Wedding Ring

[jack]

I wasn't sure if I wanted to wear a wedding ring. On the downside, I tend to fiddle with stuff, and normally hate extra "things" cluttering up my body. On the plus side, I thought it was rather sexist for R to have a ring and me not to.

I decided to try wearing it and see how it went.

It went really well for about a day, and then I sprained my hand, and it dramatically swelled up. And I didn't get the ring off immediately, after which it was just about stuck, and I was a bit scared, especially when I was travelling home by myself. Fortunately, I was just about able to wrench it off at home with plenty of soap.

But then I was paranoid about putting it on again until my hand was healed. And then it had been quite a while. And it was a little too tight to start with (we bought it second hand and it was pure luck we found one of the right size I really liked immediately), and given that it had got stuck, I kept putting off wearing it until I got it resized, and kept putting that off too.

Until one day, I just suddenly felt like it, and put it on, and it felt fine, and I've been wearing it ever since.

It's also the case that I lost some weight since the wedding, and now the ring fits just about perfectly; it slides on and off easily, but doesn't slip over the knuckle. So in a way I'm really glad I didn't get it resized before, it's another triumph of laziness (insofar as going to the gym three times a week counts as "lazy" :)).

I sometimes wonder if the white gold looks odd against skin, as a close-ish colour, but quite different. But I think I'd think that about any ring. And I really love the ring as itself; it has a white gold body which is really pretty, with gold braiding round the edge.

I still have my engagement ring (silver with garnet). It served the function of bridging the time between the legal wedding and the main wedding, which it then completed and handed off to the imperishable ring. I wear it I want to feel like I've especially dressed up, but not day-to-day.

Comments

Annulus mirabilis

[hairyears]

Still getting used to mine.

Must not say 'Precioussss'. At least, not often.

Re: Annulus mirabilis

[jack]

ROFL @ title!

[andrewducker]

I put mine on at the wedding, thought I'd try sleeping in it, to see if I could, and have only taken it off since then to wash my hands.

I'm a bit worried about sprains and suchlike, as the ring is titanium, so it can't be cut off. But I've never had a problem like that before, so hopefully it'll be ok.

[jack]

Yeah, Rachel's is Titanium, and she was a bit worried, but hopes it'll be ok.

[gareth_rees]

If I had to buy one again, I'd buy titanium, or maybe stainless steel. I'm just not careful enough to wear a ring made of soft metal without getting it all scratched up.

Also, re: losing weight, I eventually had to get my ring resized. Because one day I got home and found that it was missing from my finger, and I realised that it must have fallen off when I was unlocking my bicycle from the rack at Tesco, and so I had to cycle back to Tesco and spend twenty minutes crawling about in the dark with a bike light looking for it.

[gerald_duck]

Well, it seems to be working for you. (-8

Personally, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to wear a ring for all sorts of reasons, including those you've mentioned, plus a risk of exacerbating RSI, the possibility it would get damaged if I messed around with chemicals, etc. The issue has thus far not arisen, though.

While it might look sexist if R chose to wear a ring and you preferred not to, in my book it wouldn't be sexist. It wouldn't necessarily even be sexist, merely hypocritical, for you to expect her to wear a ring while not doing so yourself. Sexist is insisting she wear a ring precisely because of her sex. These days we have the handy reference point in checking for sexism: could the same issue arise in a non-heterosexual wedding?

[jack]

plus a risk of exacerbating RSI, the possibility it would get damaged if I messed around with chemicals, etc.

I think I mostly don't mess with chemicals. Well, except chlorine :) After all, does it matter if it's damaged? But yeah, no reason you _should_.

While it might look sexist if R chose to wear a ring and you preferred not to, in my book it wouldn't be sexist.

I think the problem is, if we have different levels of ring-compatibility, it's impossible to tell if that's just because we're different people, or because cultural messages saying "get married, wear a ring!" are disproportionately aimed at women (and other cultural messages are aimed at men).

Fortunately, I tried wearing a ring and I liked it, so I didn't have any difficult decision to make, but I felt obliged to _try_.

[gerald_duck]

Hmm. You felt obliged to try wearing a ring, but liv didn't feel obliged to try not wearing a ring?

That must say something or other about equality and asymmetry at some level, but I'm not sure what. (-8

[jack]

Well, I don't know how Liv felt, but for whatever reason, it never even occurred to us for _neither_ of us to wear a ring, we both just assumed that a ring (or other token) was a natural part of marriage, and 2 rather than 1 was more symmetric. I guess if I'd actively avoided a ring, having no rings at all is something we should have considered[1].

[1] In fact, I considered getting something else (a pocketwatch, a necklace, even a tattoo, though I think tattoos are a bad idea) instead.

[liv]

That's not entirely true; I did seriously consider eschewing a ring. I didn't have to try it out because I'd already been not wearing a ring for 30 years, I know perfectly well what that's like!

[redbird]

That the same issue could arise in a same-sex as a mixed-sex wedding doesn't mean sexism is irrelevant. What if, say, it arose in a fraction of male-male weddings, because some significant number of men had grown up with the idea that their spouse would wear a ring and they wouldn't? A man wouldn't have to be conscious of "but I shouldn't wear a ring, I'm the man" to be asking his husband to do something he wouldn't do himself. If it's significantly less common in weddings between two women than between two men, sexism is a likely explanation.

I'd say that asking a partner/spouse/fiance to wear a ring while not wanting to do so oneself isn't inherently sexist or hypocritical: expecting it is likely to be both, or to involve other problematic relationship dynamics. (It could be from the shape of possessiveness that is "you're mine" but rejects "I'm yours/we are each other's.")