So we just bought a new house and moved in. The movers were a bunch of thieves that refused to take anything that wasn't a large piece of furniture claiming that it wasn't part of the deal (it was, and it's on the contract we signed, but that's another story and a battle for later), so when we moved, I needed to basically move everything myself and unload everything into our cellar whilst they were simultaneously loading stuff upstairs.

We've been slowly unloading stuff in the cellar in the last few weeks, but there's still a bunch left for us to do. In addition, there's also a lot of junk from the old owner still here and it's been piling up in our cellar as we unpack so this weekend, I thought I'd just rent a van, gather all of this stuff and take it to the dump. My wife's parents were visiting so they helped with loading the van. Quite honestly, the amount of stuff was so overwhelming as it is, I didn't bother checking anything, I just wanted it all gone so I put all the stuff in the van, drove it off to the dump, got rid of it all and came home.

So today, my wife asks me "Do you remember those 3 boxes I kept near the staircase that I told you that I put aside specifically to not get chucked? Where did you put them?"

I have no idea what the fuck she is talking about. I never heard her telling me this, but her mother backs her up telling me where I was, what I was doing and when I was told this and that I acknowledged what she was saying at the time. I've obviously been told and I do vaguely remember the moment in question but I cannot recall what exactly I was told at all. I just got rid of all the boxes of junk I say.

Her eyes widened, and her jaws drop as she loudly utters the words "Are you serious?" to me rather incredulously. Now I'm panicking. What the fuck did I throw away?

Well, nothing of importance, you know. Just all the folders in our old office. You know, things like our tax records, our birth certificates, ALL of our daughter's documents, all of our job contracts, our banking documents, my wife's degrees and education certificates, and a lot more.

We're currently looking, but I've also just recently become a citizen of the country we live in and I think the passport was meant to surrender was also part of the casualties as it was in the folder with all the documents pertaining to this entire process which was also in these boxes.

Gentlemen. Give me a medal. I'm a fucking moron and I don't know what to do anymore.

tl;dr: Was told to not throw away stuff. Threw away the stuff.

I should also add for clarity: When we found those particular boxes after the whole moving company fiasco, we had stored them to be accessible just in case we needed to access those documents. The office is still a bit of a construction site, so they have no place to go right now. They were in the way of everything else and my wife thought she would do me a favour and move them out the way so I could get the rest of the stuff out without any bother. She apparently told me and I did not hear this, even though I apparently affirmed to her that I heard her and that I wouldn't throw them out, but somehow I wasn't paying attention or something. They were even fucking clearly labeled. I don't know how this happened, but this is entirely my fault.

Edit: Just wanted to mark out a part some people seem to have missed in the OP. There's also this when it comes to clearly marking stuff. I just fucked up.

Edit2: I’m trying to respond to everyone but this keeps coming up. I watched the boxes get crushed. They needed to make room for more paper waste. I cannot go to the dump and find them again. Even if I did, they’d be nearly impossible to take apart without damaging them if they weren’t already completely destroyed.

Here’s some footage of what happens to paper in a hydraulic press.

UPDATE

First of all, I just want to thank a lot of you for the helpful advice, the kind words and comfort. The jokes helped a bit too even though it's still a bit of a sore spot right now. I especially liked that one comment that just said "hahahahahahaha". That was my wife's favourite one, so kudos to that person. Also, sorry to this guy who messaged me that was especially upset.

Anyway, we've had some time to reflect on what's happened, her parents have just left as well and we've all had a chat about it. Just want to preface this with; none of this really matters and we aren't putting the blame on anyone.

I think we may know how they ended up in the van. My Mother in law saw the boxes my wife moved aside and moved them upstairs and my father in law thought those boxes were from me and loaded them in the van whilst my mother in law thought that my wife moved them completely out the way. Now the boxes are labeled in English and my in-laws do not speak English, so they wouldn't have have been able to tell. All in all, there were no ill intentions on anyone's part. A miscommunication, poor planning, and many other factors have come into play here. We've decided to not start pointing fingers because it isn't very conducive.

My wife and I have talked about this ourselves last night and we made a list of everything that we think is missing and this morning we got in touch with as many people as we could get a hold of. The good news is that my Wife and Daughter's documents are mostly recoverable. Apparently this happens a lot (with individual documents rather than the whole motherlode) so it's just a matter of money and time and getting in touch with various departments, but most of their documents are recoverable. She's waiting on responses from the educational institutions about her educational documents. We have digital copies of everything apart from 3 documents, so that has been quite helpful.

My documents are a bit trickier. I mean, quite a few are recoverable, especially now that I am a citizen, but things like my Birth Certificate will require quite a bit of bureaucracy to be attested and so on. Either way, we're working through solutions together.

I didn't really want to bring my marriage into this, but I told my wife about this post and she's read through the comments and insisted that I mention this because some of these comments about us getting a divorce or comments speculating how she feels has really bothered her. She wants to be clear that she knows this was a FU and that she has never felt like I have ever ignored her on purpose ever before. She does not blame me (even though I still blame me), and to jump from this to a divorce is not exactly the route she'd go like to go. To quote her directly "I'd much rather constantly torture you about this for hot chocolate in bed and flowers every week until we get everything back"

We're not splitting up, we're not angry with anyone, we're moving on and trying to sort it out.

Thanks again for all the lovely comments!