Dear Abby: Mom's Wedding Rings Lose Their Luster

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: I've been dating a guy for two years. He has his late mom's wedding rings. He always said he would use them if he ever proposed to anyone.

Well, he proposed to me last week. Last night he informed me that he had let his ex-girlfriend of 10 years wear the rings because she loved jewelry. It made me sick to my stomach, and made his proposal not mean anything to me.

I told him it would be like me giving him my ex-husband's wedding band to wear. He doesn't understand because he didn't use them to propose to her, but to me that's beside the point. They were on her hand. [Emphasis in the original.]

I told him he should have given me the option of wearing the rings or having him buy my own set. He thinks I'm just supposed to be OK with this. Am I out of line feeling the way I do? -- TARNISHED IN TENNESSEE

DEAR TARNISHED: I don't think so. To say this "guy" lacks sensitivity would be an understatement. Are you sure you actually want to spend the rest of your life with someone so clueless?

When he allowed his former girlfriend to wear his mother's wedding rings "because she loved jewelry" rather than because they were planning to marry, the symbolism of bestowing them vaporized. If you do plan to go through with it, "suggest" he buy you ones or use the stones from his mother's rings in a different setting for a ring you will enjoy wearing rather than feeling like Secondhand Rose (third-hand, actually).

Comments

[kaberett]

I... don't get it. (Not least because my mother and her mother between them have set up a fine tradition of losing wedding and engagement rings -- my mother is currently wearing her late mother's replacement, bought on the sly, I believe, somewhere in Spain.) (And I'm a geologist: I have very definite ideas about what localities I want to incorporate into any Significant Jewelry I might end up exchanging with someone.)

I just -- they were not being worn as that symbol in the past. And what is it they're actually supposed to be a symbol of, here? I don't... see the point of letting jewelry sit around unworn? If anything, it's "here's another layer of my history and past" but if dude considers it irrelevant then... it's... not relevant to him? If what's bothering you is the feeling of stepping into vacated shoes, then (a) would you have the same problem if he'd been widowed, (b) maybe you should actually address that insecurity, and (c) I generally think it's sensible to avoid falling into the trap of treating any relationship that ends as if it's failed...? (Which I think applies *both* to the reading of the symbolism of ex having worn the rings, *and* to feelings about what the point of This Relationship is.)

[cereta]

Okay, gonna try this.

I am currently wearing a plain gold band on my right ring finger, because it's too big for my left. This is not my original wedding ring, which is both too small and a shadow band. I often wear my mother's friendship ring as a wedding band. Spouse is on his second replacement ring, because he keeps losing them. So I am really the least sentimental personal about wedding/engagement rings on the planet (other jewelry, yes, but not this).

Although d'oh, as I'm typing this, I realize that I do put a fair bit of importance on whom something belonged to (I'm wearing my late birth mother's bracelet right now, for example). I tend, I think, to feel (totally irrationally, but not, I think any more so than your average religious belief) as if a little bit of a person becomes attached to the item. More when the person in question is dead, but even still when they are alive. Huh. That...pretty much explains my feelings, there.

I would, I think, at a minimum, feel weird wearing the exact same ring (or necklace or bracelet) as someone who had been in a romantic relationship with my spouse/soon-to-be. There would be exceptions (a stepchild giving me her mom's bracelet as a token of affection and esteem, for example), but at a minimum, I think I would want the stones reset. It's certainly not something I would end a relationship over, although I think I would put my foot down on the question itself. But I would feel it.

[kaberett]

So, to be clear, I don't think he's behaving well either: I absolutely agree with the comments below that this is fairly obviously demonstrating a failure to work together and a failure to be sympathetic to her feelings on the fiance's part -- and a total failure to communicate, again, about symbolism and what they mean and what they're aiming for.

I do understand intellectually that this is a problem for people. I don't have a gut-level understanding of it.

[azurelunatic]

For me, I think it might in part depend on what I thought of the ex-girlfriend. As you know, my present partner has a terrible ex. I would likely insist on some sort of symbolic and/or practical cleansing if they offered me something that had belonged to the ex or been used extensively by the ex even if there hadn't been ownership.

On the other hand, I have the deepest respect and affection for my (now ex) Figment's late wife. If Figment had etc., I would have been deeply honored (and probably run away screaming because we wouldn't have made good spouses).