Fake engagement ring

[Poppy1324]

I got engaged 2 years ago and married a year ago, my engagement ring is huge, very eye catching and gets lots of attention. A few people have commented about how much it must have cost and people have said it’s 2 carat at least, my husband has always said it is a diamond and made comments about how much it set him back.

Several people have said it’s worth a fortune and I’ll have to get it insured, my husband agreed and said he’ll have to do it and he will give receipt to insurance so I don’t see how much he spent. A few weeks ago someone said it must be 15-20k worth of diamond! Now we don’t have that kind of money so I assumed they must be mistaken and put it out of my mind, then last weekend I was at a dinner and a friends husband who’s a jeweller noticed the ring made a huge fuss of it,his wife compared her ring which was half the size and then they chatted quietly to each other looking at the 2 rings and looked at me with what I can only describe as mixture of sympathy and confusion as they gave it back.

I probably shouldn’t have done this but it’s been playing on my mind, I know the name of the store so I just looked it up, found the exact ring and it’s cubic zirconia, it’s still lovely and it is expensive although obviously not 15k expensive.

I don’t have expensive things, never have, it’s always made me cringe the thought he has spent so much on a ring, it felt wrong when we have struggled for money and we have friends and family around us struggling to make ends meet. Although I was obviously happy to be engaged I’m not really the attention seeking type and I’ve always felt embarrassed at the huge amount of attention this ring gets.

I feel a bit uncomfortable now wearing a massive flashy attention seeking fake ring and pretending it’s a diamond, I don’t know much about diamonds, obviously! However other people do and I feel a bit embarrassed to wear it now I know.

I don’t know how much my husband knows about jewellery, perhaps he saw it was sparkly and assumed it was a diamond or more likely he has lied about it this whole time. I have happily worn it for 2 years and I don’t want to upset him or be ungrateful for what is still a lovely and expensive ring.

Do I ask him about it or just carry on wearing it, the majority of people won’t examine it and I’d guess most wont realise so does it really matter anyway.

So if I gave my fiancé a £25,000 watch as a wedding gift and made a huge song and dance about it for 2 years in front of all of our friends and both our families... and it turns out it was just a really good fake for £300 ... it shouldn’t be an issue, Dragon?

Me purposefully lying to everyone is ok? And embarrassing my husband is also ok? Because none of that matters?

How does deceiving someone - and thinking you’re going to continue to do so for the entire marriage - not matter? It’s actually much worse this has been going on for 2 years.

dh has always said it's a diamond and made comments to everyone about how much it set him back

Yeah he knew he was lying.

I suppose you could be really magnanimous and assume he's deeply insecure and desperate to impress others because he was horrifically bullied at school for being poor or something and this habit of lying is something he's deeply ashamed of?

Tell anyone who presses you for detail that it's "diamonique"

It must a convincing fake if a jeweller can't tell without a really close up look though

yes he said clearly that it was a diamond, on several occasions, in front of other people, said repeatedly it was very expensive and agreed it should be put on the house insurance.

I wonder if he's very showy in other ways to impress people? Does he have to have the latest clothes, big car etc? Do you share finances? Could he be exaggerating about how much he earns or what he has saved?

As said, I'd pop to a jeweller, will take them two mins to confirm it. Then tell him you were very worried about it not being insured and your u e got it confirmed it was fake. You then looked on the website and found it. Tell him you'd happily accept a ring of that value, you don't care, but that you're deeply upset about the dishonesty over something like this to you uour friends and families and the embarassement you feel.

See what he says, but I wouldn't give him room to try to lie some more it's real.

I guess he can only say he thought you knew and wanted people to think it was real.

He's an idiot I've got a diamond ring which dh had made for me i have a certificate from the jeweller who made it it was £2k and is on separate insurance. How did he think he could pass off a massive bloody diamond without it being insured

It must a convincing fake if a jeweller can't tell without a really close up look though

I very much doubt that is true. A jeweller would know exactly how much a diamond that size would be and would hazard a very accurate guess that a great many people couldn’t afford a diamond ring that size. He was probably stunned that you were still claiming it was a diamond and wanted a closer look!

said repeatedly it was very expensive and agreed it should be put on the house insurance.

Yet in 2 years of marriage, he hadn't actually got round to it?! That would have said a lot to me.

I think it's easy to tell if it it's cz or diamonds especially if its massive. In fact my immediate thought when I see large rocks is "it's a fake".

I don’t think it’s that obvious to most people when a stone is a cz. I have a GIA triple X graded diamond solitaire and compared it to an M&S CZ dress ring and it was only obvious in a minority of photos/lights/angles. Also, most people are thankfully and understandably clueless as to how much larger diamonds cost, so I can understand the op being oblivious.
In her shoes, I’d be really pissed off about the lie, not the cost of the ring. My first engagement ring came from Ratners and cost £600 and I loved it. It’s the bullshit that is the problem.

