Need help with spouse and clutter

[c0mm0n]

We've been semi messy people over the years. It recently hit me that this isn't good and we need to clean up. I picked up a few books on the subject and have started to make sure my areas of the house are clean.

I'm having some difficulties getting my wife to help in this. She asked me to paint the spare bedroom so she could have company and it's a disaster. Nothing is piled to the ceiling but there are boxes of books, 5 big bags of yarn, a ton of scrap paper as well as her clothing. The yarn she is aware of and can't buy anymore of. The books she's weaning herself off of by using ebooks from the library. The problem is the paper and clothing.

The paper. Everything her stock broker sends her she puts in a pile. Everything. A prospectus from a stock? In the pile. Every account statement, in a pile. Wrapping paper scraps? in the pile. Nursing magazines? In the pile. I've asked her to work on it but she says she's busy and leaves it. Most of it is crap, I hardly think that the IRS is going to need me to come up with an etrade statement from 1999 nor will anyone ask her to look up something in a 22 year old nursing journal. Hey, if anyone needs a 1"x3" piece of wrapping paper let me know.

The clothing varies. Most of it she had when we met and she won't replace or recycle. Stuff I bought her when we were dating in the 80s is still on hangars, most of it she's not worn in years. It still fits is her excuse but really, there are enough turtlenecks in there to compete with J Crew.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. She told me a few minutes ago that her sister is coming to visit in 6 weeks and she'd like to have the room done but I cannot do this on my own. I do know that her family had financial troubles, that might explain it. Maybe there is something else.

[messymimi]

Welcome, c0mm0n.

The problem you are running into is that you cannot declutter another person's stuff. She has to come to see it as a problem, as you have seen your own messy habits as a problem, and choose to change.

This may or may not happen in time for you to paint that room before the visit.

At this moment, the only thing i think you can do is tell your wife that you cannot paint the room until it has been cleared out and the items dealt with.

She is worth more than 20+ year old clothes even if "they still fit", worth more than keeping every tiny bit of paper, worth living in a tidy home. She has to come to this realization for herself, though, and until she does, you face an uphill battle.

messymimi

[Layla]

Speaking as a person with hoarding issues who is cleaning out and getting rid of a lot of stuff, the worst thing my spouse can do is call my stuff Crap, trash, garbage, s#$@, it makes me want to shut off and close down. So I advise against that.

This is the whole dilemma and why we all have so much stuff, because its how we view our STUFF, its different and that is where the problem lies. Thats why we have forums like this and tv shows, if it was so simple as "Thats old and looks like trash throw it out" we wouldnt all be here talking about it. It goes way beyond that.

I agree with what Mimi said and say "I cant paint the room until the stuff is out" and nothing more, if its all still there when company arrives, well thats on HER to face and deal with.

The only thing I can suggest is if she decides to go through the paper items, is saying things like

"Tell you what, when the time comes and you need gift wrap, I WILL Go and buy you a new pack okay?"

Asking questions patiently that cause her to think such as

Why do you need that 1999 form? What purpose does it serve?
Make her think about the stuff and what purpose it serves and why she needs it.

My husband helped his mom clean out her home, she was a food and store toiletry product hoarder. Hed have to say in regards to her 25 bottles of salad dressing..
"Mom, how often do you eat salad?" shed stop and think and then say not too often, like every few mos actually. Then hed say "So you dont need 25 bottles, how about 2" and then follow it up with "Mom, if you truly run out and need more Ill go buy you another bottle"

He used that last statement often with her, not to say it will work on everyone and every item, but hed ask her to think about the item, what shes keeping it for, what the probability of use was and then tell her if some scenario arised where she MIGHT later on need the item he would go buy it for her.

A lot of us keep items "just in case" we may need them.

[c0mm0n]

Thanks. Between cleans (and a challenge) I've done some reading on clutter. I'm going to have to change the way I approach this.

I am going to focus on my own areas. I've already done some cleaning on my side of the bed, later I'll vacuum the floor there and will clean the furniture. On her side I'm going to leave.

I did say that I'm unable to paint until the room is clean. Not piled up in the middle, but cleaned. I threw a carrot out there and said that if she sorted it and told me what she wanted to do with it, I'd help. Be it washing or looking up for sale on ebay or taking to goodwill.

The food items I'll deal with later. The freezer is full of butter (50 cents off), the pantry has 5 bags of flour and 34 boxes of teas.

