azazyel
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I know I enabled it when I was drinking but I've been sober for 11 months now and it's just gotten worse. There is stuff everywhere, almost no carpet or surfaces that aren't covered. She wont see anyone and will clean for a few mins every couple weeks. She'd kill me if I told her family about it and I'm getting so frustrated.
JKGoose
It's a sign of depression.
arumunus
Mom's a hoarder. Grew up in it. It's definitely a trauma response and an absolute uphill battle. Her dad was one too.
For some, professional help- and professionals who specifically deal with hoarding- will be all that's necessary. I hope that'll be your case.
For others, like my grandpa- it can get so bad that eventually you just have to take control of everything and they don't even get an ultimatum. With him though, too, he was elderly.
Either way, I'm so sorry and wish you the best.
Nautas
You gotta get some intervention. Family or professional preferably. It's not gonna be easy.
rubypilgrim
like others here have said, get professional help on this one. In the meantime, it's your home too. Will she negotiate with you on which rooms are yours, and which are hers? Hers, she can hoard, yours, no. Her stuff stays out of your rooms. Rooms like the kitchen and bathroom - those have to be yours because they gotta be clean. Bedroom, maybe split her side and yours. Not a permanent solution, but if it works for both of you for now, it might help your sanity.Otherwise, you gotta stop enabling.
lowreroll
monkeyfly
It's a mental illness and needs to be treated as such. Get help for her and yourself. It's going to be a rough ride no matter what happens next so brace yourself.
bottledham
Is she able to let go of the stuff? If you offered to throw something away would she allow it? My SO has hoarding tendencies. They're able to let go of things if they're donated instead of put in a landfill.
cadesama
Hoarding is often a kind of anxiety disorder. Maybe you can approach from that direction to get her to seek therapy instead of focusing on cleaning.
zalagzny422
Might not help, but I hold the line at being sanitary and clear walkable paths. Things rotting in corners becomes unsanitary quicker than you'd think. Be willing to leave, if only for a short time, to prove you mean it.
mrsdowneyjr
If you want to ask me questions, let me know. I'm a hoarder from a long line of them
tymonaSmasher
There is some tv programme in the UK about hoarding. Every episode digs down the the Psychological event that started it, addresses it, then pragmatically deals with how to vet rid of everything
autocorrectfailures
Watch the show... In a way she can't ignore the show.
nosilazurc11
The only thing i know about addictive tendencies, is that you can't quit them, you have to replace them
Columbus43219
You can call and have a specialist come out for it.
rolliefingers
The hoard protects the hoarder from moving on, from coming to terms with whatever, or overcoming whatever. They feel unable to cope, and the hoard almost has a life of its own, they feed it, sustain it, and in return it protects them from having to change because the worse it gets the more impossible change becomes. Or at least that's the bullshit I'm typing on here with no evidence. But that doesn't mean it isn't true, doesn't mean I don't have godlike insight and amazing bone structure.
Oogibah
Most of the time hoarding comes from some other untreated mental illness. She needs to seek professional help even if its just video calls to start.
PhloydPhan
noneuclidansquid
It's a mental illness attached to grief and loss - you both need professional help to get through it.
cosinewave
It is a nightmare as every available space becomes packed with stuff. I lived through it for several years. I was not able to use my 2-car garage because it was packed solid with her things - mostly useless things at that. It took months to clean it all out after she passed away.
gtotherizzle
We have a 3 car...packed to the gills. Barely have a walkway out of the garage.
xj4low
I've told my wife we have to fit both cars in the garage. Live in hail country. If she wants more seasonal decorations, she has to find a place to put in inside and away (not the spare bedroom floor). I just value our cars more than anything I'd put in boxes in there.
cosinewave
I feel your pain. it is very difficult to accept hoarding behaviors like that.
thescottishfox
Telling other people about it(family) is necessary. You're still enabling until you do.
bottledham
Keeping the problem from family isn't enabling. Unless the family are directly contributing to the hoarding like giving them stuff. OP shouldn't tell her family without her permission. It would break trust.
thescottishfox
He shouldn't do it behind her back agreed, but isolating themselves in order to not be confronted, naw, that needs to be confronted because the isolation only gets worse.
bottledham
Fair point about confronting the isolation.
