Hi Karen,

I'm a new fan of yours and could not put my first book (Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui) down until I had read the last page.

My question is this: My husband and I are both in our early 60's and have been married for 2 years. I'm a clean freak and my husband is the king of clutter. I read what you said about leaving another person's clutter alone. I do understand that one person can never change another and I know that the few times I have tried to persuade him to get rid of some of the clutter he becomes panicky. He doesn't even want me to dispose of any of my "junk". I guess this I could live with but Karen how do I deal with stuff all over the cupboards, the dining room table, bathroom counter, dressers, etc,etc.? He doesn't seem to be comfortable until every flat surface is piled high. We have a four car garage and we can't even get a car in it. His idea of cleaning is to move things from one spot to another.

I know that he suffers from depression and I was amazed when I read that the two seem to go hand in hand. Help. What can I do to keep from loosing my sanity?

- B.K., USA

Karen's reply:

As I say in my book, clutter is not the root of the problem, it is a symptom of the problem. In this case it looks very much that your husband is using clutter as a way of dampening down his emotions to help him to cope with his depression. So the way forward is to persuade him to seek help for the cause of his depression, for his own sake and for the sake of your marriage. I'm not talking here, of course, about taking prescription drugs to further numb his feelings but some form of psychotherapy to deeply address the underlying issues and bring joy back to his life and yours.

You may be interested to know that in my own experience as a therapist I have found that depression is generally caused by a person becoming disconnected from their Higher Self and therefore going off-track from their spiritual path. It can also be caused by physical chemical imbalances. I suggest you read up on the topic - there are some very helpful books available these days.