YOU never really get to know someone until you live with them. I say this because after almost four years of “dating”, my partner has decided to take a chance on mad, bad Cookie and we’re now living together.

He’s burned his bridges as he’s sold his own house, so if he changes his mind he’s got nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I like that.

Should we have a tempestuous row – and we rarely do – he can always seek solace in a hotel room for the night. But he won’t do that because he’s an accountant.

So I’m feeling pretty damn smug that I’ve finally ensnared my man.

Now during our dating years (there have been a few “resting” phases), I’ve got to know him pretty well.

He’s almost always in a good mood, which I mistook for psychosis, but that’s just him.

He’s pretty grounded because he picks up the dog poo in the back garden (not with his bare hands obvs). He cleans, cooks and irons his own shirts. Pretty damn perfect, really.

Except not. Having never lived with him, I never noticed a deep, dark obsession because he kept it under wraps, behind closed doors and confined to the privacy of his own inner sanctum.

At its worst it’s a beast unleashed, a craving, an addiction and there’s no support group for this affliction.

Some men collect beer mats, football shirts and women.

My bloke – I can hardly bring myself to say it – collects receipts. Thousands of them in neat little piles all over the house.

I realise now why the drawers in his kitchen could never be opened, because they were rammed full with bits of paper.

They’re all over the bedroom, in the fruit bowl, the drawers and in his trouser pockets so when they’re washed they leave soggy bits of paper over all the clothes.

And that’s not counting the thousands he brought with him from his own house. I suspect some are so old they’re handwritten on parchment.

So in my typically “get it out in the open” style, I brought it up.

“Why do you need all those receipts?” I said failing to disguise my irritation. “For VAT,” he said nonchalantly.

“But you’re not VAT registered being employed and all that,” says I, the former businesswoman.

“Hmm”, he said and beamed a smile. And we both set off laughing.

“Can we start re-cycling some of them, but obviously the antiques we can offer to a museum,” I said with only a hint of sarcasm.

Since then the little piles have been sloooooooowly reducing and some have been hidden.

I expect to find bunches stuffed into the legs of my tights or other such places.

I’m hoping one day he’ll be able to make a purchase, screw up the receipt and toss it into the air with wild abandon.

But that’s asking an awful lot of an accountant.