Was just reading through the "Hoarding Sensitive" thread started by (I think) Catherine, about her DH throwing stuff out from her car w/out asking her first.

I have the opposite problem. I have a spouse who likes to visit thrift stores and has spent over $600 at them in the last year (possibly more; I'd need to check my Mint files). First I should point out that thankfully, I am not in need of anything material. In fact, I'd like to get rid of crap. I was on the "five things a day" bandwagon last year and I fell off.

In the past month, spouse has brought home:

1. A five foot long, unwieldy heavy table that opens like a piano bench. This is supposedly for my art room, so I have an area to lay out works in progress. This showed up after I told him I was having trouble organizing my art room and I WANTED TO GET RID OF STUFF. There's no room in the studio for it so he put it (get this) on top of a countertop that I was already using for laying out works in progress.

2. An IKEA like set of five wooden cubicles, for which we also had no room. So he moved a bunch of stuff to make room for it, displacing where we plug in our electronics at night, our landline telephone, etc. The items he stuck in the cubicle (without asking me first) now cannot be reached because of #1 being in front of the cubicle.

3. Piles of towels. He took a look at the towels we own and decided the ones at the Salvation Army were in better shape. However, now there's no room for them, so they are stacked in boxes five feet high in a room overcrowded with clothing he does not wear. I didn't want the damn towels. I admit some of ours were ready to be thrown out, but we didn't need ALL the ones he bought. He goes overboard. Plus he ran out and bought $40 worth of hardware to make a standing desk for one of our computers. I've already told him, I am not using it. I'll sit on my fat a$$ on the one downstairs (in my studio).

4. Several pairs of winter pajamas. He just helped me switch my summer clothes and winter clothes and so he knows how many pairs of PJs I have and that they are adequate. Mumbles something about "I just wanted to get something nice for you."

5. A pair of bedroom slippers. I have four pairs in the closet that he's bought me and I don't wear/like, plus two in the bedroom that I don't wear/like. I have told him multiple times I prefer to choose my own clothes.

6. Several computer monitors. He set one up on my art table because he thought "Someone who works in Photoshop so much must probably want an extra monitor." Umm...no. THEN he went out and bought TWO MORE "because you never know when one of them might break." Today he sulked, saying, "Fine, I'll take one of them away."

I've tried to tell him the budget will not support these unexpected expenditures, and it's like a guilt trip when he says (more or less) "but I bought this stuff for you."

I'm seriously thinking of just putting this stuff in a bag and taking it back to the thrift store. Or boxing it up, and telling him to put it in the attic, to show him I don't want it or need it.

I really resent him "trying to help" with the studio in the manner he did. To complicate matters, we might be moving (or *I* might) and I don't need more stuff coming into the house!

thanks for listening. I am not necessarily asking for advice, but I do know people find themselves in situations like this around the holidays, for e.g., when they get gifts they neither asked for nor need. Open to suggestions if you want to offer them.