I want to declutter, partner does not want to?

fancythat

Thank you for replying quickly by the way.

A lot of threads on here are started by a poster I have not noticed before, they start a post, and often never return to say anything else.

Why is that a problem? The posters are asking for advice and while it would be courtesy to do a reply thanking all responses once you have got enough info there is no need to keep returning. You must have a good memory if you see people you haven't noticed before, are you talking about the same one? - I sometimes see a name I recognise but wouldn't have a clue otherwise. I'm looking at the comments and replies not the person.

I still have all my college and university portfolios of work going back many years but some as a mature student and from time to time have enjoyed reading through them again. However, I doubt my DH or DD would give them a second look after I’ve gone so why am I hanging on to them?

Agree wholeheartedly. Even worse than the debilitating effect of living with unnecessary clutter is living in a house that needs work (money spent) and is too big but has been in my husband’s family since it was built by his great aunt in 1929!!

I was recently going through my wardrobe and sorting stuff out to go to the charity shop. I found several pairs of casual trousers which I had forgotten about. Some still had the labels on. They had wide legs which are now back in fashion. Fortunately, they still fit I have started wearing them now.

My DH is always accusing me of having too much stuff. I have four low bookshelves full of books, some two rows deep. I have quite a few ornaments but not loads. Meanwhile, he has three sheds full of his stuff. I am not allowed to put anything of 'mine' in these sheds. This includes paint for the house. Whenever he 'tidies' his sheds he just moves stuff into the house or other places. This means his shed is lovely and tidy but everywhere else is full of clutter.

I need to declutter. I have more Christmas decorations than Harrods. I have decorations in various colour schemes so am loathe to throw them away in case I fancy a change. I don't like throwing things in the bin and try to recycle or give to charity as much as possible. Recently, a few of our charity shops were not taking ladies clothes, which was a bit frustrating

Do ten year out of date meds actually belong to anyone, though?

Similar thing with me and hubby . Not allowed to move anything of his even if there is no room to eat on kitchen table ! Got in trouble for throwing out old medicines that were ten years out of date .
Can’t do anything right , dammed if I do dammed if I don’t !

Oh, how I know the difficulties!
I wrote the other day that i was struggling with three boxes of "stuff". And nearly fell over so I could pick up a stray nail "in case it came in handy"

Thank you MissAdventure.

I am trying to not leave a mess for my children to sort out when the time comes. My son lives down south, is not in the least bit sentimental, and would probably just hire a skip , given half a chance. My daughter is more like me, but is working through her own decluttering journey, so I would hate to burden her with more " stuff".

We often find ourselves decluttering the same space at the same time. Earlier this week, just by chance, we were both doing our PJ drawers. I deliberately only have a small drawer in the bedroom for these, max 3 pairs, and switch them with others ( kept upstairs in the loft ) as the seasons change.

DD on the other hand has a huge drawer in her bedroom, capable of holding 10/12 pairs of PJs, most of which she never wears. So she has now moved most of them to a storage box, getting rid of a few pairs along the way, and used the empty drawer space for more frequently used items.

It's a never ending struggle, but it does seem to get easier over time - except for the clothes!

xxx

Apologies.

Leave your partner to his bits.

I'd think it best to declutter your things leaving partners things as they are. I don't purchase much, I wear what I have. However, my husband is forever buying new golf clothing, years worth in the storage room.

Leave your husband to his bits.

You may do exactly as you want with your own things, and if anyone in the family tries to stop you throwing your own things out, or giving them away, tell them to get lost. An exception here could be anything your partner gave you as a present for a significant occasion - disposing of that might well hurt him, but your own ten year old computer?

On the other hand you have no right to throw out his stuff. If we are talking of clothes harbouring moth, then tell him this and suggest the clothes should be disposed of. If that is a no go, then insist that the clothes are washed or dry-cleaned as once you have clothes moths it is practically impossible to get rid of them.

You have tried discussing that you feel you are drowning in clutter, but if he cannot or will not see this, there is no way you can or should force him to throw his things away.

What you can do, space permitting, is to clear a room or a large cupboard of all your things, and insist he moves his things into these spaces and keeps t hem there, unless he is actually using whatever it is.