I gave a quick surmise of this story to my DH. His view is that whilst it's pretty shabby to have gifted you a fake, there is only one side of the story being given here. Are you someone who actually likes very impressive, high price tag items? Has pressure been put upon your partner to try and provide something that was always going to be beyond his means? It's a fair question to ask.

I would so hate to be put in this position of a) having a huge flashy ring and b) finding out that I have inadvertently lied to others over the years confirming it was real.
It isn't about the value of the ring it is about making you look like a liar or a fool.

How awful, I would definitely “lose” the ring and go pick a lovely replacement in the style you actually hoped for in the first place. Too bad what he thinks about that, he’s had his turn in the limelight as Mr Bigshot at your expense so at the very least you should now get to wear a ring you love every day 😊

@tinkobell OP answered that early on - no she is not, she finds it embarrassing and much prefers understated vintage type jewellery.

Call his bluff. Tell him you've had a valuation .....it's worth £20K and that you need specialist insurance to be sorted. Pause. See if he comes clean or if he's brazen enough to continue the lie!

The thing that usually gives CZ away is the size, as others have said, most ‘normal’ folk can’t afford a £20000 diamond so if it looks like 2-3 carats then it’s likely (but not always) a diamond alternative. I think most people will have known it wasn’t real OP.

I feel really sorry for you for the deception, it’s the lie not the money. I would have it out with him.

I would get another jeweller to actually confirm and then I would confront him. That he has lied to you and others in this way, means he is not the man you thought you were marrying.

I'd have thought it would have been tricky for your husband to say anything else in response to people's comments? It would have been rather more awkward if he were to publicly announce it was only good old CZ! So in that sense I'd say cut him some slack.
It's no big deal. It's the sentiment that matters, not the ring or how much it cost.
I purposely chose a non expensive ring for my engagement, because I honestly can't see the point in spending hard earned cash on a bit of stone...and yes it gets lots of admiring comments too

@BaronessBomburst The aladdins cave on etsy has asscher cut lab diamonds I believe.

“It's the sentiment that matters”

Totally agree. And the sentiment is lies and deception. I don’t think anyone on here is outraged for the OP because she thought she had a £20k item which turned out to be worth £300. It’s the sentiment behind it that is so incredibly outrageous. I’m seriously gobsmacked at the amount of posters who are tripping over themselves apologising and making up excuses for this man’s deception.

Do the rest of you seriously tolerate this sort of shite in your own relationships? Or is this just part of the bizarre mumsnet ritual to compete who cares least about the monetary value of their engagement ring?

Yes of course it's tricky to tell people to tell people it's fake. He should have told the op immediately though and not spent the last three years pretending it was 20k worth of diamonds he needed to insure.

caringcarer your statement that you have to provide a cert etc to insure a ring worth over £2k is incorrect. I have just got engaged, I was lucky enough to be given a ring with a 2.5 carat diamond which is obviously worth a great deal of money, I simply added it onto my household insurance (for quite a hefty increase in my monthly payments I hasten to add!) I didnt have to prove the existence of the ring, or indeed its worth; proof would only have to be provided if I was to make a claim.

Hmm. That's a bit unfortunate. Sounds like your DH had a bit of a 'moment'. Very odd if you are not the demanding type when it comes to rings. Agree with those who say that you should just be direct and not invent things yourself. I suppose on the plus side once this is in the open you can stop wearing a ring you don't feel that comfortable with anyway and get something a little more suited if that is what you would prefer. Shame about your wedding ring being cut to fit the engagement ring though.

Hotnatured are you in the US? I’m in the U.K. and I had to provide proof of purchase and a valuation to Endsleigh for them to include my ring on my household insurance. I also have to have the setting checked annually. It’s similar for an heirloom ring I have, there is no proof of purchase as it’s third generation, but I had to pay for a full certified appraisal including photos and this has to be regularly updated. The heirloom ring is only valued at £9,000 - much less than a 2+ carat solitaire with decent specs. Who are you insured with? We’d love to switch as it’s very exxy.
In the U.S. a lot of people seem to be able to insure their jewellery separately with Jewellers Mutual, but I’ve drawn a blank finding an equivalent here. Having it under your household drives the premium up massively and Tesco refused to insure us full stop for building and contents once I rang to add the ring. They gave us a week’s notice to find other insurers. Hence Endsleigh Private Clients.

Most people are clueless about jewellery so please do not listen to people saying that you should have known. This thread has attracted people into jewellery so are interested generally. In reality, most know nothing and take things at face value.

However, in terms of your DH, I personally would struggle to get over this level of deception. It's not just the lying but also that he went for the flashier ring too,; that would only draw attention. This would make me dispise him.