Don't put too much into how the job dynamics have changed over time - she'd probably be hoarding anyway. I have a relative who's a hoarder - it's just a part of her personality, not really related to those around her. The strangest thing is how comfortable the hoarder is in his/her environment even though everyone else is quite distrubed by it.

Don't call child welfare, etc. Once they're involved, THEY take over and make ALL the decisions. Once they find out that the LW has allowed his kid to live with this for years, and that the LW was in a depressed funk for several years as well, they may decide to stick the kid in a foster home, or give custody to the mother-in-law, or lord knows what. They will be directing and inspecting your life for YEARS TO COME. They have NO sense of humor, NO sense of proportion, and little common sense. DON'T CALL THEM. If you call the fire department, THEY will call child welfare. Work it out yourself somehow and tell your well-meaning, interfering mother to butt out before she makes the mistake of inviting the ridiculous state machine into your existence for the next five or ten years.

I strongly agree with those who have advised postponing involvement of the authorities, i.e.: the Fire Marshal or Child Protective Services. Once you get them involved the process will be completely out of your hands. You will have to go along with their process, as long as it takes, and abide by their decisions. While CPS is on your case what options you have now will become limited: moving out of the house, filing for divorce, etc. will be scrutinized and complicated by the third party you invited into your life.

The solution to your situation may seem obvious to you, but there's no guarantee CPS will see it that way. Considering that problems with the house have persisted as long as they have, CPS could very well see you as part of the problem for letting it happen. Likewise, if you let this go on you are opening the door for someone else to call in the appropriate authorities. It could be the parents, it could be anyone who sees what's happening on and feels compelled to act. Unlike Cary, I don't think you have a couple of years to figure this out.

Lastly, while you say you were in a long funk I find your wife's behavior regarding your employment and income deplorable. I don't know what sort of expectations your wife has regarding the lifestyle she has but, personally, I would find it extremely degrading to have my earning power be the subject of constant criticism. You also mentioned restoring the balance of power in the relationship. In my experience, healthy relationships don't include persistent or repeated power struggles. Where is the mutual support and admiration here?

katie was dating my ex-husband...how hellish

Thanks, Callie, for that tip about the Institute for Living in Hartford. Yes, their program is described at their Web site.

http://www.instituteofliving.org/ADC/current_research_studies.htm#Hoarding

The LW might want to contact them; they apparently offer a nationwide network of resources and help for compulsive hoarding.

Their contact page is here:

http://www.instituteofliving.org/ADC/hoarding_info_request.asp

I dated a hoarder once. The house was jammed full of crap: the garage, the attic, the spare rooms, bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, the side of the house. Cars that hadn't moved in 20 years were in the garage and the driveway. He didn't throw out coffee cans or any kind of glass jar that could be used again. If I threw something like that out, he would get it out of the trashcan. The house was literally falling down around him, rotting, yard growing out of control.

Every moment of every day was about him. What HE wanted, what HE thought of me, what HE wanted my life to be like, etc. He had finely tuned methods of doing little things like the dishes, or the way to set silverware on the counter so only the handle touched the surface. He would go apeshit if his methods were not emulated and any sign of agitation was met with, "I'm only trying to help and make you better."

My point: your wife's problem has already damaged your child and will continue to do so. You need to get out before his sense of self-worth and identity is damaged further. It is an extremely unhealthy, abnormal way of living. If your wife decides her stuff is more important than her child and your marriage, that's her problem. It's not YOUR job to make her better. It's your job to take care of you and your offspring. If she decides she wants to get better, fantastic. But you can't make someone change. I am personally a bit surprised that Cary is advocating such codependence.

don't you ever get tired of being a helpful therapist who always tries to do everything the nice way? hey: dude, call a fucking mover and have them show up the minute she leaves for work. have them cart all the shit away and when she throws a tantrum about it...too goddam bad. stop being a pussy and take some fucking direct action. jesus...you wanna keep living in a fucking dump? and your kid to grow up thinking it's normal to live that way?

mike villers

simply minorly messy and somewhat disorganized but getting better, but I do have some empathy for a hoarding mentality, mostly as a progressive person concerned about our environment.

I've started throwing out so much more now than I used to. But when you think about it, the amount of trash that we throw out, the amount of plastic, papers, etc. is simply astounding on a daily basis.

You might have a recycling program, but it takes time to sort through all the plastic packaging crap that we accumulate, that can be a project of itself...sorting through plastic stuff. (BTW...Why oh why are CDs stored in like 3 levels of plastic? Isn't the cover enough?)

Clothes are cheap now, thanks to Chinese labor, but it also means that they are not well-made. Seams rip after a few washes. Who knows how to sew anymore? Who has time to sew? Most women work outside the home. So it seems wasteful to just throw the clothing away, but who wants ripped clothing? So it goes out to some pile "to be dealt with later," and that is never a priority to be dealt with unless you have regular purges.

I feel pretty guilty about just throwing stuff out. I try to get to the Salvation Army on a regular basis, but more often than not, bags of "giveaway" stuff collect dust in the garage until I can get there.

Some stuff is just too heavy to put in your car to give away, so you save it for some "yard sale" that never happens, or store it away somewhere.