Have been threatening....

I wouldn’t throw anything away that belonged to MrA, but I’ve been known to bring things to his attention and ask if he still wanted them.

My late DH insisted on keeping everything he'd ever worn, right back to before I even knew him, back in the 1960s. Old jumpers with holes in were the only things I ever got rid of without him knowing, and he never noticed or asked for them. And I too did what someone upthread did - put my fingers in and made the holes bigger!

Oh you have to throw away some of their stuff sooner or later. I do it with individual items. I bag the thing up so he doesn't see it in the dustbin and get it out again.

I wouldn’t get rid of DH’s stuff. To be fair, he is pretty good about clothes, but hoards loads of other stuff and is forever buying new gadgets, tools etc. I don’t care, if they will go in the garage but hate it when they clutter up the kitchen.

Same with his magazines, which were taking over the house. A weekly photographic one, a fortnightly computer one, monthly electronic one and one for his wireless communication interests, (which had been his job).

Not one was to be thrown out just in case there was an article he might need one day. They piled up in the sitting room, the downstairs cloakroom, our bedroom. Eventually I started moving them slowly to the study, one by one, and then one by one to the recycling. I always made sure there was a good pile somewhere that he could see, but slowly the old ones went, to be replaced by the new.

Strangely, he never once looked for an article......