When you marry a widower ...

Errata

Lotus-eater wrote: »

You're joking surely. You can get almost anything hauled away! I've done it.
Especially 450 tea towels.

Must confess, I was thinking about the useless electric fires and clapped out tiles

Lotus-eater

Errata wrote: »

Must confess, I was thinking about the useless electric fires and clapped out tiles

Get a big box and stick some electric fires at the bottom, tea towels covering them on top

coolcait

pusscat, I totally agree with your post number 90. Beautiful expressed too - like your other posts on the subject.

It distresses me that so much of the mother/first wife's choices are being put forward for consideration, leaving her open to ridicule. I think the point has been made - more than once - that this is a family which keeps everything. I don't understand why there is a need to keep adding to the details of what was kept, and I see absolutely no reason why dress sizes need to be mentioned .

People have a different approach to what they keep, and how they grieve, and practically every aspect of their lives. So, I'll repeat what you say in your post:

"please remember that everyone has a different idea about what is normal or acceptable. The "rubbish" that people collect can be very important to them, and thier loved ones - it is very easy, but very cruel just to dismiss someone elses life because you think it is worthless."

paddy's_mum

Pusscat - truly, I do understand what you are saying. I've had my experience of awful death too - but what follows is the nub of this whole sorry affair ...

Exactly what should anyone do with sheds full of useless junk, not just the mother's things but the hoarded tat of the father, uncle and one set of grandparents into the bargain? They all ran a system of out of sight is out of mind and that's partly how such enormous amounts of junk ended up here. It's a smallholding with associated outbuildings and when I came here, every single building was up to the rafters with never-been-sorted chaos.

I note your words and I agree that it would be a form of cruelty to be "treating his mother's things as though they are worthless". However, what should any of us have done with the thousands of things that THE SON DID NOT WANT and which ARE worthless? If he didn't want to clear out a bulging cupboard, where was I supposed to put my belongings when at his father's request, the former holiday cottage became my home?

The point I keep trying to get across is why should anyone value what the son himself viewed as valueless until a second wife hove into view. Why wait five years, and thousands of missed opportunities to take things, to start shouting about wiping his mother's memory out?

Perhaps it's time stepson reflected on his unfairness in curtailing his father's right to be making lovely new memories with the second wife while at the same time ashe is adding ££££'s of value to the property of which the son is joint heir?

This thread has been of value to me, if only to clarify my thoughts. I don't dismiss anyone's thoughts but I think it has now run its course. Thank you all.

Errata

Good to see it's helped PM. I have a great deal of sympathy with you as I helped to clear my gran's house, my aunt's house and cleared my ma's house on my own. They were all hoarders par excellence and none of the houses contained anything of any merit or value whatsoever.
I may have a couple of bits and bobs that have value for me, but I'm not so stupid as to think they have any financial or sentimenal value - or use - for anyone else.

pusscat

paddy's_mum wrote: »

Pusscat - truly, I do understand what you are saying. I've had my experience of awful death too - but what follows is the nub of this whole sorry affair ...

Exactly what should anyone do with sheds full of useless junk, not just the mother's things but the hoarded tat of the father, uncle and one set of grandparents into the bargain? They all ran a system of out of sight is out of mind and that's partly how such enormous amounts of junk ended up here. It's a smallholding with associated outbuildings and when I came here, every single building was up to the rafters with never-been-sorted chaos.

I note your words and I agree that it would be a form of cruelty to be "treating his mother's things as though they are worthless". However, what should any of us have done with the thousands of things that THE SON DID NOT WANT and which ARE worthless? If he didn't want to clear out a bulging cupboard, where was I supposed to put my belongings when at his father's request, the former holiday cottage became my home?

The point I keep trying to get across is why should anyone value what the son himself viewed as valueless until a second wife hove into view. Why wait five years, and thousands of missed opportunities to take things, to start shouting about wiping his mother's memory out?

Perhaps it's time stepson reflected on his unfairness in curtailing his father's right to be making lovely new memories with the second wife while at the same time ashe is adding ££££'s of value to the property of which the son is joint heir?

This thread has been of value to me, if only to clarify my thoughts. I don't dismiss anyone's thoughts but I think it has now run its course. Thank you all.

Paddys Mum,

I am sorry if it came across that my post was aimed at you - I did try to make it obvious by starting with the other posters names - but these things are not always that clear on internet forums.

My gripe was with the few posters who were laughing at people "being out of their minds" for having a collection of tea towels - whilst I am no great fan of novelty tea towels, laughing in a pretty superior way at a dead womans collection of tea towels seemed a pretty low thing to do in my opinion.
It is my own fault for not sticking to the topic of the OP - apologies.

I actually totally agree with you - I think that you have given the son more than enought chances to take the things that were important to him and he has not done so. I also agreee that these things have only become important to him at the times it has suited him.

I hope that things do start to get easier for you -as I put in one of my earlier posts, I really think that the responsibility for sorting this situation out lies with Dad/husband, and I hope that he takes the responsibility seriously, it feels very much as though you are taking all of the stress, grief and punishments for him at the moment.

As I said in a previous post, I really wish that someone who is as sensitive and caring as you had been the type of person that my Dad had chosen to make his second marriage with.

Apologies for the misunderstanding

Puss
xx

SugarSpun

PM I'd put the tiles on ebay - 1960s vintage furnishings can go for wildly preposterous money

Also, your husband should be dealing with his son.

Lara44

SugarSpun wrote: »

PM I'd put the tiles on ebay - 1960s vintage furnishings can go for wildly preposterous money

Also, your husband should be dealing with his son.

LOL - I was about to say - send them all to me and I will put them to good use!

PM I have followed this thread with interest, and I have felt so much empathy for you in the difficult situation. Like you I am naturally a streamliner of 'stuff' while my OH is a hoarder. We have been packing to move house this week and untold rows have come about because I want him to get rid of the load of stuff he has been hoarding but never uses. I wanted to say that even outside the tense family situation, rows about 'stuff' can get heated!

It seems that your husband's family is pretty extreme, honestly I have never heard of that much stuff being kept, and it sounds like something off the TV. At the end of the day, even after the most tragic death, life for the living goes on, which is perhaps incredibly bittersweet for your stepson. But in the end, what can you do? Being miserable in a home you feel that is not your own because your stepson is holding you to ransom is no kind of life. I agree with other posters that the refurbishment should be done in a tactful way, of course, I don't believe PM that you would have been 'in his face' about it. I read your most frustrated comments here as being just a private release from the situation, rather than a reflection on what you thought of your OH first wife or your stepson. Being cross and having a rant is human surely?!

I also believe that to have allowed your stepson to influence your life so directly would have been the wrong thing to do. It is not healthy that so long after his Mum's death that he should be so vengeful about her things, especially when he has had ample time to claim what he wants. It would be wrong because it also would continue to normalise and enable his attachment, and for his own health and life he needs to move on and have a life of his own.

Apologies for the monster post I really wish you well for the future.

Errata

Sounds like something off the TV ? Yep, we all remember Mr Trebus, but none of us would have wanted to live next door to him.

Savvy_Sue

Errata wrote: »

who in their right mind has a collection of 450 souvenir tea towels ?

I don't know about tea towels, but I shudder to think how many crested teaspoons my mother has collected over the years! she's got a fair few thimbles too. And I have no idea where they all are, don't recall seeing them recently but I am sure they are lurking somewhere.

Also wondering why my father kept the motor from a windup gramophone, and what to do with it.