Warning: Long and serious post, soap-opera flavour, so, go--get some snacks...
This morning I was listening to Light & Easy, the radio station from which I won free movie tickets not too long ago. They usually have a little topic in the morning that they invite listeners to call in and share their views. So it was about wedding ring this morning. The topic was chosen because a listener wrote in to say that he's been happily married for the past 2 years, and had been wearing his wedding ring. One day, he was waxing his car and decided to remove the ring to avoid scratching the car with the ring. When he did, he noticed that a white band had formed on the finger where the ring was. After waxing the car, he decided to leave the ring off just so that he could "even out the tan" on his finger. It was ok for a few days until his wife noticed that the wedding ring was missing from the finger. A heated argument ensued. She demanded an explanation and when he told her the truth, she didn't accept it. She insisted that he had other motives. The frustrated writer felt that she had made a mountain out of a mole hill. He wanted to know if people out there held the wedding ring as important as his dear wife did.
I didn't have enough time to listen to all the callers, but from the few that called, opinions varied. I would say most of them didn't see the importance of keeping the rings on. The male radio-host is married, and views his wedding ring as a symbol of fidelity and loyalty towards his wife. He wears it faithfully. He mostly disagreed with those who thought otherwise. The female co-host who is single, had a good time making fun of him.
One man called and said he's been happily married 15 or 50 years, I'm not so sure, you know how the locals have a problem pronouncing those numbers. He only wore his wedding ring on rare occasions during the early part of his marriage. He holds the opinion that it is the heart that counts and not the ring. His wife doesn't wear the ring either. Well, this is a case where both parties agree. So I guess there's no issue.
Another call worthy of mention was made by a woman who said that men wear wedding rings with ulterior motive--to lure other women! What strange notion! She explained that she had seen single women preying on married man. (No kidding, she used the word PREY.) So when a man wears his wedding ring, his ulterior motive is to attract these lonely hearts. The logic is that if a man of marriageable age is not wearing a ring, there must be something wrong with him, so girls won't look at him. On the other hand, those who are married are normal and good, so go for him--being married is not a problem!
Poor man! If he didn't wear his wedding ring, his wife would think that he's up to hanky-panky; if he did wear the ring, he's got ulterior motive! Either way he's in the wrong!
Isn’t it interesting to note that the person in question seems to be the man all the time?
Okay, to be fair, I would mention a woman who called to confess that she's guilty of not wearing her wedding ring. She admitted that she would remove the ring from her finger when she felt like she was married to the wrong man. But she would put it back on again when that feeling was gone. I salute her for her honesty.
Now if we supposed this lady was the wife of the man who took his ring off to "tan his finger", we can see why she was so upset about her husband not wearing the ring!
Seriously, when I was listening to all these, I was in deep thoughts about my own perception of the wedding ring. How I have changed!
Just like many women out there, I viewed the wedding ring as a sacred symbol and token of a vow taken by two people.
I can still vividly recall the excitement I shared with my then boyfriend when we went shopping for our engagement ring at the Queenstown Shopping Centre. We wanted a simple design that could fit within the tiny budget of two young people who had just started out in their adult lives. There was no such design. So we had it tailored made. My finger was so tiny there was no standard ring size that could fit me anyway.
It was 6 August when I first had that ring placed on my finger. No words could describe my feelings. A small piece of jewelry held so much significance! I felt contented and loved knowing that he would wear the ring for me, and that I held a special place in his heart.
As it turned out, I wore that ring for several months and it was time to exchange for a permanent ring—the wedding ring.
This time around, I followed Mom’s tradition. I would purchase the ring for future hubby and he in return would purchase the ring for me. Mom said that these would be rings made of pure gold and we would wear them for the rest of our lives. Well, at that time, future hubby was 250 miles away in Kuala Lumpur, so we couldn’t share the excitement of buying the rings together. I went ring shopping with Mom. I felt really special. I had a wonderful mother. She helped me choose a nice ring for hubby.
