Mother-in-law keeps sending me husband's childhood stuff

[EnglishTeacher]

My husband’s parents live near us, and we see them about once every couple of weeks or so. His mom keeps sending us home with boxes and tubs of various things from my husband’s childhood and youth: Games, toys, college textbooks, comic books, you name it. I feel like we can’t refuse to take it since it is my husband’s stuff and I suppose she shouldn’t have to store it anymore if she doesn’t want to. She always happily declares how good it is to clear excess stuff out of her house, which annoys the heck out of me because sure, she is de-cluttering her house by cluttering ours. We are now the ones who have to deal with sorting through this ever-growing backlog of stuff. I struggle to keep up with housework and organizing all our belongings as it is, and it is just so discouraging to have to haul home a carload of yet more stuff.

I will add that his parents have a huge house, and my husband is their only child, so it’s not as if they are suffering for lack of room. What say you? Can we ever say no to this, or do we just have to deal?

 

[Greenfields]

That’s just life,it’s for your husband to take and sort out when he can.My own parents went through that stage
sorting through things after my siblings and I left home…it took a few years altogether .And I’ve started doing it with my own kids so that I can get my own life in order .
When you’ve got time make it fun to learn about your husbands childhood and later years before you met him God bless and all the best.

 

[JetteZ]

Don’t “deal with it” just pitch it. If he hasn’t needed it in X years, I’m sure he doesn’t need it now.
Obviously he needs to make the final decision.

 

[pianistclare]

She’s giving him back his stuff.
It’s not aimed at you.
If he doesn’t want the stuff HE can throw it out or better yet, donate it.
Surely there are a couple of sentimental things you might want to keep for your on child as a remembrance one day.
It’s not a big deal.

 

[1ke]

What say you?

I say your husband should go over there one weekend and go through all his stuff— save, give away, and trash— and get it out of his parent’s hair. And do the same with all the stuff that’s already gone home with you.

It’s his stuff. He should be responsible for it.

 

[angel12]

What say you?

You & your husband should have been getting his stuff out of his parent’s house as soon as you had your own home. I frankly can’t believe you’re “annoyed” that they aren’t running a free storage facility.

 

[Irishmom2]

I feel like we can’t refuse to take it since it is my husband’s stuff and I suppose she shouldn’t have to store it anymore if she doesn’t want to. She always happily declares how good it is to clear excess stuff out of her house, which annoys the heck out of me because sure, she is de-cluttering her house by cluttering ours. We are now the ones who have to deal with sorting through this ever-growing backlog of stuff. I struggle to keep up with housework and organizing all our belongings as it is, and it is just so discouraging to have to haul home a carload of yet more stuff.

I will add that his parents have a huge house, and my husband is their only child, so it’s not as if they are suffering for lack of room. What say you? Can we ever say no to this, or do we just have to deal?

How can you even think you can say no to this as an option?
No, you cannot refuse it because it belongs to your husband, not to his parents. They are not decluttering their house by sending you their belongings, but what your husband left behind. As a married man, he is old enough to deal with the clutter of his own making, or leaving.

I would like to ask you why you think a big house is a reason why they should keep your husband stuff? It belongs to him. Perhaps you should allow your husband to go through the stuff in the garage and not ever actually bring it into the house. Or, as another poster mentioned, he should go to his parents house and take it all out at once. It is not right that he has left them to clear up his mess, for whatever reason he thinks it is acceptable.

 

[DeniseNY]

I think it’s your in laws house, and they want your hubby’s stuff out. Not unreasonable. He should go over there and spend a Saturday going through it. He can keep what he wants, maybe donate other stuff, and trash the rest.

 

[Clementine14]

She always happily declares how good it is to clear excess stuff out of her house, which annoys the heck out of me because sure, she is de-cluttering her house by cluttering ours.

Try to think of these as two separate things. Yes, she is de-cluttering her house. However, she isn’t the one responsible for cluttering yours; if you and your husband are choosing to keep these items, you are in control of how much clutter is in your own home. Your husband can get rid of what he no longer wants.

