Help! My live-in partner of 3 years has too many clothes and it’s overrunning our house. We live in a two bedroom condo with only two closets in the entire unit, and there’s just not enough space.
At last count (2 years ago) there was over 300 articles of clothing - shirts, pants, jackets. There is constantly piles of clothes everywhere, clean and dirty, and nowhere to put them. They wear multiple outfits each day and throw them on the floor in the evening.
2 years ago I bought a few Ikea clothing containers to slide under the bed, and those are packed full of folded shirts that are never worn. And they just keep buying more.
I’ve spoken with them about this multiple times and they say that they’ll get rid of some of the clothes, but never did.
On the flip side, I have four pairs of pants, a few shorts, around a dozen shirts and a suit.
What can I do?
Is it actually too many clothes, is it that you are judging them (given your note about your own wardrobe at the bottom), or a mix of both?
You need to avoid moral judgement. Focus on practicalities - is your partner meeting shared living expenses targets, are they meeting their savings goals; and how the clothes are or are not overrunning the space, resulting in obvious opportunity costs for you or the both of you.