Don't touch it, I'll get to it...

[SparkStillLit]

Like Lauren, I stopped that mail nonsense. There is one thing that still goes on that fits under that broad umbrella that MAYBE now I can do, but all these years I couldn't.
I have moved everything possible to electronic, and I grab mail and pitch the junk. Otherwise we'd have an episode of Hoarders going on downstairs with just "papers". I won't have that. He bought a shredder because that was one of his things. He's paranoid that people go through our garbage. (Are we FBI's Most Wanted?) Perdictably, it's idle. I just tear things up and put them in the trash. If you want them that badly, you can much less grossly find the info online, I'm sure.

[Prototypian]

Like Lauren, I stopped that mail nonsense. There is one thing that still goes on that fits under that broad umbrella that MAYBE now I can do, but all these years I couldn't.
I have moved everything possible to electronic, and I grab mail and pitch the junk. Otherwise we'd have an episode of Hoarders going on downstairs with just "papers". I won't have that. He bought a shredder because that was one of his things. He's paranoid that people go through our garbage. (Are we FBI's Most Wanted?) Perdictably, it's idle. I just tear things up and put them in the trash. If you want them that badly, you can much less grossly find the info online, I'm sure.

I sometimes burn pieces of junk mail in the outdoor fireplace secretly so that they don't come back in from recycling.   They're always old fliers, expired ads or coupons or leaflets for things we don't need.   It's weird, one of my only pieces of joy with this stuff is secretly burning it because I'm positive that it's not possible for it to be dug out of the trash and brought back in.   The number of times I've thrown my own things away only to find them back in my closet or on the bathroom counter.   Ripped t shirts, shoes that are worn out, even empty medicine bottles come right back

I've noticed her behavior is tied to fear.   If something isn't being done, there is no chace of it being done wrong which is the worst of all.   Same won't disposing of something.   Giving it away or throwing it away represents finality.   It's over.   That causes fear.   That's what grabs her the most.

[Thru the Rain]

"Supply Face" - What a perfect description. That's a keeper.

My uPDM is like this - piles of junk mail and newspapers, old dried out bottles of lotions/shampoo/toothpaste in the bathroom, literally about 40 yards of clothes hanging in the basement.

Some of the bathroom stuff was mine, and is still there from when I moved out over 30 years ago! For a while I would throw away an item or two when I visited. No problems until I told her I had been doing that. Oh boy! What's the opposite of "supply face"? Full steam coming out of both ears.

When I bought my first house, the previous owners left a bunch of junk. I hauled all of it out to the street on bulk trash day. Wouldn't you know it - there's my M digging through to see if there was anything "good". And then she said the phrase that sums up her problem so perfectly: "Don't throw it AWAY away". In other words, just stash this garbage some where just in case. 

[Cascade]

Wow, I could never live in a house with piles of mail all over the kitchen. I have a somewhat compulsive need to get rid of junk, so if I were in that situation, I'd wait for my spouse to be gone for several hours, and then I'd get rid of all that mail, drop it off at the recycling depot so there's no way it could be brought back, regardless of how angry my spouse would be. I'm not saying you should do that, but I can certainly understand your glee at burning at least bits of it here and there!

[Poison Ivy]

 

[Lauren17]

Occasionally, he would hand me the mail addressed to "Current Resident".  It was his way of reminding me that I had no say in matters and I was only the anonymous resident, lol.

Well, I get handed letters from my OB/GYN. So there's that. 
I actually learned to recognize H's supply face from a post I made here. He gets this tiny smile. Its like a small boy who just got a bike from Santa even tho he knows he's been pulling his sisters hair every day for the last month. When I see that look, it's my cue to MC.

[11JB68]

I sit here and look at 4 stacks of ds old magazines that Updh insisted on keeping so he could read it flip through and then recycle.
Sitting in piles on my living room floor since August!
They need to go soon as it's almost time for our Xmas tree to go in that spot.

[Prototypian]

I sit here and look at 4 stacks of ds old magazines that Updh insisted on keeping so he could read it flip through and then recycle.
Sitting in piles on my living room floor since August!
They need to go soon as it's almost time for our Xmas tree to go in that spot.