On our wedding day, we exchanged the rings. In my memory, we both wore our rings, whether we were together or apart. It was important for me to see hubby wear the ring. To me, it was a sign that he treasured our vows. But truth is, deep inside, I knew I was being insecure. The wedding ring gave me some form of reassurance. (FYI, hubby nick-named me “Thomas the Doubter”)
To continue with the ring story, I must bring to light that I actually lost my wedding ring! Being the Miss Forgetful Joe, I can’t recall when it happened, but I still remember how it happened.
We used to travel between KL and Singapore along the uncompleted North-South highway. This particular time we were on our way back to KL. I was peeling oranges for everyone in the car. Fei and Su were quite tiny then. I had to remove my wedding ring just so I could clean my sticky fingers and hands with some wet-wipes. The ring was placed on my lap. For some reason, we had to make a pit stop at the road side. I got out from the car, completely forgotten about the ring on my lap. By the time I realized my ring was missing, we were too far to turn back. On top of that, we wouldn’t have been able to locate the spot where we had stopped. I was extremely upset. Hubby consoled me by saying it was only a ring. We could always get a replacement.
A replacement we did get. But it was not the same. This one was not pure gold. It was 916 gold but it looked almost like the original one. That’s what we could afford. Nevertheless, I wore the ring with the same reverence and respect. Meanwhile, hubby still wore his wedding ring, the original one.
Life went on and I grew more forgetful with each passing day. Alas, I couldn’t recall how, when and where it happened—did the rat steal my ring? I couldn’t find it anywhere! That was it. No more wedding ring for me. Still, hubby had the same wedding ring on.
Being the person who was sensitive about the issue of wearing one’s wedding ring, I decided that I would have to keep a ring on my ring finger. So hubby and I went shopping for a ring. It had pattern engraved on it. It definitely did not look like the original wedding ring. But I liked it. My tasted have changed. They didn’t have my size so again, we had to tailor-make it. Did you think for a moment that my fingers had grown chubby over the years? Nope, you’re wrong—I still had my tiny fingers!
We wore non-matching rings from that time hence.
One fine day, I suddenly noticed hubby HAD NO RING ON!
Just like the wife of the man who wrote in to the radio station, I asked for an explanation. Hubby of course furnished with one: He removed the ring so he could grip the golf club better. He had to play golf with his bosses and the ring was causing pain. Well, do you think I accept that? Of course not! Why? Because I’m a woman; and a woman have doubts!
I tried talking hubby into wearing the ring again. I failed, not once, but several times. And he was making more and more trips away from home, and spending more and more nights at his office. More and more doubts clouded my mind.
It was not good.
I began to take notice of married men who didn’t wear their rings. Not much luck. I either found single men with no ring or married men with ring. OH…what did it matter? I was the one who lost the wedding ring in the first place. Better spend more time convincing myself that wedding ring didn’t matter, than to brood over the cloud of doubts in my mind.
Mind-conditioning
I subject myself to that. How? Very first step was, stop wearing the ring myself. To begin with, I had no wedding ring anyway! Step two: I do know that there are people out there who use the ring on the finger as a general rule of thumb to tell if a person is single or married. I would have to convince them that that was a lousy rule. See, I am married and I wear no ring. So as I met more and more strangers who thought I was single, I began to tell them that the ring on the finger didn’t count. Soon, I have come to a stage that I’m almost convinced that wearing one’s wedding ring really meant nothing more than a show off. The marriage wouldn’t be kept in tact by wearing the wedding rings. If one spouse sees no significance in the wedding ring, it is better for the other to also see it in the same light, so there would be no conflict. Vice versa, to be fair.
Now, I do not wear any ring on my fingers. Hubby’s original wedding ring is no where to be found.
Am I still married? Yes.
Am I happy? Yes.
Is it because there are no wedding rings? No.
The truth is—happiness does not come from marriage alone. Life is made up of so many different things and each of these things can bring happiness into my life.
Wedding ring used to bring such happiness to me. But I need to get past that.
I’m not trying to convince everyone to remove their wedding rings.
Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with showing off your wedding rings when you’re both so in love and you want the world to know!
This morning I was listening to Light & Easy, the radio station from which I won free movie tickets not too long ago. They usually have a little topic in the morning that they invite listeners to call in and share their views. So it was about wedding ring this morning. The topic was chosen because a listener wrote in to say that he's been happily married for the past 2 years, and had been wearing his wedding ring. One day, he was waxing his car and decided to remove the ring to avoid scratching the car with the ring. When he did, he noticed that a white band had formed on the finger where the ring was. After waxing the car, he decided to leave the ring off just so that he could "even out the tan" on his finger. It was ok for a few days until his wife noticed that the wedding ring was missing from the finger. A heated argument ensued. She demanded an explanation and when he told her the truth, she didn't accept it. She insisted that he had other motives. The frustrated writer felt that she had made a mountain out of a mole hill. He wanted to know if people out there held the wedding ring as important as his dear wife did.
I didn't have enough time to listen to all the callers, but from the few that called, opinions varied. I would say most of them didn't see the importance of keeping the rings on. The male radio-host is married, and views his wedding ring as a symbol of fidelity and loyalty towards his wife. He wears it faithfully. He mostly disagreed with those who thought otherwise. The female co-host who is single, had a good time making fun of him.
One man called and said he's been happily married 15 or 50 years, I'm not so sure, you know how the locals have a problem pronouncing those numbers. He only wore his wedding ring on rare occasions during the early part of his marriage. He holds the opinion that it is the heart that counts and not the ring. His wife doesn't wear the ring either. Well, this is a case where both parties agree. So I guess there's no issue.
Another call worthy of mention was made by a woman who said that men wear wedding rings with ulterior motive--to lure other women! What strange notion! She explained that she had seen single women preying on married man. (No kidding, she used the word PREY.) So when a man wears his wedding ring, his ulterior motive is to attract these lonely hearts. The logic is that if a man of marriageable age is not wearing a ring, there must be something wrong with him, so girls won't look at him. On the other hand, those who are married are normal and good, so go for him--being married is not a problem!
Poor man! If he didn't wear his wedding ring, his wife would think that he's up to hanky-panky; if he did wear the ring, he's got ulterior motive! Either way he's in the wrong!
Isn’t it interesting to note that the person in question seems to be the man all the time?
Okay, to be fair, I would mention a woman who called to confess that she's guilty of not wearing her wedding ring. She admitted that she would remove the ring from her finger when she felt like she was married to the wrong man. But she would put it back on again when that feeling was gone. I salute her for her honesty.
Now if we supposed this lady was the wife of the man who took his ring off to "tan his finger", we can see why she was so upset about her husband not wearing the ring!
Seriously, when I was listening to all these, I was in deep thoughts about my own perception of the wedding ring. How I have changed!
Just like many women out there, I viewed the wedding ring as a sacred symbol and token of a vow taken by two people.
I can still vividly recall the excitement I shared with my then boyfriend when we went shopping for our engagement ring at the Queenstown Shopping Centre. We wanted a simple design that could fit within the tiny budget of two young people who had just started out in their adult lives. There was no such design. So we had it tailored made. My finger was so tiny there was no standard ring size that could fit me anyway.
It was 6 August when I first had that ring placed on my finger. No words could describe my feelings. A small piece of jewelry held so much significance! I felt contented and loved knowing that he would wear the ring for me, and that I held a special place in his heart.
As it turned out, I wore that ring for several months and it was time to exchange for a permanent ring—the wedding ring.
This time around, I followed Mom’s tradition. I would purchase the ring for future hubby and he in return would purchase the ring for me. Mom said that these would be rings made of pure gold and we would wear them for the rest of our lives. Well, at that time, future hubby was 250 miles away in Kuala Lumpur, so we couldn’t share the excitement of buying the rings together. I went ring shopping with Mom. I felt really special. I had a wonderful mother. She helped me choose a nice ring for hubby.
