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Every year, thousands of couples purchase engagement rings and wedding bands. Men (or women) call up their partner’s best friend, in secret, saying, “I’m ready to pop the question—can you help me pick out a ring?” All around us there are people secretly putting away a little money to buy that piece of bling for their unsuspecting partner (or maybe they’re suspecting it if they gave ultimatums). Many, many people subscribe to the concept of the ring. But…not all of them. And even those who do may not have the type of finances that allow it to be a simple, non-deliberated process. My partner and I fall into that latter category, and if you do, too, then you’ve likely had a talk or two about the all-mighty engagement ring and/or wedding bands with your partner. If your partner (like mine) doesn’t even believe in the concept of the ring, it gets trickier. Here is how the conversation goes when your partner doesn’t want to buy a ring.
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“I don’t see why a ring is important”
My boyfriend doesn’t really understand why we wear rings at all. He says we will go through the entire process of planning and having a wedding, and doing the paperwork to become legally married. But where does a piece of jewelry come into play, he asks. He feels we’re just following a tradition that we don’t understand, just because everyone else is doing it.
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“We’re chumps for buying into this”
My man also thinks that the engagement ring is to the jewelry industry what Valentine’s Day is to Hallmark—the industries made it up in order to drum up tons of business. And my partner hates to be made a fool, and feel like he’s spending money on something made up. I told him that the ring does have significance to me, personally. I told him, “When people see me, without a ring on, but know I’m married, they’ll think you didn’t care about claiming me—about showing the world I’m yours.”
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“So, it’s about what your friends think”
Of course, when I mentioned what other people would say, my partner said, “Oh, so this isn’t really about your feelings—it’s about what other people think.” While refraining from becoming very annoyed I said, “Aren’t there a lot of things we do to make a public statement about our love? We post photos of ourselves online. You kiss me in public. You introduce me as your girlfriend. You obviously understand the value in presenting our love to the world—so why not in this instance?”
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“Rings are too damn expensive”
Then, maybe some of his true concerns came out. He said, “Do you know men are expected to pay one third of their annual salary on a ring?!” This is where the conversation can become a bit awkward. In fact, my boyfriend said, “Look, I know it’s not romantic to talk about the money, but I can’t go bankrupt just to be polite.” And he was absolutely right. Which is why I told him I don’t care if he finds a ring for under $1,000. Or an antique ring. Or a Craigslist ring.
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“Are you sure I can go budget?”
Then my man had to do his due diligence and double check, “Are you sure you won’t be upset if I go budget?” He added, “Now is your chance to say something, if that would actually upset you. Please don’t set me up for failure because it would suck if I bought you a $900 ring and that made you mad—that’s still $900 wasted!” I promised him that, yes, it’s okay.
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“We should spend the money on something else”
It still took a while for my boyfriend to wrap his head around spending the money. He started listing all of the other things we could use the money for, like a vacation, or a contribution to our savings account. I reminded him how much we’ll be spending on the wedding itself and that the ring is a drop in the bucket.
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“Diamonds are unethical”
Next my partner brought up the issue of the unethical blood diamond. And, he is right. Even though there are paths you can take to make sure your diamond wasn’t a blood diamond, A) those tend to be the most expensive and B) you still can’t be sure.
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“So, get me a different stone”
I told my partner I’m happy with a stone that is not a diamond. In fact, personally, I’d prefer to wear sapphire, tourmaline, topaz, or aquamarine every day of my life because I like the blue/green stones.
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“Does it count if it isn’t a diamond?”
My boyfriend is savvy and he knows that women endure some pretty petty talk around the ring. He wondered if people would say it doesn’t count as an engagement ring if it isn’t a diamond. I told him that, “I thought we don’t care what others think!” (and yes, it counts).
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“You can ask for a grandmother’s ring”
I also posed a family ring as an alternative option to my partner. It’s actually very symbolic and special to receive a ring from your fiancé’s family. It’s a part of becoming a part of that family. And then, we’d know we weren’t personally contributing to the blood diamond controversy (of course, there’s no knowing where this ring came from but we aren’t financially contributing to a new blood diamond).
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“Won’t people think that’s cheating?”
My man was a bit worried that people see it as cheap when a man gets a free ring from the family. I couldn’t help but giggle because now it really does sound like he’s the one worried about outside perception more and more. I told him—just as I’d promised in the beginning—I didn’t care what sort of money (if any) went into the ring.
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“It’s killing the magic to talk about it like this”
I did eventually get fed up. I obviously hoped that, the day he did pop the question, there’d be some element of surprise. It felt like that was going out the window now. I also didn’t love hearing all of his negative comments on the concept at large because I felt like I was forcing him to get me a ring.
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“Well, this talk was important!”
Then he felt bad. He said, “Of course I am happy to put a ring on your finger. I’m sorry if it seemed otherwise. But this was an important conversation to have. We aren’t rolling in money and we aren’t the type of people who just go along with what everyone else is doing, without putting our own thought into it.” He was right.
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“I’m a man—I don’t want to wear a ring”
Then it came time to discuss his ring. He’d be wearing a wedding band eventually…or so I thought. Until this moment, when he said he never wants to wear jewelry and that men don’t wear jewelry (he grew up in a somewhat machismo culture that he’s mostly shaken, but not entirely). I told him that we show our union to the world by both wearing rings.
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“If you trust me, why do I have to wear a ring?”
Of course then he said, “If you trust me, why do I have to wear a ring to show that I’m married?” I insisted it wasn’t a matter of trust, in just the same way he wasn’t getting me an engagement ring because he didn’t trust me to tell men I’m taken. It’s about carrying a little piece of each other, everywhere we go, and always feeling connected.
