getting fed up with her. She may be feeling the same. Why ARE you two still together? You're obviously not of the same mind on many issues and it sounds like you insult each other on a regular basis.

I agree completely! But you DO have to live with one another, every single day and night.

Now I wonder what others think: For me, the early years of marriage were much more difficult, since we fought a LOT more.

We came to agreements/bargains/compromises on the things we fought about over time, NOT because we're romantically destined to be together or any **** like that, but to make peace in our joint household.

I thought other marriages did the same. You know, you get really sick of some annoying habit of theirs after a year or so, and you says, "Cripes, if you will just STOP THAT (thing I hate), I will DO THIS (thing you want)..."

This is bargaining, and has nothing to do with romance. How come you two haven't done that yet, was my question.

Again, I'm curious to see what others think. I always thought the early years of marriage were the roughest, because the couple hasn't made these compromises yet(?)

The problem with hearing the problems of the other and then analyzing them yourself is that you are not qualified to do so, for a number of reasons, Chumly.




You have to bring up these concerns with the counselor and you have to understand, which I think you would if you thought about it carefully and rationally for a bit, that the process is not going to be without some grief, maybe lots of it at the start.

But whatever you two have between you, you both have got to admit to yourselves that neither of you has the ability to fix this problem/these problems. There may be others that you don't even know about.

Stick with the counselors. Don't make the mistake of immediately throwing away 12 years because you don't have the intestinal fortitude to stick with the time it takes to go to counselling.

You're going to have to explain your claims as per qualifications in the context of third party double blind scientific methodology. You can't expect me to take such claims at face value. Further you should consider the Logical Fallacy called "Argument From Authority" of which you make.

As per your throw away 12 year claim, you would need to respond to my prior quote "Now as to whether or not monogamous, life-time, pair bonding of opposite sex human adults is normal, natural, healthy, and desirable is very much open to debate, but that's another can of worms!"

As to the idea that relationship counselors have proven efficacy this despite that fact that I go and adhere to the advise given) you would again need to explain your claims as per proven efficacy in the context of third party double blind scientific methodology. You can't expect me to take such claims at face value.

Also in the context of your claims you need to consider the logical fallacy called "Argumentum Ad Populum".

That wasted space is valuable communal real estate that could be used to bring up the family members up from any emotional/existential funk which may have fueled the hoarding in the first place.