Lesley60

I must admit to being overly sentimental and hold on to things from my children’s childhood and also things that are to good to get rid of, my 2 daughters are in their early 50s with grown up children of their own but I still have some of their baby clothes and brownie uniforms and until recently a few of their old toys.
I asked them if they wanted any of it and of course they didn’t and thought I was nuts for holding onto them, I even have the congratulations cards from when they were born.
But I think what is taking up most of the space in my attic is all my clothes from when I was five sizes smaller all in large suitcases waiting for me to get back into them which of course I never will,but nevertheless we can live in hope.
I also have a garage full of furniture as we downsized eight years ago.
My husband jokes that he is going to hire a skip and get rid of it all but my retort is that it’s all in the attic out of the way.

I have a few very special items of clothes from when my now adult children were babies. I realised that they were stuck in a chest and never seen so l put the two shawls on two children's chairs in our bedroom and on one there is my very threadbare and very much loved teddy bear 🧸 - he is over sixty himself. He shares the chair with a few other soft toys. On the other chair is my daughter's doll and she is wearing some of my favourite baby clothes that my children wore, which include the bootees that originally belonged to the violinist Kyung Wa Chung's babies. Sentimental? Yes. A bit silly? Perhaps, but it is not harming anyone else. I found a winter coat that my daughter wore as a toddler. It was a timeless style and I passed it on fairly recently to a friend for her granddaughter. The baby's mother was delighted and a nearly thirty year old coat was given a new lease of life.
As for your clothes that are several sizes too small, would you ever wear them again even if you lost the weight? They are probably dated at best and may not suit you now. I had a lovely 1980s Laura Ashley dress but not only were the chances of it ever fitting me again somewhere between slim, fat and none whatsoever, I realised that even if by some miracle I could actually wear it again, the style was too young for me by now and I would probably look faintly ridiculous in it so I put it on Ebay and a lady who owned a vintage clothes shop at the other end of the country bought it for £20. As for your furniture, I presume your children do not want or need it. Are your grandchildren anywhere near the stage of setting up home, whereby they might welcome some items of furniture? If not, I would get the British Heart Foundation or any other charity that sells furniture to come and collect it.

I must admit to being overly sentimental and hold on to things from my children’s childhood and also things that are to good to get rid of, my 2 daughters are in their early 50s with grown up children of their own but I still have some of their baby clothes and brownie uniforms and until recently a few of their old toys.
I asked them if they wanted any of it and of course they didn’t and thought I was nuts for holding onto them, I even have the congratulations cards from when they were born.
But I think what is taking up most of the space in my attic is all my clothes from when I was five sizes smaller all in large suitcases waiting for me to get back into them which of course I never will,but nevertheless we can live in hope.
I also have a garage full of furniture as we downsized eight years ago.
My husband jokes that he is going to hire a skip and get rid of it all but my retort is that it’s all in the attic out of the way.

That seems a really sensible approach, LindaPat.

Hi Nannan2, thank you for your kind words re my weight loss. It hasn't been easy, but I'm determined to keep going! Even more importantly - to keep it off!
Don't know why it is so difficult to pass on my larger clothes. I know someone would benefit, yet always in the back of my mind is that little voice saying" but when you put it back on, you will need to buy these clothes again".
Mr LP has lost a lot too, but he doesn't have a problem with getting rid of clothes - just "stuff"! But just yesterday he mentioned letting go of some of his vinyl collection ( very collectable these days ), so we are making progress!

My best advice to everyone is a quote from Dana K White ( A slob comes clean), who says " The space that you have is the space that you have", ie you can only keep/own as much "stuff" as will fit in your space. Some people have more space than others. That's life. If you don't have the space, you can't keep it all. She also says " You can keep anything - but you can't keep everything".
She really talks sense, worth having a look at her posts and videos,

Also, keep a donation box/bag at the ready, ( one that can be donated ), so you can discard as you go. I use a carrier bag, or a delivery box if we have one, and when it's full - out it goes!

Good luck everyone, keep at it!
xxx

We’ve lost 11st 7lbs between us since 2017 and only this week have decluttered clothing that’s way too big. Why I’ve held onto it I’ll never know but I definitely don’t feel the need to keep it just in case we grow back into it. My OH owns a brand new dinner suit and blazer which he bought just before we started our weight loss journey and they need to go to but for some reason I’m finding it difficult to let go of them.

The paint that my husband used about 15 years ago .. he would keep and then buy new paint ? Where is the logic ?

I'd be torn on this one because on the one hand it's not exactly your call to make when it's his belongings, but on the other he doesn't notice these things and would probably only remember them if you were to bring them up... I'd say don't feel terrible if these are minor things that clearly haven't been used for a while and likely won't be as they aren't even remembered.