[messymimi]

C0mm0n, that was most likely the best way to handle it.

Committing to clean up after yourself better, and not saying a word to her, is also a great idea. While my husband and i are both messy, and we have 4 kids of whom 3 are messy, i noticed that as i clean up after myself, and take care of what i can, and not say anything, they now tend to follow my lead (with the exception, of course, of #2 Son, age 16, who is all mess and all boy and probably will be for a while yet).

Your wife may do that also, as long as she is not feeling pressured, lectured, or belittled. Your new commitment to tidying up after yourself better and getting rid of clutter rather than trying to organize it may simply rub off on her, in a good way.

messymimi

[def6]

Just let her know that when you can get to the walls... you can paint this room.

[puzzleqt]

Be respectful of her and her stuff. Sometimes even candy wrappers are kept for a reason and if you simply throw it out, it WILL be and feel like a HUGE boundary violation and breach of trust. This makes it even harder to get rid of things. You definitively DON'T want to reenforce the hoarding and make her feel that she cant trust you.

Be on the same TEAM that works together for solutions. One of the sweetest things my DH said was, "I think its time WE cleaned up the living room." No blame, No Shame. This is important! Blaming and Shaming DON'T WORK, and they mess up a marriage causing worse problems than hoarding.

Ask her what things she thinks is definitely Trash, since you have different ideas on the subject. My girlfriend trusts me to throw out expired coupons, dirty tissues and napkins. I do have to check the napkins and paper plates to make sure nothing was written on them. She wants all receipts saved (ziplock bags are great for receipts). Sometimes an Ad is old, but I'm still interested in the product and haven't written it down yet, and need to file it.

So it's sometimes helpful to say, "This pile, I want to Toss now. Will you take a quick look.

Dealing with paper clutter is HARD. It involves lots of little decisions which quickly add up and is EXTREMELY exhausting, and frustrating.

One possibility is to box everything up, using a quick rough sort of like with like. Label: Financial, nursing/catalogs, yarn, clothes, etc. Get new office boxes of the same size, so they stack neatly. Then the clutter is out of the way for painting, and can be dealt with in smaller pieces one box at a time.

Play games together. dice game, find 1 trash, find 1 donate, find 10, set a timer for 3 min, 5 min, 8 min, 10 min, 15 or 30 min depending on her stamina to clean/sort/declutter. put on music. Have fun. it might seem odd, but it can work.

Please read about decision fatigue. (don't have time to find the link) It's real and may be playing a big part in the mess churning and not much visible progress. Ask your wife if that might be going on with her.

It's good that you are doing your stuff first.

[Ally]

C0mm0n,
My husband and I live in a very messy cluttered house.
If he angrily tells me to clean something up, it becomes the very last thing in the world that I want to do, even though I deep down I want it clean too.
I have been working slowly on cleaning our place up, and when he notices and makes positive comments, it encourages me to do more.
About 6 to 8 weeks ago I really started working harder, and he has noticed the difference and has started cleaning up after himself more.

Like your wife, I have a lot of yarn and fabric and old clothes around, as well as financial papers and wrapping paper.

I have been throwing away wrapping paper, and donating or throwing away clothing depending on the condition. I have not dealt with the yarn yet except for skeins that were damaged.

I do not save the prospectuses, but do save the statements, especially the last one for the year. I had an incident in which we were audited by the IRS a few years ago, and had to come up with statements for a period of time many years earlier from when we inherited some stock. We no longer owned stock with through that brokerage, and when we contacted the brokerage for copies of records from that period of time they said they could not help us. I spent hours and hours researching and looking through a hodge-podge of papers that DH had stored in totally random order with lots of junk paper mixed in. It was awful, so I do keep the statements... I learned the hard way.

Good luck.
It's taken years for me to acknowledge that I have a problem, and it's not that I just need to organize, I have too much stuff. It took a long time for me to see that, and it took me a long time to realize that I have an abnormal attachment to textiles... I'm just learning how to gently tell myself, that it's okay that I never started/finished that project, and it's okay to donate it or toss it. Releasing something that I will not finish helps me reach my goal of getting this place cleaned out.

[misssue]

I welcome you and think that it is great that you want to take steps to get things in order. I like the term semi messy! Acknowledging that you are part of this is a great attitude. Keeping your areas and or as much of the house that is common areas is a way to go. That can be a great support!

