Upset by his choice of ring

[Carat555]

Right....I'm a bit of a lover of jewellery, never had anything nice except for my mum's diamond ring after she passed.
I have had a Pinterest board for years fantasied about having a lovely one maybe one day.
So my boyfriend said he intended proposing but when he did I was very underwhelmed because what he has chosen is not what I had in mind. It's tiny and looks a bit naff on my fat fingers.
He told me he'd spent a grand on it which surprised me and I would have much rather he bought second hand I knew my thoughts on this but said he wanted new.
I saw the receipt and it cost 600 so I felt put out he'd not been truthful.
To be honest I'm embarrassed when people ask to see my ring.
After all this before I get shot down, I love him and accepted it gracefully and have not said anything to him because I know it's about marrying him and not the ring! I'm just disappointed he knows my passion but didn't think about my feelings in this and I have to wear it forever.

Would you be willing to show us a picture of your ring on op ? . You said it looks tiny on you and you'd be embarrassed to show people, but it might not be the perception other people have

@SiobhanSharpe

It's not just the cost - it's fact that he lied about the cost. That's shitty. And tight.

Yeah , I think so too. And why were you discussing the price anyway OP?

I don't know anyone who didn't choose their own ring. Ask him to return it and you can choose something else.

You could say the style doesn't suit you and suggest having it reset & designing something together.

Personally, I would never say something to my husband as I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings when he had chosen something so special for me.

An engagement ring is much more than jewellery & cost, it's someone saying you're their person. That's priceless & what marriage is about.

He may have told a white lie as he knew your (Cost) expectations were high and did the best he could with budget & didn't want to disappoint you.

Best get it out of the way now otherwise you will always be looking at it with a tinge of disappointment.

Tell him that the ring is gorgeous but sadly it doesn’t suit your hand/finger size. Suggest that you go together to get professional input from a jewellery store and take It from there. Hopefully then he’s not upset or feels he’s got it wrong and
You can guide him to what you want.

Just return the ring and tell you are looking for a relationship with someone who will buy you a bigger ring.

My husband bought me a new engagement ring for my 50th birthday, he had selected a stone, designed the ring and had a jeweller make it. If I had hated the ring I could never have told him - it was just so special because he had done all that for me.

@MamaNeedsTea

You could say the style doesn't suit you and suggest having it reset & designing something together.

Personally, I would never say something to my husband as I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings when he had chosen something so special for me.

An engagement ring is much more than jewellery & cost, it's someone saying you're their person. That's priceless & what marriage is about.

He may have told a white lie as he knew your (Cost) expectations were high and did the best he could with budget & didn't want to disappoint you.

But her daughter already told him that the OP wouldn't like the ring and he didn't care. Why didn't he care about whether the OP would even like it or not? That's odd

It sounds like he has inflated the price to make the ring seem better than it is because he privately wanted to spend less but by telling you it cost more he was effectively saying that it was the best that he could afford. That then makes you seem ungracious if you say you don’t like it, think the stone is too small etc.I think it’s also strange to not maybe have a chat with you on style etc after your DD told him you wouldn’t like it. I don’t know that his choice on the ring was really focused on your happiness and utter delight at all, I would be wary. Mostly about the lying which he seems to have been done to try and manipulate your reaction to a ring he strongly suspected you wouldn’t like.

It's a ring ,I think the important thing here is that he proposed and made an effort to choose a ring for you

I disagree with this. You have to wear it every day for (hopefully) the rest of your life, so you at least want to like it.

@CaraherEIL

It sounds like he has inflated the price to make the ring seem better than it is because he privately wanted to spend less but by telling you it cost more he was effectively saying that it was the best that he could afford. That then makes you seem ungracious if you say you don’t like it, think the stone is too small etc.I think it’s also strange to not maybe have a chat with you on style etc after your DD told him you wouldn’t like it. I don’t know that his choice on the ring was really focused on your happiness and utter delight at all, I would be wary. Mostly about the lying which he seems to have been done to try and manipulate your reaction to a ring he strongly suspected you wouldn’t like.

I agree with all you have said To complain would seem ungracious as he implied I wished it could be bigger.... making out he couldn't afford any more. That's absolutely fine but to inflate the price knowing I know my stuff (knew it wouldn't have been 1k) is also insulting. It was manipulating the situation. However he chose it for me and it's just the undercurrent I'm not comfortable with.

@AryaStarkWolf We don't know daughters age...He may have felt in his heart of hearts she would love it.

I think my husband would know my tastes more than our children would.

If he didn't care about her & her feelings he would'nt be proposing. I don't think many men do things off their own back that they don't want to do.

I think he may have "misjudged" what Op wanted, but I don't think he's purposely gone out of his way to lie & hurt her feelings.

Sometimes on MN i don't think men can't do right for doing wrong.

i would want to change the ring. and i am not sure about his character.

[quote MamaNeedsTea]@AryaStarkWolf We don't know daughters age...He may have felt in his heart of hearts she would love it.

I think my husband would know my tastes more than our children would.

If he didn't care about her & her feelings he would'nt be proposing. I don't think many men do things off their own back that they don't want to do.

I think he may have "misjudged" what Op wanted, but I don't think he's purposely gone out of his way to lie & hurt her feelings.

Sometimes on MN i don't think men can't do right for doing wrong.

[/quote]
It's nice that your DH would know your taste more than your children would but that's clearly not the case in this situation.

I'm certainly not anti men, my DH is amazing, I'm also not part of some mumsnet hive mind tyvm!

@AryaStarkWolf Who said you were "Anti men?" ....

