Redditor throwraswoopingisbad didn’t think twice to get his 24-year-old fiancée another ring to replace the first one she lost.
But when a pattern started to emerge, he couldn’t shake away an unsettling gut feeling.
After the 27-year-old man made an accusation that resulted in a huge blowout, he consulted the Relationship Advice subReddit to convey his predicament.
He wrote:
“My fiancée has ‘accidentally’ lost/broken three engagement rings now… I’m starting to suspect she’s doing it on purpose.”
The Original Poster (OP) explained.
“I’ve been with my fiancée/girlfriend for three years now. I proposed a year ago, but it definitely wasn’t out of the blue – she’d been not-so-subtly hinting at getting engaged for months at that point.”
“Although we’re both somewhat hot-headed, we generally have a good relationship and we occasionally only fight about small, normal things.”
“I know NOTHING about jewelry, but I spent a lot of time looking for the right ring to propose with. I talked to two of her closest friends to get their input, and in the end I spent around $4000 on the ring.”
“When my fiancée saw it, she told me she loved it and I’m pretty sure she was telling the truth.”
“This January, my fiancée called me up in tears. She’d somehow lost the ring on her way home from work and she had no clue where it might be. I left work early to come help her search, but since she’d been riding the subway, the ring was long gone.”
“My fiancée was clearly distraught, so a few weeks later I dipped into my savings and bought her a different ring. It wasn’t quite as expensive as the last, but it was from the same jeweler and still a good make.”
“Around June, I noticed one day that it had been a while since I saw my fiancée actually wear her engagement ring. She went pale and confessed to me that she thought she’d taken it off before bed one night and now it was lost somewhere in our flat.”
“This time we searched for days and I dug up half the floorboards looking for it, but the ring is (to this day) missing.”
“At this point, buying another ring was out of the question (too expensive) so I asked her if she’d rather either a) have a cheap replacement ring (under $50) until after we’re married, or b) go without a ring for now. She chose option b.”
“One day we were visiting my grandmother, who asked my fiancée where her ring was. When we told her it was lost, my grandmother was kind enough to give my fiancée one of her rings instead.”
But like a curse, another incident reinforced the notion that bad things happen in threes.
“My fiancée seemed delighted and everything was working out perfectly until this week. I came home to find my grandmother’s ring on the table, looking almost unrecognizable. My fiancée cried and told me that she’d managed to step on the ring that morning hard enough to break it.”
“I took the ring to a jewelry repair service right away. Sadly they told me that since a few small stones are missing and the original fitting is warped, the ring will never really be the same.”
“They also told me that they were certain someone stepping on the ring couldn’t realistically cause this amount of damage.”
“When I got home, I brought this up to my fiancée and asked her if she was 100% sure she’d only stepped on the ring. She completely flipped and yelled at me asking if I was calling her a liar.”
“I mentioned what the jewelry store said, and she started screaming about me only caring about money and the ‘cost’ of the rings. It’s been two days and we’ve barely spoken, especially as she’s only coming out of our bedroom for meals.”
Anonymous strangers on the internet were asked if and where guilt belongs by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors weighed in with their various takes on the mystery of the rings.
“Start checking pawn shops for the first two rings.” – Jen5872
“Like NOW. Don’t wait. Go to every pawn shop in a 20 mile radius of both your home and her job.”
“I guarantee she sold the first two and crushed the third, trying to sell the stones separately.”
“After you find even one of the rings, bring it home, ask for an explanation. If you even suspect for one second that she’s lying, break off the engagement because it’s clear she has no problem lying to.” – CamronCakebroman
“I worked at a pawn shop. Every single thing sold under a person’s name is saved. Like basically forever in a database. Even if the shop sold it, it still show up under her name. They even take a picture of it.”
“If you call them, you can tell them you bought it and give them her name, give them a description of the ring/s and they will either say yes or no. It’ll help if you have a receipt.” – TsarinaAlexandra
“I don’t know where you’re located but diamonds in the US have a number etched on them, so if you have the paper work that might be able to help.”
“Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern.” – CheeseFryConnoisseur
There were suggestions that the missing rings were not a manifestation of her starting to lose romantic interest.
“The only explanation I can think of is drugs. Addiction makes people do weird sh*t sometimes.”
“So, total conjecture, but she needs her fix, and she only needs $30 for it. She figures she can get a stone back later (in her mind later that week) so she tries to get one out to trade or sell.”
“In her mind, she does value the ring and doesn’t want to part with it, so that’s why she does it piece by piece. She thinks once she can do ________, then she can get that piece back and it will all go back to normal.” – fiddyspent
“My best friend ‘lost her ring’ too. Turns out she sold it for drug money.” – realitycanwait
“Yup my first thought. I worked on a documentary about addiction and one of the recovering addicts (who was in jail) said she was engaged and her fiancé had no idea she was doing heroin everyday.”
“Heroin a $300/day addiction and many addicts steal from friends and family to support it.” – isthishandletaken
“Could be a shopping addiction too. If she had a serious drug habit or gambling, I would assume the guy would know by now.” – hector702
“I work in the gambling harm minimisation field, and you’d be surprised at how easy it can be to hide a gambling problem from a significant other. Particularly with the recent increases in availability of online gambling.” – nyequistt
“My theory: She tried to sell it, but couldn’t and so decided to mangle it so that it would have to be replaced, hopefully with a ring that she could sell.” – phishtrader
“Either she’s a crackhead or she’s just juicing him. Grandmother’s ring should be the last straw. OP, ask her is she truly wants to marry you.”
“If she pauses for even a bit or it looks like she’s pondering on the question, break it off.”
“When/If she’s ready, she’ll run to you about it. I’d have it in the back of my head that she doesn’t want someone to think she’s engaged. Good luck to you both.” – aBillOnCapitolHill
The OP responded to the above comment with:
“While I honestly can’t imagine her ever doing that, I have wondered if this is it.”
“But confusingly she’s always been the more wealthy one in our relationship (better job and her family are well-off) so it would not only come as a huge surprise, I just wouldn’t understand it.”
He also added:
“She does have a tendency to be forgetful, especially with things like her keys and purse. I’ve never seen her wear jewelry other than earrings, so I can’t comment on how she’d treat other rings/valuables.”
Hopefully, the OP will manage to get to the bottom of this, whatever the case may be before he is absolutely certain in moving forward to exchange vows.