For many of us, the moment our significant other drops to one knee and presents us with an engagement ring is one of the happiest, most loved-up experiences of our life.
But for one woman, the sight of that little piece of jewelry didn’t make her feel joy, or feel like she was the luckiest woman in the world. In fact, it actually made her resent the man who was trying to promise her “forever.”
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Why? Well, because that ring was a very unfortunate hand-me-down.
As it turns out, that very ring once belonged to someone else — her boyfriend’s ex-fiancée.
The woman shared the story of her less-than-fairy-tale engagement in the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole to find out whether she was being unreasonable in refusing to accept someone else’s engagement ring.
She began by explaining that her boyfriend and his ex called off the engagement a few years ago, and the ex gave him his ring back.
Fast forward to present day. This woman has been dating that same man for a couple of years, and she recently found herself surprised with a proposal.
“I was super excited,” she recalled in her post .
However, upon seeing the ring he presented to her, the woman said she realized it “looked kinda familiar.”
So she casually asked her boyfriend where he had got it from, and was totally surprised when he outright admitted it was the one his own former fiancée had worn, then given back.
This revelation might not have meant much to him, but it didn’t sit right with her at all.
As the Redditor explained, “I immediately took it off and was like ‘I don’t want a ring you bought for someone else, it wasn’t meant for me.'”
Her boyfriend, on the other hand, couldn’t see what was so wrong with his proposal.
“He got upset and said it didn’t matter, because it’s not hers anymore it’s mine,” she recalled, adding that their friends and family are “split” over who should actually be the one who feels hurt in this situation.
So the woman has posed the question to the people of Reddit: Is she an asshole for wanting her boyfriend to buy her a brand new ring?
The answer was a resounding “nope.”
“This is ridiculous, how dare he give you her ring,” one user fumed. “It’s HER ring, he meant it for HER, bought it for HER. How does he think to give you her rejects is OK? You are completely justified. And I would rethink this guy if I were you.”
This issue also appeared to have a simple solution that he didn’t — or wouldn’t — consider.
As another user added, “I would have sold it and used the money for another. An engagement ring doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, but it should be personal.”
After the woman clarified that this ring is one he bought brand new for his ex, and was definitely not an heirloom, other users agreed it was definitely a bad move on her boyfriend’s part.
As this person wrote,
“If it was a family ring at least you know its already not for you, it’s bought by someone else for someone else and passed down. Getting a ring bought for another partner by your current partner is weird it’s like saying ‘your [ sic ] second choice’ but worse [’cause] it’s not just saying it once you have a constant reminder of it if you choose to wear it.”
The woman has since shared an update letting people know what came of this pretty terrible proposal.
“We broke up like 2 weeks after the post,” she revealed in the update . “He didn’t like that I posted about it on Reddit, therefore he said he definitely wasn’t going to buy me a new ring and that if this was how I was going to be, then he didn’t want to marry me, a bridezilla.”
And suffice it to say, this guy got over the break up and moved on pretty quickly.
“He has a new girlfriend, who will probably get the same hand-me-down, ugly ass ring he already gave to 2 other girls,” the woman wrote.
After all, that strategy of reusing engagement rings clearly worked so well the first time.
What do you think of this situation? Should she have just accepted the original ring or was she right to refuse? Let us know!
h/t: Reddit
