Hurt at proposal and ring

[Ungratefulornot]

Hi all

I've NCd..

I need help here as I can't seem to feel better about this, I need some other perspectives.. My partner and I have been talking about marriage for a while and knew it was on the cards. We love each other very much. We're just back from holiday where he proposed (i wasn't expecting it) but nothing was how I imagined it and I'm finding it hard to feel happier about certain things... I'm sure I'm in for a flaming for being an ungrateful cow but here goes.

Firstly the proposal - basically 'why don't we get married?', a hug, then he says (in a nice way) 'I know that's what you want''.. So basically nothing about him wanting me to be his wife just that it was what I wanted. I immediately said 'isn't it what you want???' and he said of course it was..

He presented me with the ring, which is absolutely nothing like I would pick or expected and, as he told me voluntarily later that night, cheap! Because, as he told the woman in the jewellers, the engagement ring is only a token and it's the wedding ring that really counts It doesn't even look like an engagement ring, more like an eternity ring, and it's obviously cheap. We have plenty money btw and he'd think nothing of spending loads more than he spent on the ring at the drop of a hat on anything else.. To me an engagement ring is hugely symbolic and it's not about the money, it feels like he just didn't care enough to get something right...

Upshot is, I felt upset with it all, and while I kept it in that night we had a huge argument the next day because he was upset i was annoyed and that he felt I had threw it all back in his face when he'd tried to make me happy.. I then felt bad and backtracked and we had a lovely holiday planning our wedding.. But it was still playing on my mind.

But now we're back and while I've got over the proposal comment (given that I know he's genuinely as excited at marrying as I am) I just can't get over the ring issue. He's very generous to me generally and I can't believe that when it came to something as important as this, that i should be happy to wear every day for the rest of my life, he put so little of anything into it - money or thought.. I wouldnt have been looking for anything too expensive just less cheap than it is!!! Never asked me what I would like as he wanted it to be a surprise.. He's asked me if I wanted to swap ring but I couldn't bring myself to say yes so said no and he was happy with that but he knows I'm not happy with it. I need to get it resized as its a little big but tbh I just don't want to wear it and I feel annoyed every time I think about it. As well as me not liking it and the fact it doesnt look like an engagement ring, I can just imagine the looks it'll get from everyone when we officially announce our engagement - I'm ashamed to say I feel slightly embarrassed at the thought. I just feel I'd rather not wear it and just get a nice wedding ring.

I feel annoyed with him as I have spent my time and effort getting him things which he could value and love for the rest of his life and he hasn't paid me the same courtesy, and for something as symbolic as this.

Thanks in advance for any replies, good and bad. I'm aware this will probably be a controversial one!

Is this the time to mention that diamond engagement rings started off as a marketing ploy by De Beers in the '30s to drum up sales of bigger stones?

(And let's not mention eternity rings being another, later De Beers invention because they were now doing well on big rocks but still had a lot of small stones to shift...)

Would it make a nice wedding ring?

Of course the marriage is the most important thing.

But if you´re having an engagement ring-shouldn´t it be one that you´ll want to wear?

I didn´t have a romantic proposal-but we did choose the engagement ring together!

And the wedding bands.

Maybe he got you a nice discrete eternity style ring because he thinks big flashy rocks are tacky. I do. Your ring sounds very similar to mine, which I love (and also chose). The jeweller was so unimpressed with the amount of money we spent that he didn't even offer us a box for it!

Maybe OP doesn´t want a "flashy rock" either-just something that she likes!

"which I love (and also chose)."-lucky you-unlike OP!!

OP - you should watch Smack the Pony. It's on just now, there are lots of marriage proposal sketches in there. In the last one, girlfriend just dug into a huge cake looking for her ring to find her boyfriend had got her... a WWI helmet. Yes, as a token of engagement.

I don't think it's ridiculous, or ungrateful. DH proposed to me initially with a Haribo ring, largely out of panic because I'd found out throughout the first half of our relationship he was still in love with his ex and contacting her. He said he couldn't bear to lose me, so proposed. Unsurprisingly I declined. Not too long after, he 'proposed' again simply be leaving a Swarovski ring on my dressing table...didn't even ask me himself. & the fact it was Swarovski, not a real gem really irked me - as if he didn't value me enough. But I accepted because I love him. To this day, years later, that proposal & ring still make me feel rubbish, even though we DID end up going and choosing a replacement. I wanted him to pick it, but he got me to choose my own as he said my taste is too difficult to guess. It would have meant far more if he'd chosen something himself - that wasn't haribo or crystal

Yes but proposing as a fall back because you're still in love with someone else is a bit shit and I'm not surprised you are pissed off. It's not the same as just failing to match the ops Disney princess expectations.

I think the point is that the OP's DP buys expensive gifts for himself and bought her a crappy ring, and asked her with a badly thought out proposal.

My inkling is that they should not get married, or that they need some serious counselling.

OP you don't have to marry any bloke who asks you - or every one.
I've had eight proposals, and turned them all down - eventually married someone I'd been friends with in uni - after we met up again, and started going out - he asked me very matter of factly in a baby's clothes shop.

