Well, this didn't happen to me, but to a couple I knew a few years ago. (I'm sorry this is so long, but if I'm going to tell the story, I might as well tell all of it.)
I was friends with both 'Cindy' and her husband 'Mike' (not their real names). Mike and I worked together; Cindy and I belonged to the same writers' group.
Cindy and I shared a mutual passion for garage sales, thrift stores, and flea markets, and we often went out hunting for collectibles and bargains together. Since I was working to pay down my debt and living with two other roommates at the time, I did a fairly good job at keeping my purchases to a minimum, but Cindy had no such restrictions. She would routinely spend hundreds of dollars on everything from shoes and purses to decorative switch plates and antique headboards.
At first, Cindy kept her all her "finds" in the family room/basement. When that area was filled, she started in on the two spare bedrooms. (She and Mike had no children and his kids from his first marriage were adults.) After the bedrooms had become impassable, she began to fill up the two-car garage and the screened-in porch. I'm sure most of you can imagine what eventually happened to the rest of the house.
Mike loved Cindy and understood there was a much deeper issue driving her than just the desire for more stuff. Over the years, he cycled thru every phase of the hoarder intervention process--he tried to gently reason with her (it fell on deaf ears), then he recommended therapy and offered to pay for it (she refused, saying she didn't have a problem), eventually becoming a bit more frustrated and strict about items coming into the house (she started to hide her shopping trips and purchases), and finally blowing up and hauling away three rooms worth of purchases to Goodwill (she screamed, raged, broke down, and re-filled the rooms within two months).
At last, Mike sat Cindy down and told her that although he loved her, he could no longer live this way. He again offered to send her to therapy and pay for a professional organizer to help her with her problem--she again refused, saying she didn't have one. Mike told her she had six months to begin the cleaning, clearing, and organizing of the house (she didn't even have to have it all done, she just had to make a noticeable start) or he was leaving and filing for divorce after eight years of marriage.
Meanwhile, I was hearing about this saga from both sides. Mike would come to work, more depressed with each passing day that Cindy not only did nothing to work on the house, but continued to bring things in. As he said to me on more than one occasion, "Do you know how horrible it feels to be second place to inanimate objects?" He slowly became convinced that she must not truly love him since she refused to get help or to clean and de-clutter.
Cindy, on the other hand, dismissed his six-month deadline. She repeatedly told me she loved Mike very much, she knew he loved her, and that he had threatened to leave before, but had never done so. When I told her I thought this time was different, she would become angry and say things like,"My stuff is important to me, why does no one understand that, I love Mike, why do I have to choose between him and my stuff, etc."
A week before the deadline, Mike told me he had begun to pack his stuff in boxes (the house was so full of clutter and containers, Cindy didn't even notice) and was preparing to put down a deposit on a rental house and speak to an attorney. I didn't know what to say; I finally just asked, "Do you still love her?" He answered, "Very much. But I don't deserve to have to live like this--and I won't."
In a last ditch attempt to slap Cindy back into reality, I and two other mutual friends took her out for coffee. She showed up for the coffee date, four full shopping bags in tow. We laid it all out on the table: Mike is leaving, he's got boxes packed, he's found another place to live, he's talking to a lawyer, would she please meet with a therapist and organizer to show him that she cared? She was incredulous; after all, she hadn't
seen the packed boxes (how could she?), she hadn't heard him talking to real estate agents or attorneys (he did so at work), he was still being his same old sweet self (of course, he still loved her and hoped she would change). She stormed out, furious at all of us for "trying to cause trouble."
Four days later, I got a call at almost midnight. It was Cindy, asking me in one of the most broken voices I've ever heard to please come over. I got dressed and drove over with another friend to find her sitting in the middle of her cluttered living room, crying and surrounded by countless used tissues. When we walked in, she looked up and said, "You were right. He left. I don't understand. I love him. He says he loves me. Why would he leave?"
Cindy promised to change and Mike agreed to a six-month seperation before beginning divorce proceedings, saying if Cindy got into therapy and started to clean the house, he would come home. But, according to Cindy, something was always wrong with each and every therapist and/or organizer (they actually wanted her to slowly clean up and get rid of things over time
) and she stopped seeing all of them. When Mike saw that she wasn't going to change, he went thru with the divorce. No one was ever able to make Cindy understand why he left.
Watching all of this unfold was heartbreaking, especially because I could understand both sides. Cindy couldn't explain
why she kept shopping,
why her "finds" were so important to her,
why she couldn't get rid of them--she thought it was perfectly normal, despite all evidence to the contrary. Mike truly loved her and did everything he knew to help her, contacting therapists and reading the tiny bit of information available on the subject of hoarding at the time, but in the end, he was sick and tired of trying to live with all the stuff. The things Cindy bought eventually not only pushed him out of the house, but pushed out the life and love they had had together as well.