I need some advice.

My husband is a hoarder. We have a 2600 foot house, and two of our rooms can’t even be used. In one of them, there is a small path to walk through to another room, and the other one is similar. We also have a two car garage, with just enough room to park one car. We have a boat storage building, full of stuff from when we renovated our house. I’m talking old warped counters, rotted cabinets, and thing like that. He’s 28, and will not get rid of hardly anything. He has love letters from high school girlfriends, math home work from middle school, shoes that he wore in band. He has like 7-8 guitars, and many other instruments- some that he doesn’t even know how to play, like a cello. We have random crap shoved everywhere, and it is SO overwhelming.

He was in marching band from 8th grade through college. When the band uniforms he wore in high school were up for auction, but were only being sold as one lot, he bought the entire collection. Over 80 band uniforms, hats, plumes, and over 100 dance team uniforms. A lot of it has no sentimental attachment though.

I have tried to help him let some of this go, and some of it has been trashed or donated. But it is insane. 😳 The house always feels cluttered. Everything has a “special memory” or it was a gift. I understand keeping some of it, but I can’t deal anymore. Most of it is simply that we bought something, no longer need it, but because we paid for it, he doesn’t want to get rid of it.

I don’t know what more I can do to help him part ways.

Pics below so you can understand my frustration.

Thank you to all the ladies who offered advice. I didn’t post this for rude comments, but obviously I’ve gotten a few. 🙄 We all have things that we deal with. Some background context would be that my husband grew up with divorced parents, and both of them have hoarding tendencies. It is all he knows. Keep everything, you never know when you’ll need it. I’ve opened the conversation of therapy, like many of you suggested, and I am hoping that he will consider it.

As for myself, I went through one of the rooms and anything that was mine was gotten rid of. I organized the room so that he could easily identify what is there, and we will begin to go through it.

Again, to everyone who provided helpful information, or a story that made me feel less alone, thank you. ❤️