More importantly, we talk, and talk, and talk - we have different ideas about lots of things - we are from different cultures, but we share a commitment to open and clear communication. It's a habit that comes in handy when you are brain dead with tiredness with DCs.

Take some time out of this relationship and see how you really feel about him.

My DH gave me a beautiful, and very expensive diamond ring when we got engaged. No romantic proposal though and I have always felt a bit sad about that.
However, I'd have happily have had a plastic ring from a christmas cracker if he'd actually stuck to our marriage vows and been faithful to me

Men are different, they don't 'get' the romantic stuff. Only you know if he is a 'keeper' or not. Do you know/think you can trust him 100% and he will always be there for you and never let you down? If so, does the type of ring really matter?

Good luck

Ah, snorbs, I'm alright. Mine has itty bitty teeny specks of diamond dust in, just a really pretty setting that everyone compliments to this day. And it's older than 30's. I don't have an eternity ring either.

Actually, I don't really want one. I do want a Canadian diamond of some sort and will get one eventually - largely symbolic of our emigration as a family. Bloody emigration is too expensive to afford one for donkey's though, so dh is off the hook for the foreseeable...

FFS - it's a piece of rock that as the Lily Allen song goes, someone probably died trying to mine them. All this talk of 'showing off' a ring is a load of shit. My aunt put up with a lifetime of abuse and STIs in exchange for furs and jewels. It's really not worth getting your knickers in a twist over such a trivial matter.

Given that the OP said that her boyfriend is usually generous, that se thinks he is lovely and very much loves her and that he thought he was making her happy by doing the 'surprise' thing it seems a bit out of order to suggest that the OP shouldn't get married simply on the basis of not liking the ring he chose.

He clearly thinks the wedding ring is the important one, and it's not an unreasonable position to take because getting married is hugely more important than getting engaged.

If I were the OP I'd take up the offer of a fabulous wedding ring, and as money isn't a problem perhaps get rings made specially for the two of you that you really love and are meaningful to you.

You don't actually have to wear the engagement ring at all. It is a bit of an odd and outdated tradition (as is the requirement for a romantic proposal when you have already got to the point of mutually deciding to get married). Either go out together and pick another one or just don't wear this one and keep it in its box for the memories.

Having said all that I totally understand feeling a bit crap about the whole thing, but you have to recognise some of that is the odd expectations that have been built up about the whole 'down on one knee' thing.

My dh and I decided to get married the night before his mother had an unexpected asthma attack and died. Obviously it was a while before we thought about it again. We then had a big argument about engagement rings (I thought all his choices were horrible, he was very aggrieved), and although I was very happy with the end result (a bargain at £40) it is sad that it's the argument I remember. I wish we had learned to communicate our expectations back then because it was a pattern we followed for years before getting our act together.

The engagement ring issue is so polarising, it's almost not worth discussing.

I know perfectly intelligent, non-materialistic, lovely women who have yearned for huge rocks for their engagements and been upset if it falls short!

Others who didn't give a shit about the size of a ring, or a ring at all.

I just think it really matters to some people, and doesn't to others. I actually don't think it's a reflection on the person if they want a big old ring.

In my case, dh gave me a small-ish, not wildly expensive diamond ring. I wasn't expecting - or wanting but that's a whole other story! - a proposal so I didn't give a shit about it. Equally it was all about marriage, not the wedding, and we have been together 17 years.

BUT a couple of years after our wedding when we we were far better off and it had dawned on me my ring was small in comparison to others I asked him for an upgrade. I had a beautiful, very generous diamond and platinum ring made. My first ring sits in a drawer - and I don't care what anyone else thinks about that or my motivation for wanting a blingier one!

"It is not the ring, not the proposal, and not the wedding. But the person, the relationship and the marriage."

Yes, yes, yes.

Just take a deep breath and ask to change the ring

OK it wont be the the one he chose but that will wear off quickly whereas your dislike of the ring wont

I sympathise with you OP. My XP got me an engagement ring from a shop in the local shopping centre after I had told him that I really wanted a vintage opal ring.

Tbh the sort of ring I wanted would have cost less than the one he bought me. For the sake of a bit of Googling, he could have got me something I liked. Instead he just took the lazy option. I don't think he ever really wanted to marry me anyway.

These things do matter, and it's not about material things, it's about what his actions symbolise.

I didn't get an engagement ring, I wear my nans engagement ring instead.

I didn't get a wedding ring either, I have my great nans wedding ring. They don't match and I have no idea how much they are worth, probably not much, but I love them.
A ten million pound engagement or wedding ring would be crap compared to what I wear now.
I didn't get a proposal either, we both wanted to get married and one day I booked it and told him when he got back from work.
Marriage is about when he says you look beautiful when really you look hideous because you just had a baby or when the kids finally go to sleep and you eat sweets and watch crappy films or laughing about stuff no body else gets and when he's worked all day and night and has had no sleep and still let's you rest and brings you a cup of tea in your fave mug.

everything badvoc said

Lesley, so the fact that he wants to marry OP and OP wants to marry him is less symbolic than his choice of a piece of metal and shiny things?