I don't like my engagement ring. My DH chose it - a simple solitaire, v pretty and spent more than he could afford.
I was devasted at the time as its not my taste at all but he tried so hard I had a word with myself and although I still don't like it - it's not offensive so I've never told him.
If it looked all wrong on me I definitely wouldn't be able to live with it though - you definitely need to tell your OH - just that - it looks / sits wrong so does he want to come with you to choose an alternative

£600 is a lot of money - but when you’re looking at a sentimental piece of jewellery and one of which will be worn every day, it’s really not a lot of money in the jewellery world, it’s cheap for a ring.

Just like £600 is a lot of money until you’re looking at cars.

Or 5k when you’re looking at houses.

🤷‍♀️.

The money isn’t the issue here though op, he knows your personality but still thought, fuck it- this’ll do.

[quote MamaNeedsTea]@AryaStarkWolf Who said you were "Anti men?" ....[/quote]
Thinking men "can't do right for doing wrong" would make a person anti men imo. Whatever, I don't think "men can't do right for doing wrong" because of my opinion on this one situation then.

I don’t really get the attitude of “put up and shut up” when it comes to engagement rings, if you’re expecting someone to wear something every day potentially for the rest of their lives then you should make effort to ensure they like it. I say this as someone who has bought an engagement ring for my fiancee, the most important thing for me was that she loved it. In no other circumstances would you buy someone a piece of jewellery and despite them not liking it expect them to wear it every day. It doesn’t take much effort to find out the style of jewellery someone likes.

I think it's a big deal if you don't like your ring. As you say, you wear it for a long time!

Dh proposed and then took me ring shopping the next day. I chose a small diamond flower type ring. He wanted a huge three stone emerald cut ring. It was beautiful but so so expensive.

We went away to think about it and he convinced me that as I was going to wear it every day for the rest of my life it was actually quite good value per wear 😂

So we got that one. And I'm so glad I did now. He also got £500 off just by saying how much for cash. Which just shows you how much mark up is on these rings!

Everything Pinkbonbon said.

I can understand where you’re coming from. DS recently proposed. He knew what he wanted it to look like but had no idea of the huge differences in rings that looked fairly similar so asked if I would help him look.
I obviously knew auction prices and vintage would be far better value but he wanted it to be new. What did shock me was the difference between what his money could buy on the high street against indecent jewellers. For the same price the ring is platinum, not white gold that would need to be regularly dipped. He wanted a delicate pave band with a solitaire centre stone. All of the high street jewellers added in the weight of the tiny diamonds on the band to the centre stone to make them double the size, only stating the centre stone weight in minuscule writing.
The ring he chose was made by the independent shop. The centre stone cut, clarity and colour are far better than the similarly priced high street ring and double the weight. I was shocked at the huge difference for the same price. Clearly, high street chains rely on the fact the purchaser doesn’t have a clue what a rip off they are.

@Elsiebear90

I don’t really get the attitude of “put up and shut up” when it comes to engagement rings, if you’re expecting someone to wear something every day potentially for the rest of their lives then you should make effort to ensure they like it. I say this as someone who has bought an engagement ring for my fiancee, the most important thing for me was that she loved it. In no other circumstances would you buy someone a piece of jewellery and despite them not liking it expect them to wear it every day. It doesn’t take much effort to find out the style of jewellery someone likes.

This.

My dh wanted me to love my ring and he knows I’m fussy so he took me to choose it. We had a lovely day and I got the ring I wanted which I still love over 20 years on. Dh would have been devastated if I’d made do with something I didn’t like just to keep him happy. He wanted me to be over the moon with it so he made sure that I was.

To be honest I’m baffled at the number of women on this thread saying that you should just be grateful with whatever old shit your partner gives you because you’ve got a ring. To me this sets the scene for the entire marriage. If he doesn’t care about your feelings about this, what else won’t he care about?

@LuaDipa Exactly! Tbf to my husband he's got really good taste in jewelry (or he always picks things I love) so he probably would have made a good choice but he still wanted me to pick my own as it's something you wear every single day.

@Carat555

And the fact it doesn't bode well for our future is incredibly sad because I love him so much. I'm sat here crying and telling myself to pull myself together because I'm being pathetic given what's going on in the world.

Oh dear, don't worry, I think you're overthinking this and worrying about his reaction and seeming ungrateful which is getting you emotional. It doesn't need to be this emotional. In the same way you wish he had been honest, you can just simply tell him that it's not quite the sort of ring you wanted. But! My tips would be

Don't have this conversation when emotional. Calm down a bit first

Give him the benefit of the doubt at first and don't assume that his untruthfulness reflects your worth or how he feels about you. Give him a chance to rectify it

Start the conversation reiterating how excited you are to be marrying him and that is the main thing. This is just a secondary point and you thought you had better say something sooner

Suggest that he could return the ring and you could both then make an afternoon of it going shopping for your ideal ring, all loved up and excited about your future together

Frame it as not a gift from him to you, but more a symbol of your commitment to each other which you are BOTH participating in

[quote AryaStarkWolf]@LuaDipa Exactly! Tbf to my husband he's got really good taste in jewelry (or he always picks things I love) so he probably would have made a good choice but he still wanted me to pick my own as it's something you wear every single day.[/quote]
Absolutely this.

Also, there is a special enjoyment in picking something out that you will wear.

Why on earth would any woman risk another person picking it out.

It is unbelievable how many women on here believe women must suck it up in any and every circumstances for the scraps they are thrown.

I agree wholeheartedly with @AryaStarkWolf's posts.

I think he had no need to lie.
He knew well he was being mean and cheap and that the OP would likely not be happy.
He told her the lie to manipulate her and rry and shut her down.

OP, you stick with this man, knowing exactly what he has shown himself to be, don't be surprised if it doesn't end up being what you hoped for.

No man that was genuinely madly in love with you would lie and try and manipulate you.

Buyer beware.