I too am a wife of a hoarder. I never heard of the term until after we were married for about 5 years. I thought since he had not married before we met, that he was just a bachelor who needed a woman's touch in the home. I couldn't have been more wrong. I cleaned out the kitchen with the help of my niece and we threw away old spices, cloths with holes in them, plastic shopping bags, a bag of dryer lint he was saving, among other things. He drug a lot of that back into the house when he got home from work and found out what we were doing.
Then I was advised that there were shows on TV about this subject so I started watching. Lo and behold, I learned that my hubby has mental problems that cause him to keep everything from empty spice bottles to things he drags home from fairs and never ever uses. Anything anyone ever gave him is a top priority to keep even if it was from an old girlfriend. The latter doesn't really bother me. However, fear of a deadly fire does bother me a lot. We have worked together to try to get him to accept change of any type and this is very, very difficult for him. After I get myself financially situated within a few months, I am planning to move out. I suffer with anxiety and chronic clinical depression. Having "stuff" that is no longer workable or of use around here is only adding to my depression. Plus we have had a problem with mice recently and although I have cleaned up our entire kitchen and the mice are gone at this time, in our office I see signs of them having been in here as well and their "calling cards" are on papers that he has hoarded in this room. This also bothers me as I do not feel this is healthy at all. He will never clean it up and he doesn't, of course, trust me since I once threw away things that were valuable to his way of thinking/feeling.
Now I do not know what caused this hoarding with him. I do know that he lost a twin at birth. Some people seem to think that could have started it but somehow I have my doubts about this. He has talked about his mother giving his baseball card collection away, other toys, and some of his favorite clothes which upset him a good deal. He still has some toys from childhood that he was even offered money for, but refused to part with them. And his closest are full of clothing that he has long since outgrown.
I cannot bear to bring myself to contact SRS or the fire department, etc., to come see our home but I have thought about doing so. I have even prayed that people who have come to visit would anonymously notify someone to check into our living situation. But alas I feel they are intimidated about interfering in our private lives, more than likely. So he continues to hoard and I continue to manage to keep the bathrooms and kitchen clean but no other room is free of his collections of old phone books, papers from a hotel his mother ran over 20+ years ago that have been defunct for that long. He keeps broken down furniture as well. Our basement is as bad, if not worse, than the rest of the house and our 2 porches. He even saves wood for building fires for camping but we seldom go camping and have only taken wood with us one time. Someone did turn him in for a messy yard when he was hoarding boards, fallen tree limbs, falling down shelves, etc. He sort of cleaned that up by hiding the wood in a shed and bringing home wooden boxes from where he worked to put stuff in, but to me it is still a mess.
I just wish someone in Kansas could/would help us. But alas here in Salina where we live there doesn't seem to be any people specialized in this type of work. That is why I am going to move out. It for my own health although I love him with all my heart and I hope we will stay married as I don't want a divorce, but I need a safe and very clean environment to live in. I am worth it and I deserve that much out of life.
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