When do I start disposing?

goodnightsienna

Registered User
Mar 5, 2011
72
0
Milnrow, near Rochdale
My wife Margaret is still alive. Her clothes,shoes and handbags fill her wardrobe.I constantly receive requests from charities for good quality clothing.
Do I wait till my wife dies,or am I perhaps waiting and hoping for a miracle cure?
 

Jo1958

Registered User
Mar 31, 2010
3,724
0
Yorkshire
Hi,
Can I suggest that you are waiting for the right time and only you will know when that time is right, it's one of the toughest decisions and can only happen when you are ready.
Take good care of yourself, with kind regards from Jo
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,443
0
Kent
My husband `s clothes are with him at the home. I gave his shoes to charity. There is nothing of his at home now, they are only things.
 

Katrine

Registered User
Jan 20, 2011
2,837
0
England
I know what you mean about the miracle cure. I disposed of a lot of my mother's worn out clothes and replaced them with more suitable items that are easier for her current life. I felt terrible about choosing clothes for her, it seemed to be such a personal intrusion. In her spare wardrobe are lots of good quality clothes and shoes, just in case she recovers sufficiently to want to wear them again, and loses all the weight she has gained in the last 3 years.

My view is that they are not taking up room that we need for anything else, and one day they can go to charity. There will always be someone who needs them in the future so there is no rush to dispose of them now. It will not upset me any more to leave the decision until a future time.

All I can suggest is that you think about how you would feel if you did pass these things on to a good home. Relieved? Virtuous? Guilty? More lonely? My mother has a friend, aged 89, whose husband died 35 years ago and she STILL has all his clothes and shoes. We keep one jumper and a dressing gown of my father's in his wardrobe. This is purely for my Australian brother to have something to smell of his dad when he visits once a year.
 

Bastan

Registered User
Feb 10, 2011
483
0
Manchester
Do what ever feels right sweet pea, I sorted Nats' out a long time ago. I found it quite easy giving his clothes to charity. I would have been heart broken doing it if he were dead.

Some people on here didn't agree with me but it suited me. I guess no one can decide for you, because one size never fits all.

Now his tools had me devastated when I tried to give them away and I had to abandon that idea. They are stuck down the cellar, probably going rusty.

So maybe try it and see.

love Bastan. xxx
 

jimbo 111

Registered User
Jan 23, 2009
5,080
0
North Bucks
Hello goodnightsienna
I can understand your thoughts on giving your wife's clothing to charity where it will
as you say serve a good cause
It is a very personal decision, and you will probably get differing views from members
I can only relate my personal experience
My wife died about 18 months ago, in the early days I thought about what to do with her clothes , and when
I asked the advice of members and most of the replies said "its up to you , only do it when you feel ready"
Now eighteen months on I still have all my wifes clothes and posessions
I do not dwell on them ,in fact when I open the wardrobe door I will often not notice them.
But what is important to me I still live in OUR home
My feelings of loss would be greater if I opened a wardrobe door and looked at a half empty wardrobe
My present feelings are that whilst I contnue to live here I will never dispose of her
clothing.
I am aware that if ever I move it is almost certain that I will then have to d oso
Some people will think I am morbid or crazy, but that is not so ,I am happy with my decision
Some day when the time is right I might change my mind
A rather long winded way to get to the point of my advice
Although your wife's clothing just hangs in the wardrobe , keep it , to dispose of it now could be regretted at a later date
jimbo 111
 

Contrary Mary

Registered User
Jun 11, 2010
1,895
0
69
Greater London
I know what you mean about the miracle cure. I disposed of a lot of my mother's worn out clothes and replaced them with more suitable items that are easier for her current life. I felt terrible about choosing clothes for her, it seemed to be such a personal intrusion. In her spare wardrobe are lots of good quality clothes and shoes, just in case she recovers sufficiently to want to wear them again, and loses all the weight she has gained in the last 3 years.

Again, only a personal viewpoint. My mother's clothes were totally unsuitable for her now that she had lost a lot of mobility. There was no spare wardrobe (well there is, but it is now full of incontinence pads etc!) so there was no option other than to give to charity or put in the textile bank. I tried to view it much the same as my own clothes, what I didn't use could go. I think I perhaps found it easier to do as she is still alive and I am replacing, not giving away.

But, there is no right answer here. It is whatever you feel comfortable doing. If they are not in the way or reminding you that things have changed, well, wait until you are ready is my view.
 

Saffie

Registered User
Mar 26, 2011
22,513
0
Near Southampton
I still have some of my husband's clothes here at home. One reason is that the wardrobe in his room at the nursing home is not big enough to house his numerous shirts. The other is that they kept putting short-sleeved shirts on him when he was obviously feeling cold. so I brought them home. He has his best suit in the wardrobe her, and some outdoor garments.

