AIO - Boyfriend Engagement Ring Shopping
Just to preface I am 21F and my boyfriend is 22M, we have lived together for a year. and been together for 3 years this summer.
From recent whisperings between boyfriends parents, and his brother, I have recently discovered I am getting engaged soon!!! (YAY!)
My partner spoke to me about 3 months ago about rings and we went to try some on, during this time he expressed that his mom has a ring from her previous marriage (the one prior to her marriage to my boyfriends dad). As far as I know, it is a round diamond with a simple gold band. I think what my partner was hinting at was for him to use the ring, just resized.... (He expressed that it is a real diamond, not lab grown, so it would be worth a lot more than anything he could afford)
The ring I have showed him that I would like is a $500 ring off of Etsy, it's a teardrop/pear ring with a simple gold band. (I'm asking for something on the lower end of price for rings since I ALWAYS loose rings, so I would hate for him to pay thousands on a ring just for me to loose it in the first year)
The ring has come up a few times, and every time he brings up his mom's ring I tell him it would mean a lot to me if he proposed with a ring that fit my style, in addition, I am quite a superstitious person - and being proposed to with a ring/diamond that came out of a "failed" marriage just doesn't sit right with me.... I feel like it's a bad memento. But my partner has reassured me that no ring is going to make our marriage fail as it won't change anything about the people we are.
As we get closer to when he may propose, I grow fearful that he will propose with his mom's ring, and my reaction when he opens that ring box will be something that sours the moment. Either way - I am going to be overjoyed by the proposal, the act of him getting on one knee speaks mountains more than any ring he could have in that box. However, he has gotten bad haircuts before - and as hard as I try to smile and tell him he is still as handsome as ever - he can see straight through me. Most of the time he can tell my emotion from miles away. He has a gift.
Am I overreacting? It's just a ring. But then at the same time, it is the ring that will be with me for the rest of my life, something that represents the love and devotion I have to him, so I don't want that symbol to be something I "settled" for. And I really don't want to just buy a new ring. To me, there is something symbolic about the ring he picks out, that he orders, and that he has planned. But I think his mom is just trying to save him a few bucks.....
Also - financially, my partner is in a good financial setting. He has a stable job, we split all of the home bills (and have access to each others personal bank accounts), he goes out to eat all the time, pays for video games, goes out to do activities with his friends, and buy new hobby materials and things to fulfill his materialistic need. So for a $500 ring for his future wife shouldn't be a immense amount of pain.... right?!?!....
One last thing - if this ring was a family heirloom, that would make the worlds entirely different for me, I am joining a family and continuing a lineage, so of course I would gladly boast that ring if it was a family heirloom. But it is not. It is a ring that was tossed in the back of a jewelry box after a divorce and not thought of again until my boyfriend told his parents he was going to propose....
Am I being greedy?.... I feel greedy when I talk about this so I try not to tell him how I feel about his moms ring (other than the first time he brought it up)