Badvoc - it's very easy to fail to get another person on forums like this, and you have the wrong idea about what I'm like. Caged anything is cruel and pretty vulgar TBH. I didn't do anything a magazine told me to do for our wedding; I just wanted it to be beautiful, traditional and to have no one wanting for anything. I think ProudnScary sums me up best; I am a dichotomy in that I do appreciate beautiful material things, but my life wouldn't end if I didn't have them. If, like the OP, my fiancée had enough cash for a (let's say) £3k ring and I got what she did, I would be disappointed.

As I can faithfully say I wasn't one at all, I also don't get the 'OP is upset about the ring = Bridezilla in waiting' presumption. This whole thread is pigeonholing a lot of people.

Idk Snorbs, but it bothered her enough to start a thread about it. Have you read The Five Love Languages? Things like this are very important to some people and it goes deeper than materialism.

If your not happy with the ring , don't marry him .

I think it's not so much the ring that's the problem here , more that the Ops dh hasn't seemed to consider what she would have liked , for the proposal . It is almost like his heart isn't really in it , and that's why he's not made an effort for it to be special for her . It's not the money , it's the lack of thought behind it.

I had a shit ring from exH ...seriously no one even knew it was an engament ring ( or supposed to be anyway) ...he had bought the cheapest nastiest thing he could find , knowing I hate clusters ...it was a cluster of chips , illusion set . He gave it to me in the middle of the town centre , after going into symingtons , whilst I was looking at shoes in a window. It was handed to me like he was offering a bag of chips. No proposal , no effort . When we got home , he didn't even mention it. Not to anyone , certainly not his friends . I sort of looked at the cardboard box and wondered wtf is it ? .
About 3 days later he went into a strop because I wasn't wearing it. I put it on my right hand ....I wasn't even aware it was supposed to be an engagement ring ..I only clicked when he said that engagement rings are supposed to be worn on the left hand ( to which I replied ...yes and they are supposed to be diamonds and your supposed to ask if they want to marry you ) .
His parents didn't even know it was an engagement ring. His mother knew he was going to ask , but thought he was going to buy me something nice . You know it's bad when the mil-from-hell even thinks its shit. When she saw it she said " never mind droves , you can have his granny's ring when she dies ," ( could it be any worse ? ). A few weeks later his dad said , when are you going to get that girl an engagement ring ? , when I had the monstrosity on my hand . My heart just sank . It wasn't romantic ,or passionate or touching ...it was a bit nothing .

I didn't want to be engaged , I didn't want to marry him ...god knows why I went along with it ? ( probably because we had dd and I'd just had a mc so wasnt thinking straight) . It was a bad , abusive marriage ..i think the
Engagement was an indicator of things to come.

My lovely now dh , was very different . We were both divorced and had always said we'd both never marry again. Somehow in an argument I mentioned that I'd never ever marry him , he sort of stopped arguing ( over a silly thing ) and looked at me with big sad eyes and said why ? Why won't you ? . I sort of melted , but didn't answer . Then it would come up every so often , and we'd have a little chat about it. Again another silly argument and again , I say I'd never marry him , this time he said , " good , cause I'd never marry you " ...so me being a little contrary ( and being petty ) said "actually I would fecking marry you of you'd bloody ask me ". He stood there arguing "That he bloody well knew it all along and he was just trying to get me to admit it " .

Couple of weeks later he dragged me down to the best jewellers in town and bought me the most beautiful ring we chose together .
it's not big or flashy , but it's perfect on my hand and I love that it reminds me of dh and how he loves me enough to make an effort.
What's better is that the ring has an unusual setting and we couldn't find a wedding ring to fit it ....so he went and had one made .
Not a conventional proposal , but very passionate , heart felt and it was right for us .

If you love eachother and you both want to spend the rest of your lifes together then materials don't count.
A man can buy the most expensive ring but not care an ounce for the woman, vice versa.
Surely he would not have proposed if its not what he wants

Also, at least he actually bought one, he didn't just give you his dead mother's engagement ring, which wasn't even from a happy marriage; indeed on its first showing off to people his Dad made it clear to all and sundry he wasn't even in love with her.

I wonder if Kate Middleton felt a bit let down and said "But I thought marriage time is princess time!"

Thanks eugenesaxe - you're right. I know that on these forums you can only go on what's been said but there is a lot of pigeon holing based on very little..

Badvoc the wedding will actually be very modest in a beautiful but council run establishment with only people we actually care about there. Oh, and my hen do will be a meal at the local (and lovely) Italian resturant and a trip up to the 80s disco in town!

I don't think I shouldn't marry my DF based on his shit choice of ring. I love him, he loves me, we're both happy to be marrying. I'd just like a ring that I like and that I feel he's put a decent amount of effort into. That's all.

And, as some of you have said, what's he meant to do? I can't decide what I want. I desperately want to like the ring he proposed with as I am a very sentimental person but I just can't.

I may decide to actually just get a really fabulous wedding ring like he thought I would want to and not wear the engagement ring once we marry. I quite like the thought of only wearing a wedding band as someone suggested. But I still have almost a year until we marry and I would like a ring I feel proud of in the meantime.