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

[redbird]

This would make more sense if she had expressed interest in wearing them before he asked her to marry him, and he'd said no, especially if he'd combined that with telling her that he was saving the rings for a marriage proposal. If that felt like she was taking second place to his ex, I'd understand—not necessarily agree, but the moment someone says "I am keeping my late mother's rings so I can use them if I propose to someone" he's putting symbolism on the history of the rings.

But that "sick to her stomach" reaction indicates something, which could be that she is unusually jealous in general, or that this is her subconscious signalling second thoughts about the engagement for other reasons.

This also ties in with the idea that a woman is supposed to wear, every day of her life, a piece of jewelry selected by someone else, whether or not she likes it. However reasonable her reaction is or isn't, telling her she "should just be okay" with wearing the rings, when he knows she isn't, is overbearing. If he gets to feel however he does (which he does), so does she: and that includes not wanting to wear those rings, but to pick her own.

[kiezh]

Re: "unusual" jealousy... why exactly was he bringing up his ex-girlfriend at that particular moment? To his new fiancee, while they were talking about wedding rings? Why, when this topic distressed her, did he keep self-justifying and insist on being "right" and ignoring her distress?

It seems to me that, again, the rings are pointing out a different problem. She feels like she's in some way in competition with his ex, and when she mentions her discomfort he tells her that his ex wearing the rings totally didn't count and frames her objections as irrational. Even if there is nothing going on between him and the ex, he's doing the thing where all relationship problems are LW's problems, and he has no desire to build up her confidence in him or comfort her when she worries. (Or figure out ring symbolism that they both like.) She's just supposed to be okay with whatever he wants.

I think the LW is talking about the rings and the ex because they're the surface stuff she can put into words; underneath that, she feels sick to her stomach because she doesn't feel respected or cherished by the man she wants to marry. His reactions... are not promising.