If it is important to to your wife to get the room organized, clean and painted, she has to help figure out a way to deal with the things in there herself. As Mimi and others said so well. You might want to get some cardboard boxes, all uniform and pack it all up, and she can then go through the boxes, one at a time. I do believe that it is important that she help do this also. I may be wrong but I get the feeling that you have been assigned to get this room in order to paint. You can not paint without getting the room cleared, and it may not get done, as others have said. Different things work for different people. Some have good luck with putting it all out on a tarp, if it was a one room had to get it done. You could do that together, but she had to be willing to part with things. I suggest you talk to her about how serious she is about doing this, it sound like she is not there yet.

I know that in some marriages, a good therapist will say that if a person who hoards or is messy, wants to keep a lot of things, then you have to figure out one place that she/he can keep x amount, a room if you can spare it, and that is the limit. It is the only way to co-exist. It becomes a way to control it and contain it. I spent years in therapy with the my now ex husband. Our issues were not about hoarding, because I was not a hoarder. I had a lot of stuff, and the therapist pointed out that creative people often do. I have a office in the basement and my stuff that was messy was contained to that room, and it really bothered my ex that there was a huge pile of fabric in the middle of the floor. This was that way before we went to therapy, and the therapist told us that was a good solution to the issue, that was my room, my space and it since it was AC/heated not visible, and down in the basement, a full basement with plenty of other room, that was mine to do as chose. NOW, I have no kids, and we had plenty of space, I realize not all can do that, but it is a solution. It has to have limits. My limits left when we divorced... and I am working on that. This can be a solution, and for some it is a storage unit. Lest you think I have it all under control, I do not. and I do not need a storage unit because I have a 2100 square foot house, double that for the basement added. A 2.5 attached garage and another one car garage in the woods, for lawn stuff furniture. I have to keep limits! I am working on that.. and getting rid of things.

I am fairly new here, and have not seen this logic talked about, but this is nothing new. I have used this thought process with other people, my good friend and neighbor. For him seeing that the amount of square footage he was using for all this " stuff" was so much per square foot in the house, really was a revelation. Since our real estate values are high, and our taxes are even higher, we figure out what per square foot the footage cost. Then he figured out roughly how much of the house he was really "living" in or using, he and his wife. That was a shock to him.. and that somehow clicked. Out went some of those student papers that he had been keeping for 30 years as a university professor. Some of us are not living in our spaces and enjoying what we are paying for! I also say this, and it applies to me.. I want to live better. I hope this helps, and I encourage you and hope you and your wife can do this.

[Arid]

Be sure to read the thread titled "Right Brain Chaos."

I think that the information that it contains might be very helpful to you and your wife.

I agree with the others: give an ultimatum. If she doesn't clean out the room, the room doesn't get painted. It really IS that simple!

Arid

[c0mm0n]

Update on this.

I did a lot of picking up today. Rather than just go to it I worked in 15 minute increments and would take stuff out as I needed to. Took 3 bags of books to a bookstore for credit, where I picked up a book for me and 2 for my daughter. Told her that on Saturday we'd work on her room and that she'd need to trade some of her old books for the ones I bought her. She thought that was cool.

SO is sick with something and wanted to use the room she asked me to paint. She walked in, said I can't sleep in here. I said that I'd be willing to help her straighten it up if she wanted me to. She said no, she'd take care of it then knocked everything off the bed onto the floor. Afterwards she went into our bedroom, looked over at where her dresser is and said "you picked up?". I said yes, because I wanted to make the room look nicer and that in order to paint that one (I'm about to paint the entire house) it would have to be picked up also. I put my stuff away, her items I put on the ironing board, draping them over in piles - dresses, coats, etc so it would be easier for her to deal with.

I think she'll be out for the count on Saturday, so I'll work with my daughter on her room. Told her about the 15 min challenge but I said we'd play the "5 song game" - make a play list of 5 songs, then hit play then clean. Clean for 3 then use the other 2 songs to put items away in their proper home OR the trash/donation box. She didn't seem thrilled but I said I'd be there to assist and we'd do it as a team. That got her attention.

I feel good about this, mostly. I'm wondering what SO is going to do with the room she wants painted as there is a good bit of stuff in there. I was looking in there earlier and noticed that if the bags of yarn and the pile of clothing went that would almost clean up the room.

For me, my dresser is getting a cleaning in the am. My old socks that I hold on to...bye bye. I have some old tshirts/jeans I use for around the house stuff, those will go into their own area. Some old concert shirts I'll look at selling at a local consignment shop, it's not like I'll ever be as thin as I was in the early 80s.