I don’t really think it matters how much room they have in their own house. We all have a right to keep our own homes however we like them, and I can certainly understand not wanting to have your adult kid’s stuff taking up unnecessary space. What does your husband think about it? It seems like the issue is really between you and him, and you need to come to an agreement about how much you will keep or whether to rent a storage unit, etc.

Also, there is a chance that your in laws have no idea that this bothers you. They might be perfectly fine with working with the two of you to come up with a plan (someone else suggested he go to their home one weekend and just sort through everything there- that sounds like a great idea).

 

[DebCWil]

Who do the things belong to? They belong to your husband making him responsible. The first person to talk to is your husband in order to avoid any bad blood between you and your mother-in-law.
Since everything that she is sending you does belong to him, it is his responsibility to keep or dispose of as he sees fit.
One person has already posted the idea of a weekend “nostalgia trip,” a way of learning more about your husband through the eyes of his mother while sorting through his things. That sounds like it might be a good relationship building idea.
Your husband’s items could be boxed and labeled for your future children to use, especially some of the toys and games.
I have heard of couples doing exactly that, keeping the toys that they enjoyed as small children for their own children. Grandma may actually like having a small toy chest at home for when her grandchildren come over. “This was your daddy’s when he was your age.” Together you could decide which were the most treasured of Daddy’s possessions. My mother-in-law, for instance, would talk about how my husband like the Velveteen Rabbit. When I was growing up the favorite Christmas story was The Littlest Angel.
Did your husband have a favorite red truck, or like to play medic? I have a son-in-law who has kept every running shirt he wore, plus every ticket to every concert he ever attended. Perhaps you can put a scrapbook together as another way while learning more about each other and developing the mother daughter bond described in the book of Tobit.
My son-in-law who accepted my daughter’s children as his own reads comic books, and is very particular about how they are kept. They can be filed and labeled in magazine files, again to be shared with any children you may later have. Books can be challenging for a bookworm who married a bookworm, whose daughter is a bookworm, and therefore has grandchildren who are bookworms.
Again, the person with whom to first discuss these matters is your husband. All these items belong to him and are his responsibility. It is up to him to talk to his mother, to speak to her about your clutter concerns, and perhaps together the three of you can come to a mutual understanding of how to deal with his things.

 

[dconklin]

Are the comic books in good shape? Those sell pretty well. I wish I had kept mine for my son. I have a little brother that was given my cool stuff.

 

[runningdude]

Your Mother in law does not know what is of sentimental value or not to her son/your husband, so she is giving you both the opportunity to sort anything of value before it is donated or disposed. She is giving it in chunks so that it is more manageable.

Keep in mind, that she is mortal, and that she may be trying to filter her earthly possessions now, so that you and your husband do not have a huge house full of “radioactive” stuff (an impossible mix of junk and sentimental items), to sort through when she and your father in law pass on top of funeral arrangements and settling the estate. Always declaring how “good it is clear excess stuff out of her house” may be her way of not drawing explicit attention to her mortality.

The items that remains will be the most important to her and her husband, so that you can better know which heirlooms to hold onto. (Speaking from experience, where we boxed up my grandmother’s house, and shoved it all into our basement, sigh…)

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I think it’s your in laws house, and they want your hubby’s stuff out. Not unreasonable. He should go over there and spend a Saturday going through it. He can keep what he wants, maybe donate other stuff, and trash the rest

I know. I was feeling frustrated when I posted this, and I probably should not have posted it at all, because there really is no solution except to take the stuff and have my husband go through it–except he never gets around to it, haha. But that is our problem, not theirs.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

You & your husband should have been getting his stuff out of his parent’s house as soon as you had your own home. I frankly can’t believe you’re “annoyed” that they aren’t running a free storage facility.

I wasn’t aware until recently that he still had stuff there. We did take several tubs of his movies and other stuff earlier on in our marriage. But you are right; I shouldn’t have expressed annoyance like that. I just wasn’t ready for more stuff (sigh), but again, that is our (or my husband’s) problem, not his parents’.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Are the comic books in good shape? Those sell pretty well. I wish I had kept mine for my son. I have a little brother that was given my cool stuff.

