Most professional organizers will tell you the hardest house to declutter is their own. So when @Clutterbug decided to hand the reins to her husband, Joe, for a full-house purge, she admits she was terrified. “I thought he was going to come for all my stuff, and I was so scared,” she says. What happened next surprised both of them, and it came with a few moments of pure marital comedy.
The setup was simple. She had decluttered his belongings plenty of times, and he had decluttered hers, but the two of them had never done it together. So she let him lead. They set out a big bin for everything leaving the house, then moved room by room, taking turns picking items they thought were clutter. Each of them got three vetoes, and, as she tells it, she had a lot of fun using hers.
The Lamp, The Tea, And The Book Table
The kitchen came first, and Joe started small. He pointed at a lamp sitting on the counter and asked why it was there at all. She vetoed it on the spot. Then it was her turn to pick something, and she went after her own tea collection. She loves the pretty containers that hold it, and they stay, but she explained that the pretty system left other items with no home. Her tea went to the local soup shack instead.
Joe’s turn in the kitchen turned up actual trash: plastic tubs that he keeps washing and nobody uses because they look too much like cottage cheese containers, and a gadget that was broken. The two landed on something they call “samezies”: appliances that never get used or never work well can go. It hurt a little, she says, but it was fine.
Then came the moment she had been dreading. Standing in the living room, Joe told her the book table had to go, and he wanted his lamp back. That table, she says, is a work of art and came out of one of her own videos. He agreed it was a great idea and a great video, but argued it had served its purpose. She answered with a flat no and used a veto. The table stayed.
Joe had braced for her to go after the throw pillows. He was fine with them, saying they make the room look nice. She admitted she had expected the pillows to be his first target, and that she was delighted when they were not.
Cables, Remotes, And Boxes Nobody Could Explain
Downstairs, a tangle of random cables was the first thing to go. Remote controls were next, and here the couple made a deal that any reader can borrow: if you no longer own the device the remote belongs to, the remote leaves. If you still own the device, the remote stays. She points out that when a TV breaks, people toss the TV but almost never think about the remote.
The offices were next, with each spouse clearing the other’s. Joe went after the pretty boxes behind her desk, the ones viewers see in her videos each week. She admitted she has no idea what is inside most of them. Her turn at his office was just as revealing. They found a box of cables nobody could identify, one that would not even work in North America, plus several power bricks that belonged to nothing. They also found an old printer that had broken and a stash of ink cartridges she had bought in bulk online, roughly $20 each. Joe did something she called a big deal. He agreed to let go of his university textbooks, including one on digital filters. He is an electrical engineer, and he said he will never reference them again because the internet exists now.
“This is great couples therapy,” Joe said at one point. She added that what she gives up in stuff, she saves in couples therapy.
The Bedroom Reveal
In the bedroom, she went easy on him. A decorative tree that lands on the floor every night and returns to the bed each morning got the boot. Joe protested that it holds the tray where he eats mashed potatoes and gravy when she is away, so that one was complicated. Under the bed, they dug up a dusty bin of books he had never read, an empty box left over from buying medical supplies, and a fake medal he had ordered for himself online. She awarded him a decluttering medal on the spot for his efforts. She also found a knee pillow he uses when he sleeps on his side, and he was thrilled, since he had been looking for it the day before. It got to stay.
Three Rules For Decluttering With A Partner
After the fun, she laid out the rules she says make a shared declutter work.
- Start with your own things first. It is human nature to see someone else’s belongings as clutter and your own as essential, so walk into any room and look at what is yours before you point at what is theirs.
- Keep a family declutter bin. When you declutter without your spouse or kids, invite them to look through the bin afterward in case something is special to them.
- Use the container concept. You can keep whatever you want, as long as it fits in a set closet, shelf or drawer, and craft supplies do not live in the kitchen.
Joe added a point from experience. Problems start when one person’s stuff spills into another person’s space. She has seen homes where the husband’s tools end up in the kitchen. His rule is that tools and craft supplies can visit the kitchen, but they do not live there. He also shared a cautionary tale about a bottle of used oil that migrated out of the workshop, got shoved in a cabinet and was later mistaken for washer fluid and poured into a car. Things that belong in one space and drift into another, he says, tend to disappear and then cause trouble.
Their shared takeaway was that much of what they found was not really clutter at all, just things that needed a new home. She also found that a partner can work as a body double. Joe parted with textbooks he never would have released alone, and she parted with books she would have kept forever. By the end, she said she loved him extra much, and that she was a little disappointed he was not meaner.
She closed by asking viewers whether they would try this with a spouse or even their kids, and what they think would be the biggest hang-up. Start small, keep it kind, and remember that giving each other veto power might be the secret to keeping the peace.
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