[freedom13]

Be the change you want to see in the world...

[lil]

Wonderful progress you made c0mm0n. My SO has problems picking up after himself. I've been cleaning up for all 5 of us. It's not a huge house 1000 square feet 1200 if you include the gargage. Since we switched roles and I'm back as the stay at home parent I've been busy cleaning. Like you there are some things of his I won't and don't know if I should throw them away.

For the most part my house looks nice though a closer look you will see paper clutter in the living room kitchen, and my room book clutter in livingroom, my room, and the kids' rooms. We have clothes clutter that I plan to reduce August 26th. There are days you can't notice what I clean because of how fast new messes appear. I was to exhausted from our vacation and in 1 day went from stage 1 squalor in all rooms to stage 2 squalor. My kids move fast!

Let your SO worry about that room. You clean the areas that mean the most to use. living room kitchen your side of the bedroom and bath room and kid's room. I'm slowly working on my kids helping. Hubby's way to clean is to give the kids the dish to put in the sink which then the kids brings to me and says mommy and walks away after shoving cup/plate into my hand.
I refuse to clean hubby's bathroom until I see a jet tub being installed (highly doubt that will ever happen been asking about it for 6 years).

Good luck and best wishes glad to have you on chat

[PaperGrace]

You mentioned the yarn and clothes taking up a lot of the visible space. Do you have a place you could move those to temporarily so that she can see the rest of it? Sometimes a large mess begins to look like a wall. It is hard to imagine making progress or even seeing where to begin. If there isn't room to sort things it seems even more impossible. If there isn't a space in another room maybe you could strip the bed that is in there, put a bottom sheet on it or cover it with the bedspread, and put clothes on one side, yarn on the other. Those could be dealt with after the mix of other things are up out of the way (hopefully shredded and out of the house!).

I recently purged my clothing, it was much easier to do as its own separate project, away from the closet, in an area where I could walk away and leave the piles behind when I needed to. I kept changing my plans as I went based on the reality of what I was dealing with. I put all my shirts in a pile, but as that started to get too big I split it into two: tee-shirts and other shirts. It was all well and good to think I'd just toss anything I hadn't worn in a while, but that isn't what ended up happening. I'd been wearing the crap that was nearer at hand. I deserve the nicer clothes that were at the bottom of the closet. My rag/donate piles had clothes in it them I had just worn that week.

I agree that boxing the papers (even seeing if she'd mind if you 'presorted' some of it for her, like pulling out the magazines into one box) might be worth it. If she has serious issues with paper decisions and it is all staring at her at once it may be overwhelming. I would get enough boxes to hold all of it, and then a couple more for her to sort into once she opens a box.

I would revise the painting ultimatum. "Not just piled in the middle" is discouraging, though I understand what you're saying! I can imagine looking at a room and thinking there wasn't any hope but to pile some of it up while my husband got to work on the walls. I think you probably meant it as not 'jumbled up in a pile' and that agreeing to compromise by allowing some things to stay in the middle of the room, as long as they were properly boxed, or sorted into type (such as big bags of yarn, a pile of JUST clothes, bankers boxes of magazines etc...) would make it feel more do-able.

Also, a freshly painted room is a great motivator--if you can get that done when she's got it sorted some, and she can imagine how charming the room will be once she finishes that last push (be it clothes or papers or whatever) she may be able to use that energy to finish!

[misssue]

For whatever reason, your wife is not going to help with this.. she issued an order, she wants that room painted but she is not gong to help or participate. She sounds like she is angry, hence the sweep all the books off the bed, which was not a kind or appreciative act. She also sounds depressed and angry and is controlling this, by retreating to her bed and self. It is great that you and your daughter are working together, but the team is in the wrong spot, your wife should be doing this, this is her stuff.

And this is just my opinion by only what you wrote here, this is power play. Her power play. I am being honest and you are great to do this and work on the greater good for the house, but she is not going to change because she doesn't want to. I have seen this in other people, you and your daughter are now going to be the " bad" guys, because you took action, threw out " her" stuff and it will be an excuse for her to not participate. Sometimes the clutter and hoarding are a symptom, and are not just about the mess. I hope I am wrong, and I think you are a wonderful guy to take this on. My therapist has a saying, " sometimes you can not help people who do not want to help themselves. This may apply to your wife. The best to you and I mean what I wrote from a place of kindness, and awareness.