TraceMama
04-05-2008, 11:25 AM
What do you do?! :shrug How do you declutter the house if your dh wants to hold on to so much stuff?
Here's an example from my life this last week. Blue Eyes has a dollar-store butterfly net; he loves to play with it, but sometimes plays inappropriately with it (throws it with a ball in it across the basement). He was told not to play with it like that. Cousins were over, the net went flying, it hit the ceiling, the handle broke. Yippee! I thought, I get to throw it out, it's broken and it's a great consequence for not treating the toy as he should. :yes
What does dh do?! He rescues the toy, puts the end back on, uses some duck tape and ta-da presents it to Blue Eyes with a shorter handle. :hunh His reasoning: "I don't want to teach him that we live in a throw-away society" :doh So, it looks like that's going to be the standard line to keep us from throwing things away. :mad
Today, overwhelmed by the garage and encouraged by the good weather, I told dh that I just wanted to get some stuff out to the curb. There's a ton to throw away. His response: I don't see a ton to throw away, just stuff that needs to be put away. We can't put all of it away! :hissyfit It's junk, it's trash, we might *maybe* one day need it, but probably not, he won't read a de-clutter book I'm sure of it, and we don't have cash for a professional organizer. ARGH!
HELP! :blah Please tell me I'm not the only one who deals with this. And, what do you do to handle it? It's like he feels threatened or something by decluttering. :shrug
Here's an example from my life this last week. Blue Eyes has a dollar-store butterfly net; he loves to play with it, but sometimes plays inappropriately with it (throws it with a ball in it across the basement). He was told not to play with it like that. Cousins were over, the net went flying, it hit the ceiling, the handle broke. Yippee! I thought, I get to throw it out, it's broken and it's a great consequence for not treating the toy as he should. :yes
What does dh do?! He rescues the toy, puts the end back on, uses some duck tape and ta-da presents it to Blue Eyes with a shorter handle. :hunh His reasoning: "I don't want to teach him that we live in a throw-away society" :doh So, it looks like that's going to be the standard line to keep us from throwing things away. :mad
Today, overwhelmed by the garage and encouraged by the good weather, I told dh that I just wanted to get some stuff out to the curb. There's a ton to throw away. His response: I don't see a ton to throw away, just stuff that needs to be put away. We can't put all of it away! :hissyfit It's junk, it's trash, we might *maybe* one day need it, but probably not, he won't read a de-clutter book I'm sure of it, and we don't have cash for a professional organizer. ARGH!
HELP! :blah Please tell me I'm not the only one who deals with this. And, what do you do to handle it? It's like he feels threatened or something by decluttering. :shrug