When you marry a widower ...

Lotus-eater

Is a way around this, just stick everything in boxes and put the whole lot in somewhere like the stable? Ask the son if he would be happy with that and what in the future he intends doing with them, considering like, that me your father and paddys mum don't want them?

Has his father told him that yet?

[Deleted User]

great post, Paddy's Mum

You've done all you can - I suggest the storage solution or can you and your husband present a united front to the stupid guy and say something like "there's all this stuff - if you want it, get it, otherwise it's going on freecycle or to the charity shops - I'm sure your Mum wouldn't have wanted all this stuff going un-used"

Good luck!

paddy's_mum

Lotus-eater - I hadn't seen your comment before I posted but in the stable is where a lot of this stuff already is.

The whole/entire/utter and only point about all this stuff is that the son doesn't want it! He just wants to punish his father for daring to move on from his first wife's death, and if he can smack me one for declining to be run out of town by the sherrif at the same time, all well and good.

The type and amount of stuff I'm talking about is what you see on those House Clearance expose programmes. Most of it has already gone into the outhouses but it's all got to be dealt with someday, even if that's after we're all three in our graves and the executors skip the lot!

It's short-sighted to leave it all out there for if ill-health ever dictated that the place is rented out or sold, somebody's got to work flat out for weeks to clear the mountains of useless clutter. Going on past experience, that person won't be my stepson!

And yes, my hubby has told his son that the clearing was done with his full consent and relief that he didn't have to face it himself but stepson is incapable of listening and understanding that life moves on, and that all things change.

Sad, isn't it and it was all so pointless and uneccessary.

Gemsgalore

I am taking your problem seriously PM, honest I am but........

What a laugh I'm having at all the stuff she kept .......has cheered me up no end :D

BTW, you never know......maybe he likes those pinnies

Errata

PM This appears to be a totally bizarre situation - who in their right mind has a collection of 450 souvenir tea towels ? Who in their right mind wants to keep them where they were left for posterity? Nobody - that's who.
Stick the blasted lot in a garden shed or the old stable and forget about them. I'm starting to think that this is nothing about stepson disliking you personally but very much about stepson having a very bizarre view of the world.
It's a difficult trick to pull off, but if you can put your feelings in one compartment of your mind and the dead wife's collectables in another compartment you might find it all a little bit easier to cope with.
Wishing you well.
As a PS - don't waste your time sticking rubbish on freecycle, nobody wants it.

[Deleted User]

joolzred wrote: »

.... say something like "there's all this stuff - if you want it, get it, otherwise it's going on freecycle or to the charity shops - I'm sure your Mum wouldn't have wanted all this stuff going un-used"

Good luck!

I did write "say" this to him - doesn't mean they actually have to do it, but they sweeten the pill before the lot goes to the tip

Gemsgalore

Also, why isn't this man married himself by now anyway? Has his behaviour towards women been similar to how he has treated you I wonder.......I've heard about these men who don't marry because no one can match up to their Mother........just a thought!

Lotus-eater

paddy's_mum wrote: »

And yes, my hubby has told his son that the clearing was done with his full consent and relief that he didn't have to face it himself but stepson is incapable of listening and understanding that life moves on, and that all things change.

Sad, isn't it and it was all so pointless and uneccessary.

I am actually struggling to see what the problem still is.

The son makes a choice, it goes, or he takes it.

Your OH has got to get this sorted out, I guess he still won't step up and sort it out completely. It sounds like everything has been done by you, that can be done.
Short of nagging the hell out of your OH to get it sorted with his son. But that would only be counter productive I would have thought.

Have you thought about a naughty step?

pusscat

Errata, (and a few others)

I hope that you did not mean your post the way it came across. I think it is pretty harsh to say that people who hoard things are out of their minds, and although you might find it amusing to laugh at them and take the mickey about their collecting what you see as tacky, twee or rubbish, 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.

Grieving is about learning to let go of someone you loved, it is hard, the natural instinct for some people is to hold onto everything that physically represents the dead person as it makes them easier to keep close. As their grief receeds they are usually able to start to let go of both some of the grief/anger and some of the physical things that represent the person.

I had a bottle of shampoo in my shower that was the last thing my Mum had given me before she died (long story as to why) and for several months after she died I could not bring myself to throw the empty bottle away. It was not a shrine, it simply sat in the corner of my shower and I kept looking at it - throwing it away was something that took me a few months to become ready to do. I am not out of my mind, (I hope) and I would like to think I dealt with my Mums death fairly well - but getting rid of that last "physical" connection took a little time.

12 years is a long time to grieve, but it is not unheard of. I don't think the son is behaving very well, but treating his mothers things as though they are worthless is not going to encourage him to behave in a more pleasant way.

I do understand some of why you have made your comments - I probably felt something similar before I had to go through a traumatic death, but I would like to think that one of the things I learned from my own grieving and my own sadness, is how to be more sensitive to others feelings, needs and wants, even though they don't match my own.

Puss
xx

Lotus-eater

Errata wrote: »

As a PS - don't waste your time sticking rubbish on freecycle, nobody wants it.

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