There are also different approaches to decluttering, i.e. you can digitize some documents or photos (you may even repair old photos in programs like Photoglory) and get rid of the originals if they take up too much space. It depends on people though, some prefer storing the old papers even though they never look at them, but asking for your partner's opinion on that wouldn't hurt anyway.

NotSpaghetti

I wouldn't do it.
I'd collect the things I thought were unimportant (including my own) and say "are you bothered about any of these or can I give them to Oxfam?"

I think seeing them in one reasonably small collection at a time is unlikely to ruffle feathers.

I would hate it if someone did it to me.

I would just concentrate my own stuff you wanted to get rid of..Then black bag any shared stuff and put it in a spare room or shed

At least it out the way for the time being.

petra

Milest0ne

One effort at de cluttering has resulted in a large bag of paired socks which for him have rather tight elastic tops. I have made fabric tubes to use as draught excluders which I can stuff with the surplus socks. But--- Nobody I know wants or needs draught excluders. . does anybody know if the charity shops take pairs of socks?

We take new ones. The others go in the rag bag.

I used to volunteer with the Salvation Army handing out clothing to the homeless. They took second hand underwear and socks as they provided shower facilities too so the users left their undies with the towels for washing and were given a new set. You coud certainly enquire at your local Salvation Army or a homeless charity. I even knew a lady who collected odd socks to send to Sierra Leone to a charity helping elderly people stay warm in winter. I used to sort the socks that the Salvation army had and give the odd ones to her via freegle!

I realise I'm "enabling" DH as I tidy, recycle, throw away, and as you say am extra-strict with myself about not accumulating "stuff", so the house looks & functions fine.
So why would he want to change? There's no risk of throwing something away & then needing it for the first time in years, if you keep everything (although by the time he needs it, he's probably forgotten he had it in the first place & it's easier to buy new).
If I wasn't here though, I think it would soon dawn on him that there are downsides to keeping absolutely everything. But whether he could change his ways then, I don't know.

Nannan2 why are you involved in your adult son's underwear choices?

Just wondering 🤔

Cossy
😯 He has two small drawers
... really?
two small drawers!

Newme2026, you said that your partner is not a hoarder but then you said that he finds it very difficult to part with anything, even things like obsolete computers. This would suggest that he has hoarding tendencies, even if he is not a full-blown hoarder. We tend to think of hoarders as the people we see on television programmes with houses packed full of things to the point where it is very difficult to live in the house. I know three people and their families caught in their wake, who live like this. However, there is another group of people who find it very difficult to dispose of items and who are also untidy and disorganised but whose homes do not betray the fact because their wife, husband or partner go behind them and literally pick up the pieces and also make less of their own things so that there is enough space for the person who is unwilling to let things go to store their things. This is the case in my house. Visitors see a very tidy, welcoming home (I am told) because l have to be on top of things at all times. Mr.Music overbuys and does not like to get rid of anything. He has all sorts of projects and ideas for reusing things that rarely come to fruition. If I let my guard down, I find all sorts of things that need to be recycled, such as empty soap dispensers. One Christmas morning, seven of them fell out of a cupboard. I hide them under more innocent items in the recycling bin so that they are not brought back in. He is also still very smug about the great toilet roll debacle of the early Covid days as we probably had enough to stock a medium sized supermarket shelf. His parents were very similar and the upstairs of their house was chaotic. The living room and dining room were tidy. Mr. Music also dosses things down and forgets about them, which means that l have to go behind him, putting the items where they belong. As he is also very disorganised, I truly think he has undiagnosed ADHD. If I ask him to tidy and try and get rid of a few things, it is a slow, painful process by which he will sort things into one pile then transfer them to another without getting rid of anything. This happens on repeat and is called churning. Does your partner do this? I realise that I have written an essay here and only given sticking plaster interventions that have helped me, rather than a cure. Sadly, unless the person themselves wants to change, and this can be a long, painful process, there cannot be a cure. However, I hope some of this may help you and your partner. In the end, it can only be a compromise.

I have been having a sort out for the past 12 months, i wait for hubby to go out, put stuff in double black bags, when he's in the shower, I put them in the car boot, then off to charity shop, HE'S NOT MISSED ONE THING.....but I dont touch the garage or shed....THATS HUBBIES SPACE