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No, I’m not talking race, religion, or politics. But I am talking about a difference so pervasive, so challenging, so disturbing that at times we’ve wondered if our relationship could stand it.

Randy’s a pack rat. I’m a purger.

While my husband has never met a piece of junk mail he doesn’t like, I patrol our home like a mean prison guard, constantly on the lookout for any stray object that doesn’t have immediate significance in our lives.

Where my husband treats each envelope in our mailbox like some beloved, long-lost relative, I flick through each day’s pile like I’m standing before the summer sale’s rack at the discount store. (Of course, Randy would point out here that utility bills have ended in the garbage. I just don’t know what he’s talking about… *cough*).

We should have known we were in trouble long ago when we moved into our first apartment. As I dusted each corner and lined up the knick knacks just right, I noticed my husband bringing in eight or nine large, mysterious cardboard boxes. When I asked what they were, I came to find they housed his collections: baseball cards, albums, newspapers, coins, and political memorabilia.

I looked around our apartment that could barely contain our bed and sofa, knowing at that moment, I was in a mixed marriage.

And yet many decades have passed and somehow over time we’ve learned to strike an uneasy truce, both casting suspicious glances at the other from time to time. Even when I notice the mountain of papers around his desk starting to look ominous, I’ve learned to bite my tongue.

In the way he’s learned to pretend he believes me when I just don’t know what happened to the pile of catalogs that disappeared last week.

From talking to other couples, I’ve come to realize this is not an unusual phenomenon nor gender-based. Apparently there are female packrats and male purgers. When we’re together, purgers bond over that liberating feeling of throwing things out, making things orderly. Packrats bond over keeping everything close…and I mean everything.

Maybe our differences complement each other. Randy’s tolerant, flexible nature is balanced by my no-nonsense, bottom line, cut to the chase approach to life. Whatever the case, somehow it works.

Now if I could just get him to clean that desk.

 

Are you in a mixed marriage? Comments are always welcome and if you like, please share. Thank you!

Comments(16)

  1. OMG, I can totally relate. Every time my husband takes the trash to the dump he comes home with stuff! I’ll admit sometimes it’s perfectly good usable stuff! He found a perfect little stride bike for our toddler! Other times, it’s just more clutter for the yard.
    He likes to keep all remodel scraps and has piles of clothes. I purge regularly! He’s getting used to living cleaner and I’m getting used to letting him keep some of his “treasures”!!! Although now every time he can’t find something, I of course “threw it away!!” (even though I usually didn’t, at least not yet LOL!!) Loved this post!!

      • Laurie Stone

      • 7 years ago

      Oh my God, Carissa, we live in parallel universes. I also get accused of throwing things out… sometimes justly. Thank God we have one of each to balance our marriages out. Can you imagine two pack rats living together? Shiver.

  2. Me too! I find myself going behind him to throw things out lol. I admit at times I throw out too much but with as much as he brings in I kinda have to lol.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 7 years ago

      Heidi, I do the same thing. As Randy’s bringing new stuff in the front door, I’m quietly taking old stuff out the back. I even knew a wonderfully-devious wife who encouraged her husband to take “weekends with the guys” so she could purge the house. Genius.

  3. Oh my – I’m the same as your husband whereas my darling husband echoes your viewpoint!! 😜

      • Laurie Stone

      • 7 years ago

      Yes, Linda, you also have a mixed marriage, only in reverse. So interesting. Maybe its true that opposites attract.

  4. I have a great deal of sympathy. I’m slightly untidy, but my wife is a walking disaster area. Somehow, we’ve managed to get used to each other’s ways, but it hasn’t always been easy.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 7 years ago

      Bun, So funny. A “walking disaster area?” I think you have another blog post in the making.

    • Liv

    • 7 years ago

    LOL…yeah…guilty here too. I’m the pack rat though. Hubs gets annoyed when I keep our older boys clothes for the younger one. Something about it being 8 years before he’ll need them.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 7 years ago

      Liv, So interesting. I’m learning there are lots of female packrats! Its interesting how the opposites seem to marry. Maybe we sense something in the other we need in ourselves?

  5. Bwahahaha! Husby and me to a tee!
    When you figure out how to get him to clean that desk, can you shoot me a note?

      • Laurie Stone

      • 4 years ago

      Diane, Ha ha! I’ll be glad to. (His desk is still a mess).

  6. To an outsider, this is hillarious. However, I can understand that these large differences in personality and collections can drive folks crazy.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 3 years ago

      Janeane, We’ve been married forty years and I’ve wondered at times, how we’ve survived!

      1. I am the pack rat. He is the purger. A challenge, indeed!

          • Laurie Stone

          • 11 months ago

          Carol, Love hearing about reverse-couples!

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