If your partner proposed to you with a recycled engagement ring, what would you do? What if you only found this information out a few weeks later – from someone else? Capsule reader Brie is engaged, but she’s having mixed feelings now after learning that the diamond ring she’s wearing used to belong to her fiancé’s ex…
Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend.
When Brie read the headline of a Divorce Diary a few weeks ago, she felt a jolt in her stomach.
It read ‘During Our Divorce, I Discovered the Truth About My Engagement Ring. I Couldn’t Believe It’.
“I felt sick,” she says. “Because I was going through a similar kind of thing – well, I think it’s a similar thing anyway – without even having gotten married yet!”
The story Brie clicked on was about a woman who had separated from her husband and was going the process of working out who got what from all their shared possessions, when she made a discovery about her engagement ring. She’d always thought it was worth $18,000 – because that’s what her husband had told her he had brought it for when he proposed with it nearly a decade earlier. But, when she went to get it valued, she discovered that the band was platinum gold, but the diamond was a fake.
“My ring isn’t fake,” says Brie. “It’s a beautiful ring from a well-known jeweler and I loved it from the moment my fiancé proposed with it.”
But, unfortunately, her ring also has a back story to it that she wasn’t aware of when she said yes and put it on.
“I’d been wearing it for a couple of weeks when I found out that I’m not the first person who has worn it,” she says. “It used to belong to his ex-fiance.”
Brie says she was upset to hear that her fiancé had recycled the ring, but she was most upset that he wasn’t the one who told her. Instead, one of his friend’s wives told her.
“We got engaged on holiday and it was the best day of my life,” says Brie. “We’d caught up with a few people since we’d been home, and then we went out for drinks with two of his friends and their wives.”
A few drinks later the women were alone and one of them started talking about the ring’s past, obviously assuming that Brie new the back story.
“She said something like, ‘And I’m sure you’re not even thinking about it, but honestly, it looks so much better on you than it did on Rebecca,’” says Brie.
“I knew who Rebecca was, because I’d heard about her, obviously, but I didn’t understand the reference. Then the girl started going redder and redder just saying ‘ohmygod I’m sorry’ and kind of stuttering about it,”
The other wife told her things straight and said that the ring looked pretty identical to the one that he proposed to his former fiancé, Rebecca, with. But, she didn’t know if Rebecca gave the ring back or not, so it wasn’t necessarily the same ring. Maybe he loved that design and re-bought the same one and it probably wasn’t a big deal.
“But then the other wife – the one who was really red – said she probably shouldn’t say anything, but she knew it was the same ring because Jake, my fiancé, told her husband,” she says. “She assumed I knew because Jake wasn’t keeping it a secret.”
Brie says the two women could obviously see from her reaction that she had no idea, and was obviously upset about it.
“It felt… impersonal,” says Brie. “Maybe it wouldn’t matter to some people but it mattered to me. This was a ring that he went into a shop and bought as a symbol of his love for someone else. He had her in mind when he bought it.”
Brie tried to calmly thank both women for what they’d told her, and that she’d wait to talk to her partner in private about the ring. But from then one, every time she looked at it, Brie felt like she was looking at a symbol of her fiance’s love for someone else.
“That’s how I still feel,” she says.
Because later that night, Brie confronted Jake about the ring and asked him if he’d originally brought it for Rebecca.
“He said, ‘Ohhhhhhhh, I was wondering if this would come up and I’ve been debating telling you for a while now,’ says Brie. “He didn’t think it was much of a big deal and said that I’d loved it until I found out about Rebecca.”
Brie says it’s been a month now since she found out and she’s unsure what to do. She’s talked to Jake about it a few times and he’s said they can buy a different ring.
“It’s not as clean cut as that though,” she says. “There’s a weird edge to it – like if I’m ‘really uncomfortable’ about it, let’s do it, but it feels like he thinks I’m overacting. When I ask him if he thinks I’m overacting to it, he says no, but we’ll lose money on getting rid of this ring and getting a new one, which we could be putting towards the wedding.”
Brie says that every now and then she’s comfortable with it and agrees, it seems like a trivial thing when they have some big expenses coming. “But other times – probably most of the time I look at it and think this is something I’m supposed to wear every day for the rest of my life… and I don’t know if it’ll ever feel mine or feel special.”
During her worst moments, Brie wonders if this might be a red flag entirely.
“We’ve been together for more than five years and I’ve never questioned our relationship before,” she says. “It was an easy, easy yes to the proposal. But, I have some fears now. Does this show that he doesn’t take this commitment very seriously? I want to marry him, but this has spooked me. Am I overreacting?”
Brie would love to hear from anyone who has been in this situation or a similar one and may have some advice for her. Please send us an email to alice@capsulenz.com Subject line: Dear Brie, or feel free to leave a comment/DM on our social media sites.
