My wife is a major hoarder and I need suggestions on how to proceed
My wife and I have been married for over 35 years. We have lived in our current home for over 20 years. My oldest daughter moved out when she got married in 2016 after college graduation. Last year my youngest daughter bought a condo about four blocks from our house, but she doesn't spend much time over there (she has a very stressful job as a 3rd shift charge nurse). She still sleeps mostly in the 3rd bedroom that used to be my oldest daughter's room. She takes her meals over here when she doesn't eat out with my wife, other daughter, and son in law (they eat out a lot). I do not eat out with them unless for special occasions like Birthdays. I used to have them bring food home for me, but I prepare most of my own food now as I am pursuing a Keto diet (or at least a greatly reduced carb diet - lots and lots of vegetables and good quality meat).
My wife has almost covered every inch of floor and counter space with newspapers, notecards (Birthday, Get Well, etc), old mail and bills, daughters' old schoolwork, pictures, Bath & Body Works bags with product, souvenirs, etc. Earlier in the marriage I attempted to push back, but I am something of a book hoarder myself (even though I have gotten rid of a lot of my books). Eventually I surrendered because of the stress of my job and my own mental issues (my wife doesn't work outside the home and hasn't since 1995).
I am trying to reclaim at least those rooms in which I need (our bedroom, my daughter's old bedroom which is now a family room/office (I am a Covid work at home). I have dusted and vacuumed as much as I can as well as getting an air purifier that I move between these two rooms. I just lift up her hoarded stuff, vacuum or dust, and place it back where I found it. Doing anything else generates a major freak out. She even freaks out by me just doing this. The areas that she controls (living room with attached dining room and kitchen) haven't been vacuumed or dusted in years. Like I said almost every available surface is covered. I plan to move my remaining books that are in four bookshelves from this common area thus leaving the entire area for her stuff. I am hoping she adopts a vertical strategy for her stuff in lieu of pruning it which appears to not be happening it anytime soon.
She leaves me a small space for meal preparation, but there is paper and nick nacks all around this small area. She is good about ensuring that food waste is properly disposed of and dishes and cooking/preparation surfaces are clean (I do a lot of cleaning myself as well as the bulk of cooking). She eats fast food about 1.5 - 2 times/day. She had done the bulk of the grocery shopping on her own, but now I am attending many shopping trips to ensure the food I need is purchased and to organzie the purchasing for the most economy (she is good about this as well except for purchasing high cost/low nutritional value which happens sometimes).
It seems she will choose the most difficult path when resolving home care issues. Recycling is an obsession even though I see a one off lets just throw it into the trash to get the process started makes more sense. Anything that has any sort of functional value must have a home found for it. She has ticked off many acquaintances by burdening them with this stuff.
If she goes through a box of stuff, many (if not most) items require a careful deliberation as to what should happen to it. She absolutely had to move a box and other stuff from next to our bed so that the bed frame could be replaced. She then spread it out in the only clean space in the house (my office). There it sits two days later as she laboriously works through the evaluation process.
I am looking for suggestions on how to proceed. I know the environmental conditions have been bad for us. It definitely impacted the kids growing up since they couldn't have friends over (I feel bad about this, but my 50-60 hour/week job at the time prevented more of an intervention).
Thanks.
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