I feel for you JB.   I sit right now looking at my uOCPDw on her computer typing away angrily at the world and next to her sits five bags of papers that have lay there since this summer.   Nothing can be filed, nothing can be touched.

Yesterday our internet was cut off.  Int he morning and my work and the kids who are schooling from home with covid were down.   Why?  Not because we can't afford it.   Because she will not pay any bills or make any payments online or with any automated payment methods.   She doesn't trust them.  Insists on paper for every bill and checks paid for every payment.   Doesn't trust the online.   So with this she had forgotten to mail the check which has to be done every month.   It took me four hours to get the mess sorted out and paid.    I have a superb job, no mortgage, no credit card debt, no student loan debt and my job pays for everything and the internet which is the source of my role gets cut because she will not allow me to auto debit the bill and will not allow me to every pay for anything.  She trusts nothing.   I have a PhD in applied math and I'm not trusted to pay my own freaking bills!    We have a freaking bill she pays each month for a stupid phone line.   Except there is not a phone in the house.   I mean an old school land line.   The phone broke, she and all the kids have cell phones and there is physically not a phone that can use that land line.   Her justification, "what if we need it someday".   I suppose we will race out, find a store that sells plug in land line phones and then have a call with whomever we need to speak with. 

In the attic are literally 27 years of ever single canceled checkbook going back to our first home together.   I run derivative curves for a hedge fund and I'm not allowed to pay my own stupid bills or convert them to online.   I study trading mechanisms for a living and write books on the subject and yet in my LET ME SAY AGAIN, MY OWN WORK 401K IM NOT ALLOWED TO BALANCE MY PORTFOLIO BECAUSE SHE IS AFRAID OF RISK SO I HAVE 95 PERCRNT IN BOND FUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!   

Sorry sometimes things don't make sense and I get really frustrated.   We live in 1989; not a single computer, floppy disk, monitor, tv or any piece of crap we have ever had can be thrown away because there is always a thing she is going to do with it.  I had my collection of 80s concert t shirts built into a bedspread and she cried for days because of what the shirts meant when they were whole except...   We didn't even know each other when I was in high school.  They're my freaking high school duran duran, van halen, and cure t shirts!!    Who cares what they mean???    I pulled then out of the bottom drawer in my closet to make room and had a bedspread made and she cried and was upset with me.   

Sorry.   Tonight has been rough.

[notrightinthehead]

I can feel the anger that comes out of your words. It must cost you dearly to suppress all that anger and not act on it.   

[Poison Ivy]

Jsinjin, maybe reframing things would begin to help.

"Nothing can be filed, nothing can be touched." = "My wife doesn't file or touch things, and I won't either."

"I'M NOT ALLOWED TO BALANCE MY PORTFOLIO BECAUSE SHE IS AFRAID OF RISK" = "I don't balance my portfolio because I'm afraid of my wife's reaction."

It is indeed frustrating to try to understand your wife's behavior, but even if you did understand it, it's likely there would be little you could do about it. Easier to do is to understand your own behavior, which is something you do have control over.

[Prototypian]

Thanks all, we are all just petrified.  It's interesting.   Ita only my spouse and the girls.   My son and I don't do this.   We both hate the anger and drama but the girls are all the same.   The level of emotional and immediate public violent anger is absolutely petrifying.   Imagine a group of family and friends are gathered and my son ate the last energy bar that one of the girls was saving.   The entire evening would be ruined and was actually with people leaving because the screaming and throwing and violent anger was so misplaced over a 2 dollar protein bar.  This happened last night.   I had to be hospitalized over severe depression and self harm and it changed nothing.   


I'm so tied of being somscared of what can explode.   Ive been on work calls with senior executives at my firm when something I purchased at the grocery store wasn't imediately explainable and she was screaming at me to the point I was having to mute and beg her to let me finish so that my job could be done.   If you try to ignore the tirade it gets much much worse.   This has gone off.track.  sorry