Ben Higgins - Lauren Bushnell - Bachelor 20 - Discussion - #8

So,I've been away from the board for quite a while... Did Ben and Lauren officially break up? TIA

MiaHawk wrote:So,I've been away from the board for quite a while... Did Ben and Lauren officially break up? TIA

Yes. Confirmed via People last Monday. Lauren is already back in LA.

Just want to confirm that Lauren basically got rid of almost a house full of Ben's furniture to get stuff she liked better? Or was the house basically empty and she just got rid of a few things?

JME, but my hubby would have been ticked if when I moved in with him I insisted on getting rid of all his stuff. If this is the case, then maybe I understand being pissy. Did Lauren basically insist on redoing everything and having it all her way? I didn't watch HEA, so I have no idea. Thanks.

@stuckinsc I think it was basically bachelor crap that most young frat guys have. I don't think he had much of anything of value, style or comfort.

Yes. They redid his house. In addition to new furniture, they painted the outside, landscaped his yard, painted his garage, painted the interiors, added air conditioning, upgraded his toilet which was the same original toilet from the early 20th century.. They turned kind of a hole - total Bachelor Pad, into something kind of cute, definitely well decorated. Some of this was shown on HEA, and some was just them - documented in certain snaps and IGs just for them, not the show.

Ben stated publicly multiple times that he wanted Lauren to decorate the house and make it hers. He was on board - said she had great style and they even teased they would love an HGTV type show together.  She, after all, gave up much more than Ben for the relationship, so only fair that he allow her to buy furniture or whatever to make his house feel a little more like hers and home. On HEA there was a very/incredibly scripted scene where he "gave her all the furniture" she loved as an appeasement for canceling the wedding. IRL, that's not really how it went down. They did it together, Lauren actually snapped the furniture being moved in - so what the show did was clearly a scripted scene.

Ben famously threw tantrums on a few different occasions about the home changes. The Home Depot meltdown over paint colors (nothing to do with HEA), the garage poop colored headboard that Lauren wanted replaced (literally a headboard made out of a garage door that Ben wanted to keep), Lauren wanted a new couch and Ben didn't understand why cause he had one, and the Whiskey Cart- same reason as the couch. Ben had an old hand-me-down and didn't understand the need to replace it. Ben's basement - his "man cave" stayed totally the same with all things just for him - no change.

In the end, per Ben's words in his tweet, he seems happy to let Lauren have the furniture and makes clear she didn't leave him "high and dry." He doesn't sound upset, so why should we be upset? Because of Lauren, he actually has a pretty nice home now.  Nothing has changed for him. He has his house, his career and his stability.  Now it's just better landscaped and he has nicer paint colors inside, he can actually stay cool this summer with his AC,  and he has a toilet that actually fits a man of his size. If he has to go buy a new couch, no harm no foul.

Okay. Sorry, but perhaps his tandrums were her not even asking about his taste. Whatever.

I still fail to see how Lauren "gave up" so much. She had left her job as a flight attendant anyway. When seemingly offered the chance to still work for Alaska Air in PR stuff Lauren was not interested. So if anything, she chose that not Ben. If anything he thought he was getting a woman who worked and was independent and instead got a woman who obsessed only on her looks and surface looks stuff, and made sharing their life publically her only "job".

Yes, she moved to Denver, but literally every F1 of a bachelor couple that lasted past the first month or two moved to be with her bachelor. It is kind of the premise of the show. And wasn't Lauren moving closer to her very good friend and her goddaughter, so not some scary place with nothing for her. Sorry even the move is not that impressive to me.

So I fail to see all that Lauren gave up for the relationship. JMO. Seems like she got her wish to be semi famous and get paid to travel and "blog", while doing much less work and having much greater flexibility than she had as a flight attendant. Sounds like a gain for
Lauren to me. Plus now she has nice furniture and a little nest egg from HEA and Disney weddings. So again Lauren gained something.

I think just like Ben, Lauren came out with quite a bit of advantage from their relationship and time together. She is vapid and he is immature. Both will grow and hopefully have better relationships in the future. All JMO.

I'd also like to add the friendships they had in each city. In Denver they had Ben's best friends who were mostly married or in relationships that don't yet have children. They were basically going through the same life stage as Ben and Lauren. That seemed like good company to keep IMO. Back in LA they would've had Lauren's single girl friends. Now that Lauren's back in LA it appears her sister and majority of her friends are now in relationships and she's the single one.

stuckinsc wrote: She is vapid and he is immature. Both will grow and hopefully have better relationships in the future. All JMO.

Snipped because this, in essence, is Ben and Lauren to me from what I saw. Perfectly said, JMO.  And I don't think either realized how significant each of those traits were in the other. Again IMO.  A major mismatch IRL, IMO, hopefully they each find their person someday.

stuckinsc wrote:Okay. Sorry, but perhaps his tandrums were her not even asking about his taste. Whatever.

I still fail to see how Lauren "gave up" so much. She had left her job as a flight attendant anyway. When seemingly offered the chance to still work for Alaska Air in PR stuff Lauren was not interested. So if anything, she chose that not Ben. If anything he thought he was getting a woman who worked and was independent and instead got a woman who obsessed only on her looks and surface looks stuff, and made sharing their life publically her only "job".

Yes, she moved to Denver, but literally every F1 of a bachelor couple that lasted past the first month or two moved to be with her bachelor. It is kind of the premise of the show. And wasn't Lauren moving closer to her very good friend and her goddaughter, so not some scary place with nothing for her. Sorry even the move is not that impressive to me.

So I fail to see all that Lauren gave up for the relationship. JMO. Seems like she got her wish to be semi famous and get paid to travel and "blog", while doing much less work and having much greater flexibility than she had as a flight attendant. Sounds like a gain for
Lauren to me. Plus now she has nice furniture and a little nest egg from HEA and Disney weddings. So again Lauren gained something.

I think just like Ben, Lauren came out with quite a bit of advantage from their relationship and time together. She is vapid and he is immature. Both will grow and hopefully have better relationships in the future. All JMO.

@stuckinsc, I agree every single word of your post!! Especially the bold.
Even many mentioned Ben "humiliated" Lauren by calling off the wedding during HEA, I thought to myself that, I don't think Lauren has completely no knowledge of this plot. IMO, there is NO WAY she didn't know before filming. Even if she didn't know BEFORE, she must be able to say no during filming and stop it should she think being humiliated.

Wouldn't it be Ben's responsibility to not humiliate his fiancé on a TV show, not Lauren's job to stop him from humiliating her. Imo he lacks the maturity to see this though. Jmo.

IMO, that is a mutual agreed plot just to boost viewership! And it has to be agreed BEFORE filming started, just my opinion of course. And I personally think this is exactly the case since IMO, Lauren Bushnell has always been good at portraying herself differently.

And I can't think of why would she say no? She agreed to this plot, played the victim role, and everyone would only go after Ben, not her.

No one would want that humiliation in public, IMO. Imo Ben has been the one portraying himself differently, when Lauren was in fact moving out, he said in interviews, that they're closer to marriage than ever. Jmo