DanielAsparagus
Dude it’s a severe mental illness. She needs proper diagnosis, medication, and intervention. You won’t logic your way through this with her. work with hoarders. The insight can be severely limited. Remember that You’re her partner not her case worker. You can’t have a relationship and “solve this.”
flukeysnail
I agree completely with this assessment. My mother is a hoarder. You cannot reason with them or motivate them to change. My mother needs professional medical help, but refuses to accept that to be true. Every intervention we've made has only resulted in her refilling every gain that was made with more stuff. Even my own shrink said they are very difficult to help.
januarylover
^^ This is an excellent response. Absolutely bang-on.
DanielAsparagus
They’re some of the nicest, sweetest, most intelligent and considerate people. They’re also severely under researched abs served.
januarylover
Agreed. It's such a complicated mental health condition. & often, quite invisible in our communities. If there's someone in your community who has specialized knowledge of hoarding & how to approach recovery, you're one of the lucky ones.
FormerlySable
Some hoarders are only nice to people outside their families. Some are terrible narcissists who traumatize and abuse their children by forcing them to live in unsafe, unsanitary conditions for years.
RandomStuffsandThings
Therapy
VowOfPoverty
It's rough. I'm not there, but it feels like it sometimes. If it's full hoarder, you need to get help. I mean she does, but you do too.
darkninja2992
Well, you can try and identify WHY she's hoarding, what's creating her attachment to the objects, keep an open mind if you try it because her brain is running on HER logic, and probably not 100% real world logic, and acting the wrong way will just make her not listen, and then use that logic to slowly steer her away from hoarding, getting rid of things bit by bit...
OR
Visit a therapist and get her professional help
rolliefingers
Someone told me there are people who will clean out hoards for free because they have a certain compulsion that makes them want to do that.
anon78923
Not really worth it until the root cause is addressed, because she'll just rehoard the place.
Escapist83
Fighting mental illness with mental illness.
CoffeeMakesMeTwitchy
Being alive is a mental illness
SerialChickenLover
Weaponized OCD
autocorrectfailures
Y'all are talking about me? I had to interrupt my pressure washer videos to post this. I can't explain why i do it i don't keep a super clean home, but when the muse strikes, i can't stop. I think it's a stress response, looking for a small project that can feel better, and the physical exercise helps combat stress and the job well done aspects as well help ease stress.
frogmousemat
I guess it's kind of like self-harm but, like, without the harm?
SalmySwims
I definitely clean when I'm stressed out or pissed off. Like the more clean my room is, the worse I'm feeling.
Kangadilla
I get it. I wouldn't consider myself a clean freak, as I don't clean routinely and as long as I know where things are at in my living space. But when I do clean, I CLEAN. Everything gets a thorough clean, to the point of doing multiple passes of the same locations. Something about the task for me is kind of an 'All or Nothing' approach. I couldn't explain why is sparatic vs routine, but I do feel great mental satisfaction and stress relief from the process when I do.
Feralkyn
That's a "good" one to have, at least. Practical & with a healthy end result. Mine is the opposite; if I get stressed I pretty much lose all motivation and I don't have much to begin with. It's rough to force myself to get anything done.
Feralkyn
Not saying "MINE IS WORSE THAN YOURS," mind. Just a silver lining.
autocorrectfailures
Despair sucks, sometimes the urge to clean is a stress response, sometimes it's cuz the brain needs an attainable goal, and after so many years, my lizard brain knows how to clean up enough for an easy win? Getting good at throwing crap away feels like a skill that takes practice as well.
gtotherizzle
You might as well be writing my biography. The house is out of control. I thought that going to rehab/sober living for 5 months would give her motivation. The house didn't change a thing.
gtotherizzle
I just want to rent a dumpster because it's overwhelming. Barely have a place to set a cup of down. She won't go to therapy because "They don't work nights and weekends" the one time I got her into couple's counseling she felt attacked. I give up
gtotherizzle
I relapsed because of the house. It's so bad.
