Is hoarding an AS trait?
Perhaps he knew that wouldn't solve anything in the long run.
This reminds me of a friend of mine, who I strongly suspect is an Aspie. She kept her old jeans for the daughter she would have someday, which I found utterly illogical. Now she has two sons... I wonder if she still have the jeans.
I confess to having stockpiled an enormous number of children's books and being pretty sad my son doesn't show much interest. He does like to read some, but nothing like the voracious reading that I did, and his tastes are somewhat different. I will have to go through his books and do a lot of discarding in the coming years and that will be very sad for me.
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Sharing the spectrum with my awesome daughter.
You're right about the husband understanding he couldn't control his wife's hoarding. For all I know he filled a lot of dumpsters only to find her piles of articles regrowing. That was what my AS son did when he asked his brother and me to help him clean out his house so he could get at a wall that needed repair. He flapped and couldn't understand what should go and what should stay so every item was negotiated. But I give him credit: what finally ended up in the dumpster stayed there. A year later, different stuff filled the area.
Since I don't live with him, I was even somewhat entertained by his hoarding, But I feel some anxiety watching him with his new baby. I just hope he has enough imagination to keep the areas the baby can reach free of things that will harm the little boy.
It is disappointing watching your child rejecting the books you looked forward to reading to him. I think reading or not reading is genetic. As is each person's taste in books.