I gave a lot of clothes he was obviusly never going to need again away some time ago, placing them in the never ending supply of charity bags that keep arriving. I selected the appropriate bags carefully but it hurt and I felt extremely guilty.This is because he is still alive and it felt like an act of betrayal. I doubt I would feel this way were he no alive. I know Bastan thought differently as we discussed at the time. the point is you have to do what feels right for you and when it does too. The truth is that somebody will have to do it sometime and it's probably more appropriate that you do it rather tham a son, daughter or stranger.
 

eastiesgir

Registered User
Oct 9, 2011
187
0
i agree with what the others are saying, it's such a personal thing, what is right for one person isn't for another.
I haven't reached that point yet, but I think the clothes part will be ok for me, it will be mums bits and bobs that she has had for years that will be hard to deal with.
What ever your decision is it will the right one for you.
take care
x
 

goodnightsienna

Registered User
Mar 5, 2011
72
0
Milnrow, near Rochdale
When the time is right!

Do what ever feels right sweet pea, I sorted Nats' out a long time ago. I found it quite easy giving his clothes to charity. I would have been heart broken doing it if he were dead.

Some people on here didn't agree with me but it suited me. I guess no one can decide for you, because one size never fits all.

Now his tools had me devastated when I tried to give them away and I had to abandon that idea. They are stuck down the cellar, probably going rusty.

So maybe try it and see.
I have a faith so perhaps I'll know when the time is right.My friends, I thank you,


love Bastan. xxx
What a strange world we live in, Love Johnx
 

24fan

Registered User
Nov 13, 2011
118
0
When we were planning for my father to come home from the nursing home, we had his room decorated so all the furniture and his belongings went out in the garage until that was done. We have moved different furniture back because it better suits his room and his needs now, and have only really moved back in the clothes he wore in the nursing home though those are gradually being replaced by things that are more 'him' rather than their 'practical' choices - I would rather he liked what he wore and felt comfortable than doing what is practical for me - and as he was away for eight months, he doesn't remember anything of what was there before just what is in his room now.

I have been sorting through his stuff in the garage - he was a hoarder so there is a lot - and I am doing ten minutes or so a day, quite dispassionately. I've washed stuff for the local Hospice shop, some stuff can go on eBay and the rest will go in the bin and I think that the way I can do this, without being upset, without wanting to keep every single item he has ever valued, touched, bought, wanted, kept for no seeming reason etc. is solely because he is still alive. The things, the clothes, in of themselves have no real value to me anyway just as mine wouldn't to anyone else, but I have him and I *know* without a shadow of a doubt that this task would be so amazingly different if I was doing it after his death. I have kept a suit, and good shoes, a signet ring his mother gave him, his Naval Association tie and his medals for ... but, beyond that, pretty much everything else is either recycled in one way or another or in a bin liner and this is right for me and my mother and our now. The memories and photos I will have from this period and before are worth so much more than 'stuff' and I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a mausoleum of junk and un-necessary things just because, back in the day, my Dad or when the time comes, my mother wore them. They are just things though maybe there'll be something that smells of him that gets kept later but I truly think this way, this time, is so much easier than it will be later when I think I might be the worthy successor to his hoarding crown.
 

lillibet

Registered User
Aug 3, 2011
15
0
West Sussex
when.........

as others have said, when it feels OK for you. And I think the fact that you are asking the question suggests that you want to possibly remove some items that you feel your wife no longer has any connection to. I don't know what your wife is like, but I normally go through a 'wardrobe cull' at least twice a year to make room for new things, so could look upon it as helping her out with something she would have done anyway if she was able
 

goodnightsienna

Registered User
Mar 5, 2011
72
0
Milnrow, near Rochdale
.

Hello goodnightsienna
I can understand your thoughts on giving your wife's clothing to charity where it will
as you say serve a good cause
It is a very personal decision, and you will probably get differing views from members
I can only relate my personal experience
My wife died about 18 months ago, in the early days I thought about what to do with her clothes , and when
I asked the advice of members and most of the replies said "its up to you , only do it when you feel ready"
Now eighteen months on I still have all my wifes clothes and posessions
I do not dwell on them ,in fact when I open the wardrobe door I will often not notice them.
But what is important to me I still live in OUR home
My feelings of loss would be greater if I opened a wardrobe door and looked at a half empty wardrobe
My present feelings are that whilst I contnue to live here I will never dispose of her
clothing.
I am aware that if ever I move it is almost certain that I will then have to d oso
Some people will think I am morbid or crazy, but that is not so ,I am happy with my decision
Some day when the time is right I might change my mind
A rather long winded way to get to the point of my advice
Although your wife's clothing just hangs in the wardrobe , keep it , to dispose of it now could be regretted at a later date
jimbo 111

Thank you Jimbo,you are on my wavelength, I'll go along with your thinking All the best John