Husband's Clothes

I have a different perspective from the others. I have enough on my plate keeping my two kids looking decent, I don't want to take on a third.

For me its a respect thing - my respect for him and his respect for me. My husband is in charge of keeping himself looking presentable; it is not something he would expect me to be responsible for. I am responsible for keeping myself looking decent; its not his job or his place to judge my "presentability". I would be terribly offended if he decided to get rid of some of my clothes. I have a host of clothes that I keep around just in case...(just in case I gain weight, just in case I lose weight, just in case, just in case.) I would feel very disrespected if those disappeared. Also, I have a stained, holey, grungy t-shirt that I wear at least once a week. I love it! it is the right softness to be comfortable, it is already stained so I don't care about chocolate milk swipes or nose swipes or whatever else my two year old wants to give me, and it's a reminder of a big run I did a while back. My husband hates it. but, would he toss it? no. not ever.

My husband is responsible for dressing himself and he decides when his clothes are too ragged to be worn anymore. If he wants to wear a holey shirt to church, or a dress shirt to mow the yard, that's his call to make. I don't go through his closet and purge his clothes.

I have a section of clothes for "everyday", one for "work", a section of "public wear" and another for "church/special occasions". He wears the clothes according to the happenings. After almost 12 years of marriage, he's learned what he can and can't do when it comes to his attire :)

Oh yes... my father is this person.
Alas, since he never throws anything out, and he likes to wear the same stuff over and over, he has a closet full of new clothes. Mom just chucks the old stuff when it gets ratty. After 50+ years of marriage, he doesn't ask where his stuff got to anymore, he just goes into his closet and finds something new to ruin...
He does have church clothes that he keeps nice, though. When we give him new items that are for church, we tell him so. That way, he won't wear them in the yard or for chores.
LBC

I fully agree with Katherine and Christina. Are you his wife or his mother? If we want husbands to act like grownups then maybe we should treat them with the respect and boundaries that a grownup deserves.

If you do not agree with their choices, you may certainly communicate clearly, openly, and directly. However, be careful of your intention in your communication. Are you communicating to just give the information about how you feel or are you communicating to change someone else? How do you feel when others feel you are not doing things "right"? Does it trigger your anger or hurt and a belief that you aren't good enough?

It does the same thing for someone else. When we think that our way is "right" and do everything we can to make others follow our way then we are disrespecting their boundaries and sending them the message that we do not think they are good enough.

I don't have any advice but wanted to share that my husband STILL wears clothes he got in 10th grade...we are 30 years old now!!!! :)

OMG my fiance has (or rather, HAD) about 5 blue tshirts and 5 green tshirts, ALL THE SAME. He's colorblind, so that makes 10 shirts the same color. I should add that he NEVER wears them. One day while cleaning, I took all but one of each and tossed them. He asked about it, and I told him the laundry nazi banished them. I must have said it with such a serious straight face, he didn't push the issue and never asked again.

He keeps everything, he's such a girl. If something doesn't fit, I toss it. If it has holes in it, I toss it. If it is horribly stained, I toss it. The only time he's ever mentioned it is if he's running out of socks or underwear, in which case I'll go buy him new stuff. If he's working (he does construction and renovation) in new clothes, too bad! Sorry, but my money tree died a while ago, and I'm not buying new things just because you're foolish with what you've got.

My husband is a GC and he certainly has more clothes than the 4 children and myself put together. I ask him about once every other month to weed them out and about once every other month he shows up with some new items. It is a vicious cycle! Needless to say, new or old, he will wear all of it to the job site and muck them all up. I am dying to read all of your comments to see what suggestions they have for this dilemma.

Just recently I redid his closet with large signs marked "Work" and "NOT Work". So far, he as been pulling from the right places and none of the nice clothes have gotten messed up. I will let you know if it works.

I've had this problem for years but he's lost so much weight he FINALLY got rid of a huge amount of his clothes including the yucky ones. He does like donating his things so I think that helps him part with some of his stuff knowing someone else can get some use of his "gently worn" clothes.

My husband and I both keep clothes that are stained and/or have holes in them for doing grungy work. I limit the number we have though. I have 3 shirts and he has 7 that are stained or holey. Anything else gets turned into shop rags that we use for things like checking the oil, cleaning dirty tools, etc. When he asks where something went I just tell him it's in the rag bucket. I immediately cut up the old clothes so there is no bringing them back in the house.

We have occasionally left spur of the moment in our grungy clothes, not really thinking about how they look. Now I keep a clean shirt for each of us in our vehicles so we can change if needed. That has come in handy on many occasions.

There are also times my husband starts doing something in good clothes instead of wearing something that is already ruined. When I see him doing that I take an old shirt to him and ask him to change real quick. The few times he commented it was a hassle I reminded him that replacing clothes can get expensive, but it doesn't cost anything to change his shirt. He can't really argue with that so he changes his shirt.

I also buy him t-shirts in packages of 3 or from Goodwill. They are inexpensive and he wears them around the house. If they get ruined at least I'm not out a lot of money.

Generally once a year, I start going through everything we have and donating stuff to Goodwill. I tell my hubby he's got to thin out his clothes, and if he doesn't I'm going to do it for him. That usually works after I remind him a couple times. ;)

I totally know what you mean by wearing good clothes to do house projects!! I get so annoyed when I see my man with goggles and an electric power tool wearing good shoes, nice pants and an expensive sweater!! ROAR!!

My husband sounds similar. Although he does change if we are running out the door to go someplace other than Home Depot or Lowes. What I did with his old clothes (he still had t-shirts from when he was a size small and he is a large!) is hover over him until he went through them and either tossed them or put them in the donate box. I know it sounds childish, but that was the only way I could get him to go through his stuff.

Good luck!

You are not alone, we have a hard time with clothes in our house. I do agree with the others that say that it's your husband's decision on what he wears. However if he has things he never wears but insists on keeping them when you ask then I would put them in a box or some where away from everything else and then let it go. Also let him be responsible for buying and taking care of his clothes, he is an adult and it is one last thing you have to be responsible for. I try to remind myself that while I know my husband needs my help with organization I don't want to mother him.