FormerlySable
Please don’t give up and continue to live in an unsanitary home. My father-in-law gave up and let my mother-in-law turn their house into a garbage dump. Together they never saved a penny and both died owing tens of thousands of dollars.
gtotherizzle
My Granny did the same thing. It's not a garbage dump. It's more like @op said. No place to put anything
drums4lyfe
that's a tough one. as someone smart once said "many of us seek therapy because someone else in our lives won't", so perhaps it's time to have a therapist help walk ya through the mind of a hoarder. that or take her to the container store!
Rhythmaster
My hoarder music teacher had an entire room in her house full, (well maybe 3/4 full, but I mean like 3/4 full, stacked to the ceiling) of EMPTY, UNUSED storage containers that she had bought over the years as a "solution" to the piles of stuff everywhere. Instead, the storage containers just became a new pile of stuff. Buying more stuff isn't the answer, you need to clear out stuff. The real problem is the hoarder will have a story or explanation for every item and why they need to keep it...
Rhythmaster
You have to overcome whatever mental issue it is that is preventing her from letting go of the items, after that you can just clean it together. In a "let's both tackle this to improve our life together" positive way and not in a passive aggressive "look what you made me do" way. Get ready for a lot of "do we really need 10 of (item)? Let's just only keep the best one and give away the others."
azazyel
I've started therapy myself and have told him but I'm already going crazy. Every morning I see the mess and I get pissed.
FormerlySable
Find the Children of Hoarders support group at Yahoo. They also accept spouses of hoarders and spouses of children of hoarders. They saved my marriage to a man whose parents were hoarders (he’s just cluttered, but he kept trying to rescue them financially). They are a very helpful and supportive community.
Rhythmaster
You need to set some goals, together with your wife. Try to get on the same page. If she really has no problem living in that mess, and you hate it... that could be a problem, but usually the hoarders will admit, consciously, that they don't like it, but it's too daunting to do all the work to clean it up, which is where your support and helping her and making the goals TOGETHER with her can be very useful. Being pissed every morning without being able to take action is not sustainable.
Dimension09
Ask her parents to randomly show up for a surprise visit
xmaneds
she needs medication... hoarding is related to anxiety and depression... bring her to an MD psychiatrist and ask the doctor what medications could help with anxiety and depression
MadamPuddifoot
Time to maybe bring her into therapy? Hoarding is her addiction, and addictions are always the result of untreated trauma.
lukebagpiper2
I applaud your sobriety. It's important to remember it's not a transaction, she doesn't "owe you one" now that you've improved yourself (not an accusation, just something I tell myself having been through something similar). Hopefully you and her can navigate the conflict through mutual love and respect. The hardest part is always telling them how you really feel
NVGoddesscottage
My daughter was murdered. My house ended up looking like a hoarder house. She’s wounded. Ask your therapist about positive behavioral supports
lacarpitrondookmarriot
I’m so sorry!
tootuncommon
A resentment you might want to shed
azazyel
I know, the anger isn't good for me, I try to let it go. I take walks and when I speak I try to be understanding and non confrontational
IUpvoteFuturama
From what I remember there's some clinical research suggesting a link between hoarding and OCD. Might be worth looking into medications that are used to treat OCD, if nothing else it might make the compulsion to hoard more manageable.
FormerlySable
It’s not linked to OCD. It’s a response to trauma, narcissism, and/or a form of Behavior Avoidance Disorder. (Source: Children of Hoarders online.)
