When something you care about gets damaged, it can be devastating.

While many of us try not to be too materialistic, there are certain things that we ascribe meaning or sentiment to.

And other things that if they get destroyed, simply make us feel a little sad. But when things happen by accident, it’s easy enough to get over in the end.

But for the woman in this story, forgiving is not so simple – mainly because her boyfriend actually ruined her artwork on purpose.

Read on to find out how he justified his behavior.

AITA for throwing out a piece of art my boyfriend ruined?

Two years ago I saw an original watercolor piece that I liked and I contacted the artist and bought it.

When the piece arrived I sought a frame for it, but every time I went to the store I wasn’t able to find a frame for that size – they were all too big or too small.

So I just kept the piece in an envelope in my desk, I would sometimes look at it, remember I had to find a frame for it but would later forget again.

Work, family and life leaves little time to devote to thinking about a frame for a painting and I don’t have any framing businesses near me, so that wasn’t either an option.

Read on to find out how this situation ended in disaster.

Today my boyfriend was dusting, and came out of the office showing me the painting on a spare frame he had been using for something else.

I ask him if that frame was 9×12.

He told me it was 8×10, that he had to cut a piece of the artwork to make it fit.

When I looked at it, the piece went from a centralized composition to having the composition indented to the left side because he cut all whole inch on that side to save the artist’s signature, which was on the extreme opposite end.

For reference, imagine if you cut the Mona Lisa to the point where her head is no longer in the center.

Uh-oh. Let’s see how she reacted to that.

When he noticed I was perplexed, he nonchalantly told me that the painting was in an envelope anyway, and it’s better if it’s out so we can see it.

I got mad because this is not the first time he has taken something of mine and given it away, offered it to someone or just not asked and done whatever he wanted with it.

His mother does the same thing with his things at her house. In their family if you’re not using something, anyone can do with it as they please.

I explained to him in my family you don’t do anything with other people’s stuff.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

I have a tendency to ruminate on thoughts, so I try not to engage in negative emotions because then I just can’t let go of them and I cycle and cycle through them. It makes my life miserable, and I have to devote a lot of energy to get me back to normal.

Every time I looked at the framed painting I felt a new wave of sadness, anger and frustration ripple over me. So I took the frame down, took the painting out of it, ripped it into four pieces and threw it in the garbage.

When my boyfriend saw it he was shocked and visibly hurt. I get that his intentions were good, but he ruined a piece of art that was not his to begin with.

Now it’s awkward at home because I’m still fuming and he’s sad.

AITA?

Sure, he was trying to do a nice thing, but the painting wasn’t his to do anything with!

It would be all very well to try to put it in a frame, but not to cut up the painting – any kind of permanent alterations should have been passed by his girlfriend first.

Let’s see what the folks over on Reddit had to say about this.

Many Redditors gave the woman a clear reality check.

This person doubted the boyfriend’s intentions entirely.

And this commenter encouraged retaliation.

She doesn’t deserve to be disrespected like this.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.