I think so? I didn’t look at them closely, but selling them could be an option if he isn’t too attached to them. (He probably is attached to them. ) We will see, I guess.

 

[Xantippe]

I know. I was feeling frustrated when I posted this, and I probably should not have posted it at all, because there really is no solution except to take the stuff and have my husband go through it–except he never gets around to i, haha. But that is our problem, not theirs.

Do you have a regular Saturday (or whatever) routine for household maintenance?

He could do a box per Saturday and it wouldn’t be too onerous.

And maybe you could beg your MIL to give you a break so you have a chance to make some progress? Not that she owes it to you, but that you’re getting buried in his stuff, he doesn’t have time to get to it, and it’s stressing you out. I’d ask it as a special favor, not as a right, and maybe give a date when you’ll be ready to take more.

By the way, one way to do the stuff is to tell your husband that you’re opening up one box tomorrow and that you’ll throw out whatever is in that one box at the end of the day. (Make sure to do this on a day when you know he has an hour or two of leisure.) Then keep doing one box a week until you’re done. Do a little bit at a time at regular intervals, and you’ll get through it.

 

[Xantippe]

In the interests of full disclosure, I have to fess up that I haven’t gone through my childhood bedroom. When I visit my parents, I occasionally take a few books, but I haven’t gone through my old desk.

Someday…

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I would like to ask you why you think a big house is a reason why they should keep your husband stuff?

It isn’t, and I shouldn’t have said that. They shouldn’t have to keep his childhood stuff if they don’t want to. But for what it is worth, they are not surrounded by his stuff.

Perhaps you should allow your husband to go through the stuff in the garage and not ever actually bring it into the house. Or, as another poster mentioned, he should go to his parents house and take it all out at once. It is not right that he has left them to clear up his mess, for whatever reason he thinks it is acceptable.

It’s not a mess; it is all in tubs or boxes. We got all of his “adult” stuff a while back; it seems to be his childhood stuff that she is clearing out (which I was not aware was there or that she wanted to get rid of it).

I suppose this is a difference between family practices; my mom and my grandma kept a good portion of their children’s books and toys at their homes for grandchildren to play with when they came over. Lots of good memories playing with all my mom’s and aunts’ cool toys from the '60s (which I always thought of as belonging to my grandma). That seems not to be my MIL’s philosophy, though (and that’s ok), and there are no grandchildren yet anyway.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Grandma may actually like having a small toy chest at home for when her grandchildren come over. “This was your daddy’s when he was your age.” Together you could decide which were the most treasured of Daddy’s possessions.

She seems not to have much sentimental attachment to anything from his childhood. Coming from a family that is just the opposite (my mom has kept folders full of our best childhood artwork, homemade cards, poems, etc., as well as a bunch of toys/books), I find this so strange, especially considering he is their only child. Family “cultural” differences, I guess.

Sadly, I also wonder now if part of the reason she is getting rid of his childhood stuff is that she has given up hope of becoming a grandma – I don’t know. We want a baby so much, but it’s just not happening.

 

[DebCWil]

I come from a large family. Being in the military, we had to purge constantly due to moving. My room was “storage headquarters” for things belonging to everybody else because I didn’t have to share sleeping space with anybody else.
Despite the large gap in age between us as siblings, it’s amazing how close our own children are in age. There is of course the exception of my older sister. I have a nephew older than my youngest sister.
When my only child was born, one of my brother called her “beginner’s luck.” I think he was married six years before he had any children. I warded off questions about when I would have another with “it will be at least another nine months.”
I don’t know how long you have been married, if you are trying too hard, etc. These are questions to which I do not have any answers. The answers are best left in God’s hands, and I understand can sometimes be difficult.
We are not the creators of life, only the co-creators, cooperating in God’s divine plan.
As for his last child, my brother called her “an afterthought.”