Antininny
look for the underlying cause
77hnx994wv10
Hoarding could’ve been her coping mechanism. Not assigning any blame to anyone and just throwing this out there. I saw it happen with my grandmother after my grandfather passed away and it took a therapist pointing this out to me before I understood what was going on. it’s a tough spot for both of you to be in and both of you will likely need to discuss this with a therapist who understands hoarding because it’s a unique behavior that not all therapists know how to deal with.
redbear1999
Have you ever thought that your drinking caused her to go hoarding? You need to get help for both of you.
azazyel
Could be and also vice versa, I didn't really care about it when I was drinking. It allowed me to ignore it and not be bothered by it.
SerialChickenLover
Do you think your alcoholism triggered her hoarding behavior? I get that you’ve been sober for a while, but the doesn’t mean however your drinking affected her will just go away. Don’t play therapist on your wife, but try to figure out when this started for her. Does she recognize it as a problem? If it has any correlation with your drinking, maybe that’s a key to helping her get out of this spiral with professional guidance.
crasemana
Exactly my thought. 11 months sober but if it hurt her and changed her so deeply she’s ended up with her own self destructive loop she’s going to need serious patience and care.
azazyel
I'm pretty sure she's always been that way, he way of cleaning was throwing a blanket over the pile. Now it's just too big to hide.
SerialChickenLover
I don’t think you’re being completely honest or serious about how your behavior has affected hers.
azazyel
I'm totally open to that possibility but I really don't know what more I can do.
Higure
Couples therapy, maybe? Would she accept that?
azazyel
No, especially since my therapist is a man.
ThePostPenultStraw
Oh. Something more may be going on here if that’s her reaction.You may not be the only one with resentment. Did this just start? Has she always had this tendency? Does she work? Think back.When this really get started. Some event may have triggered this spiral. Depression manifests as hoarding. One final thought; those with mental illness rarely suffer alone. I changed in ways I hate because I couldn’t help her break the cycle. Refused docs, meds, therapy! Things are better but still not normal.
azazyel
She's always been this way but it's really ramped up. She recently quit her job and it still got worse after that. Now she sleeps all day and is up all night, I've asked her to see people but she just wont.
xXCutieMomokoXx
who says your therapist has to be your couple's therapist. if that's her main reason for not doing couples then finding one she feels comfortable with might help
DanielAsparagus
Your couples therapist should never be your personal therapist. Also, telling your therapist doesn’t make the changes. It doesn’t make things go away. All I can say is get some legal advice, as well. If you leave that house but are on the title it could fuck you. Hoarding is protected by the ADA. She can do it all day until the county condemns the structure, which is not uncommon.
naomiMoonBeast
A trip to the container store might actually be a good first step you might have to start with putting the stuff in the containers yourself. But maybe seeing some of the stuff picked up might help her see clearer
InkyBlinkyPinkyAndClyde
Cleaning up her stuff without her permission isn't going to help. My mom's a hoarder and I'm pretty sure it's because her mom would just throw all her things away to "clean up". Hoarders are doing it as a way of comforting themselves, somehow. To take that away won't fix the underlying problem, and will probably just exacerbate it.
naomiMoonBeast
I wasn't suggesting that he clean everything up I meant like a small container to put the bills in.
DanielAsparagus
It’s not an organizational issue. It’s a severe mental health diagnosis. Especially if she quit her job and is only awake at night.
naomiMoonBeast
I understand that but I am saying a small change might be what it takes for her to want to go and get help
DanielAsparagus
Respectfully, the lack of insight is critical here. Other people are the problem. These people don’t see it as a problem. It causes problems, sometimes despair, but they are also profoundly entrenched in the illness. If they get treatment it’s usually for something adjacent, like depression, and the web unravels. Sometimes this takes decades. I don’t have stats on that but it’s my work experience. Otherwise it’s something profound like losing the house. This isn’t normal clutter or collecting./
DanielAsparagus
I appreciate what you’re saying. But the containers start to get stacked floor to ceiling. And it doesn’t address what’s in the containers. Is it moldy food and shit? Sometimes it’s moldy food and surprise! It’s not shit it’s piss.