Just to be clear: I did not throw away or damage anything. My (28M) girlfriend (26F) and I have been together for 4 years. We moved in together about a year and a half ago. Her best friend “Claire” passed about a year before we met while she was pregnant with her son.
I don’t know much about the friend, but I know they were very close and my girlfriend “Erica” often tells me stories about them growing up together. She even told me how they would joke about raising her son together as a couple.
Erica is bi and I love and accept that about her so those stories never make me jealous or anything I genuinely love hearing about her past and the people that impacted her life romantic or not. When Claire passed Erica was obviously deeply upset and it still affects her. Erica had things like pictures and notes from Claire along with keepsakes from the funeral and clothes in our closet.
Some days when Erica would go in and get swept into emotions when seeing the stuff. Some days she would look over it fondly. And some days she would rush past it to avoid thinking about it all together. While out at a thrift shop I came across a pretty cool looking yellow chest.
I remember Erica telling me that was Claire’s favorite color so I bought it and cleaned it up at home then moved all of the memorabilia into the chest and put it in the attic under a window and cleared everything away so it was a private-ish space. I also got dust jackets for the clothes and paper items in case of leaks or other attic inconveniences.
Now my INTENTION was to give Erica a private space where she could choose to go and reflect on Claire in peace instead of choosing what emotion she feels like going through everyday while going into the closet. When I tried to show her what I did Erica accused me of trying to hide the memory of her friend or that I was sick of seeing or hearing about Claire.
I then tried to offer to hang some of the stuff up around the house to prove I would never do that and she accused me of patronizing her. She slept at her parents house that night and she’s been back since but I can tell she’s still upset.
My friends I talked to and my mom said I was completely wrong and should have never touched her stuff without talking to her first. I really thought I was helping. How badly did I screw up?
Edit: INFO- our attic has a door in the hallway that accesses the staircase to it and it spans the whole house so there’s no ladder and it’s not cramped. It’s also fully finished with lighting and heat. There are a lot of boxes on one side of it though (decorations, winter clothes, etc.)
FewDeer489 said:
Soft YTA you should’ve asked her first to move her things. It was a very sweet gesture and i’m sure once you guys have a proper conversation about it i’m sure she will come to appreciate it.
whereisbeezy said:
The intention was good and I think she'll realize that, but grieving has to be a personal process, and you interfered.
halfwaygonetoo said:
Getting the chest, cleaning, fixing it and setting up an area for it and your GF was a beautiful and thoughtful thing to do. Actually removing and packing up the items was where you went wrong. She needs to be the one to do that. It's an actual need, not just a want. She also needs to be mentally ready to do it.
I've been in her place. I lost my best friend when we were 20yo. 35 years later, I still miss her. Still grieve for her. Perhaps it would help if you apologize to her, tell her that you didn't realize how important it is to her for HER to be the one who packs up the memories.
OP responded:
I see now that she should have been the one to do it. I’m going to try to apologize and talk to her again tonight at dinner
And gorenglitter said:
YTA. The trunk was actually very thoughtful. And buying it was a great idea. However it would have been up to your gf if she wanted to use it and move the stuff there.
I was too anxious to wait until Erica got home for dinner so I met her for her lunch break and brought her flowers like some of you suggested. We were able to talk and I listened to how what I did made her feel. Like most of you figured, she was mostly upset that she wasn’t involved in transferring the stuff. She likes the chest and she liked my idea but hated that I did it so spontaneously.
But we came up with a plan. We’re going to move the boxes from the attic into the garage and make the attic her own little cozy room where she can go to do her crafts or reflect on Claire on one side and on the other side we’ll put a tv maybe a game console so we can hang out and relax together.
She’s going to hang up some pictures of them and frame some of their notes and decide herself what she wants to put in the chest. She has 100% design control over the whole space and I’m only helping set things up. Thank you to everyone that helped me see what exactly I did wrong. I’m definitely never doing something like this again. I’m just happy we were able to work it out.