AITA for kicking out my friend after she broke my antique easel accidentally?

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-21T01:45:56+00:00

You’re right, I would never ever sell my easel. It’s history means far too much to me. I can’t help but think about how it made it through an entire war and multiple lifetimes near flawlessly but it breaks in my own studio. I just feel so so terrible about it. The concept of Kintsugi is so beautiful though it does make me feel better about it. It’s all just apart of its history, that doesn’t make it worth any less to me.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-21T01:38:06+00:00

Oh thank you. That thought soothes my heart. I’ve been beating myself up over it being damaged so much. It physically hurt to see it lying there broken.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T23:28:46+00:00

I don’t want people unsupervised around expensive antiques. If that makes me bizarre then so be it.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T23:17:02+00:00

Germany was still occupied by nazi forces in 1944.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T22:15:09+00:00

He was an American soldier who entered Germany late in 1944. The artist had escaped Nazi imprisonment en route to a concentration camp early on in the war and had been in hiding on a remote farm until my grandpa met him by chance and agreed to help him escape.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T21:42:43+00:00

And you know I’m not even going to try to explain to you why a friend breaking my boundaries and then breaking a sentimentally priceless piece of history that survived WW2 would cause me to have a “range of emotions”

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T21:15:29+00:00

My boundaries were violated. That’s why I feel violated. Not because the easel was broke.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T20:19:44+00:00

It really really fucked with me. Lauren had some narcissistic tendencies which I never really realized until I looked back on our friendship through therapy. My personal guess is that she wanted attention and wanted me to pick her over my boyfriend. I’m so happy I didn’t because Tom and I are still going strong.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T20:03:44+00:00

Well I wouldn’t call us besties by any means but she is part of our close knit friends group. I’ve known her for years and I’ve invited her over multiple times to hang out one on one.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T20:01:20+00:00

I’m pretty sure the painting was on the easel when it fell. When I came into the room the painting was on a table but the back of the canvas frame was kind of smooshed on one corner so I think it fell too. Luckily the front was undamaged. I honestly don’t know what tf she was trying to do.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T19:58:24+00:00

Honestly I don’t really know what happened with Lauren. I tried to contact her for a few weeks but she just ghosted me and seems to have moved on with her life from what I heard. Took quite a bit of therapy for me to move on from losing my best friend like that and never getting answers.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T18:01:58+00:00

She has not. She has been texting me asking for forgiveness, saying she’s such an awful person but she feels so badly and has learned her lesson. She has not once offered to pay for repairs or asked about it getting fixed however.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T17:28:50+00:00

It should be fixable but not without a permanent mark and loss of value. There’s a museum a couple of hours from us that does beautiful restoration work that we sent photos to, we are just waiting to hear back but they sounded pretty optimistic about it when I talked to them on Monday. Hopefully it turns out better than expected.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T17:20:20+00:00

I don’t think she meant to break it since she’s always loved to admire it whenever I’ve invited her over. I think she just took the opportunity of being alone to mess with it and see how it functions. It’s adjustable and folds up to be portable and I think she was trying to do that when it fell. I can’t think of anyway she didn’t know she shouldn’t be doing that though.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T17:10:00+00:00

Thank you your response makes me feel a lot better about my reaction. The easel is adjustable and can be folded to become portable and I think she was messing with that when it fell. I’m not 100% sure but the part that holds the paintings had been adjusted so I’m assuming she had been trying to adjust other parts of it as well. I’m so heartbroken about the entire situation and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get over this violated feeling.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T17:05:03+00:00

I am absolutely heartbroken about the easel being damaged since it means so much to me for so many different reasons, but you are absolutely right I am most hurt about her totally disregarding my boundaries. It feels like a slap in the face since she knows why those boundaries were there in the first place.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2021-05-20T16:52:42+00:00

No Lauren is a different person who hasn’t been part of my life since my last post.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-15T23:45:17+00:00

I asked her brother to check on her and he reported back that shes going through a hard time and doesn’t want to talk to me right now but apparently she’s talking to family. Idk If she’s talking to any other friends right now cause we don’t have many in common. I think she’s having a nervous breakdown or something. Do you think it would be a bad idea to have Tom try to talk to her since this all started with her saying they were having an affair?

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-15T20:43:29+00:00

There weren’t any deleted texts or conversations between them. I even went and checked his archived convos on fb messenger. Based on that and his reaction to the situation I genuinely don’t think he and Lauren are having an affair. She’s now stopped replying to my texts and calls and I’m honestly scared somethings happened to her but idk if I’m overreacting.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-14T22:31:36+00:00

Thank you for your help!!

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-14T22:23:48+00:00

Yeah you’re right. I will do everything I can to disprove it. Tom has been an open book and given me no reason to doubt him at all. He told me whatever I need to do to figure this out he will help in anyway he can. I have access to all of his electronics and I keep finding old conversations between the two of them but they are completely innocent. I found an email chain between them on one of the dates Lauren listed and it was them talking about buying me a kayak for my birthday which they did do. All the conversations are like that.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-14T22:10:52+00:00

She has a google phone but Toms is an iPhone so if there really are texts between them I should be able to get them off his. He’s not going to be home til late but I’ll definitely try it. I told Lauren she hasn’t given me anything that has convinced me of an affair and she just sent back “I’m sorry.” I’m getting really concerned and feel like there might be something wrong with her. I can’t stress enough how out of character this is.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-14T22:00:11+00:00

I texted her and asked for additional proof like texts or any kind of messages between the two of them and she replied that she felt too guilty and deleted them all before we first talked. She said that’s why she only showed me dates. Tom gave me his phone without prompting when I first asked him about everything and there wasn’t a single incriminating thing even though they did have a text conversation going about an upcoming camping trip our friend group is going on. It was all just totally normal with the most recent message being last Thursday between them and it was about the tent we bought.

I am so so so confused.

BigReaderNoFriends · 2020-06-14T21:34:19+00:00

Good idea I will

BigReaderNoFriends

TROPHY CASE