"My wife has 171 pairs of socks. How do I talk about it?"

I am crazy in love with my wife. We've known each other for 25 years and been married for 15 of those. We both work, have 4 kids and 4 grandkids. I love her more as time passes.

My wife really likes to shop. I can't mention or hint at reducing spending money to her. It causes a combination of a 2-3 day silent treatment and her talking to her self out loud about how awful I am. Lots of expletives and name calling in there. She has said that she knows she shops to much, but that's where it stops. She won't move forward in scheduling an appointment. I wrote down a few places on a sticky note for her. I was trying to help. That didn't go over well.

I WILL buy the socks. You cannot stand in my way. I don't need a therapist I have plenty of retail therapy.

This morning I was pairing socks. Like most people I hate it and so does she. I pair them and to most of the laundry. This morning I decided to count how many socks she has. She has 171 pairs. They span two drawers in her dresser. All socks are less than 5 years old, because she threw everything away and started over again with socks. I counted her T-shirts once (84) and got in a lot of trouble of that. I was honestly trying to help.

No I don't actually wear them. That's not the point.

I own 8 pairs of dress socks, 8 pairs of short ankle socks and 25 pairs of tube socks. My Mother-in-law has bought me packages of tube socks for Christmas over the years. I don't really like those types of socks, but I wear them if when I wear jeans. My MIL passed away 4 months ago, and I can't get rid of them without feeling disrepectful to her. I know I have a lot of socks as well.

I don't know how to mention it without upsetting her. She is aware that she has a problem and I don't want her to feel any more ashamed than she already does. I'm on the ASD spectrum. I am high functioning, but I have a bad habit of messing things up. I ask Google and over the past few years have begun to run AI queries to help me figure situations similar to this, but I still make a lot of mistakes. Would anyone be able to offer an opinion?

This is hilariously incompetent but "asking" Google or AI is terminally normie, he's not a real neurodivergent.