Hi talia,
It's a difficult situation you find yourself in I would imagine with your husband not wanting to acknowledge he has this problem. There is some good information around these days particularly regarding the 'hoarding' component. I know someone who is a compulsive hoarder (former husband) and for them it's more about their need to control everything around them. Unfortunately in keeping objects and hoarding everything imaginable it becomes difficult for people to live a regular life. Trying to remove things from the environment only causes anxiety and a feeling of loss of control all over again.

Anyway, just wanted to leave a few good websites here for you. Your hubby needs to get help for this and there is help available and hoarding can be treated. Getting him to do this is the big hurdle! I really feel for you. The only way that he's going to get help though is to acknowledge that this is a problem and from my own past experience with a hoarder, that's easier said than done. The sad thing really is that there is help these days and it might take some time and it might be inconvenient but heck, it's a lot better than not treating the behaviour/condition and ending up living with piles of "things" and nothing else. All the best with this... please let us know how you and he are doing and if he's willing to get some help.

There is some excellent info. on the OC Foundation site regarding hoarding. There's a list of topics on the left hand side of the site.
http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/
Obsessive Compulsive Foundation

• * What Is Compulsive Hoarding?
• * Treatment
• * Effects on Family & Society
• * Research Articles
• * Research Digest
• * Book Reviews
• * Case Studies
• * About Support Groups
• * Rating Scale

There's also some more information on this thread here at NeuroTalk that might be helpful.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=7270

also there are a lot of very good articles about Hoarding and OC behaviours over on PsychCentral which is the parent site for this one at NeuroTalk. There's a search feature on the main page and if you just type in a key word then you'll bring up some excellent information.

http://psychcentral.com/search/?Matc...arding&x=0&y=0


I just noticed on PsychCentral there is one paragraph about "cluttering" rather than "hoarding" but it mentions the real key to all of this and I hope that your husband will get some assistance from a professional for what he's going through. The illness and loss of his parents would have been a terrible time for him. There are other ways of treating OC behaviours apart from medications although sometimes medications in conjunction with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy seems to work best. It all depends on the individual situation. I just hope he goes back to see a professional sooner than later, and make sure it's someone who is skilled in CBT.

Edited to add:
Something else I was just thinking about and that's "anxiety". What I personally saw was the actual hoarding or saving of objects wasn't a cause for anxiety, it was the throwing away or the re-organizing of the objects and that's another reason that your husband needs outside professional help, because if you as his partner start to reorganize or throw out what your husband is collecting then he'll lose his sense of control and the anxiety will surface... as I say that's just from personal experience. Not sure it's the same for everyone.