On our wedding day, we exchanged the rings. In my memory, we both wore our rings, whether we were together or apart. It was important for me to see hubby wear the ring. To me, it was a sign that he treasured our vows. But truth is, deep inside, I knew I was being insecure. The wedding ring gave me some form of reassurance. (FYI, hubby nick-named me “Thomas the Doubter”)
To continue with the ring story, I must bring to light that I actually lost my wedding ring! Being the Miss Forgetful Joe, I can’t recall when it happened, but I still remember how it happened.
We used to travel between KL and Singapore along the uncompleted North-South highway. This particular time we were on our way back to KL. I was peeling oranges for everyone in the car. Fei and Su were quite tiny then. I had to remove my wedding ring just so I could clean my sticky fingers and hands with some wet-wipes. The ring was placed on my lap. For some reason, we had to make a pit stop at the road side. I got out from the car, completely forgotten about the ring on my lap. By the time I realized my ring was missing, we were too far to turn back. On top of that, we wouldn’t have been able to locate the spot where we had stopped. I was extremely upset. Hubby consoled me by saying it was only a ring. We could always get a replacement.
A replacement we did get. But it was not the same. This one was not pure gold. It was 916 gold but it looked almost like the original one. That’s what we could afford. Nevertheless, I wore the ring with the same reverence and respect. Meanwhile, hubby still wore his wedding ring, the original one.
Life went on and I grew more forgetful with each passing day. Alas, I couldn’t recall how, when and where it happened—did the rat steal my ring? I couldn’t find it anywhere! That was it. No more wedding ring for me. Still, hubby had the same wedding ring on.
Being the person who was sensitive about the issue of wearing one’s wedding ring, I decided that I would have to keep a ring on my ring finger. So hubby and I went shopping for a ring. It had pattern engraved on it. It definitely did not look like the original wedding ring. But I liked it. My tasted have changed. They didn’t have my size so again, we had to tailor-make it. Did you think for a moment that my fingers had grown chubby over the years? Nope, you’re wrong—I still had my tiny fingers!
We wore non-matching rings from that time hence.
One fine day, I suddenly noticed hubby HAD NO RING ON!
Just like the wife of the man who wrote in to the radio station, I asked for an explanation. Hubby of course furnished with one: He removed the ring so he could grip the golf club better. He had to play golf with his bosses and the ring was causing pain. Well, do you think I accept that? Of course not! Why? Because I’m a woman; and a woman have doubts!
I tried talking hubby into wearing the ring again. I failed, not once, but several times. And he was making more and more trips away from home, and spending more and more nights at his office. More and more doubts clouded my mind.
It was not good.
I began to take notice of married men who didn’t wear their rings. Not much luck. I either found single men with no ring or married men with ring. OH…what did it matter? I was the one who lost the wedding ring in the first place. Better spend more time convincing myself that wedding ring didn’t matter, than to brood over the cloud of doubts in my mind.
Mind-conditioning
I subject myself to that. How? Very first step was, stop wearing the ring myself. To begin with, I had no wedding ring anyway! Step two: I do know that there are people out there who use the ring on the finger as a general rule of thumb to tell if a person is single or married. I would have to convince them that that was a lousy rule. See, I am married and I wear no ring. So as I met more and more strangers who thought I was single, I began to tell them that the ring on the finger didn’t count. Soon, I have come to a stage that I’m almost convinced that wearing one’s wedding ring really meant nothing more than a show off. The marriage wouldn’t be kept in tact by wearing the wedding rings. If one spouse sees no significance in the wedding ring, it is better for the other to also see it in the same light, so there would be no conflict. Vice versa, to be fair.
Now, I do not wear any ring on my fingers. Hubby’s original wedding ring is no where to be found.
Am I still married? Yes.
Am I happy? Yes.
Is it because there are no wedding rings? No.
The truth is—happiness does not come from marriage alone. Life is made up of so many different things and each of these things can bring happiness into my life.
Wedding ring used to bring such happiness to me. But I need to get past that.
I’m not trying to convince everyone to remove their wedding rings.
Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with showing off your wedding rings when you’re both so in love and you want the world to know!
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