You're always safe with me.

I'm a very good screamer.

The douche was abusive - poor girl. :shake:

Said girl wants moissanite one day, one of the much more affordable diamond substitutes.

Thankfully my wife hasn't hinted about an upgrade.

I did tell her when I proposed I'm only buying one ring and this is it.

It's fine to me if women want a ring as a marital sign, but I'm not sure that rings are optimal for men. I think women should buy men a wedding hat instead of a ring.

Not sure how true but I seem to have read somewhere that Diamonds are in no way rare, they keep finding them and keep mining them yet the value doesn't diminish on new ones. They are so common that there is far less cubic zirconium around than diamond and they can make that at will.

I'll say this, and it's advice I'll at least give to my son and probably my daughters as well.

If something is important, act like it.

I've only known a few people who have gotten divorced in my circle of friends/family (I mean, excluding my parents and then my dad again), but to a person they did some chintzy wedding or got married at the courthouse.

If your marriage is disposable, sure - treat the wedding like it is. But if it's serious, treat it like it's serious. This goes for any event. I won't go to church without at least a jacket and damn sure won't do weddings or funerals without a suit, even if I'm not in them.

Now I do agree that things have gotten excessive in a lot of ways. But it was important to me that I make a sacrifice to get that ring. I ended up having to wait another 6-7 years to get a motorcycle because the money I'd have spent on it, I spent on her ring instead. I could've spent a couple hundred bucks and still been married, but again - if it's important, act like it.

I also understand people that think that's a load of shit. But I'm betting more of them end up divorced than people that look at it like I do. Put some skin in the game or how serious about this are you, really? And if you're not serious enough to make a sacrifice, you probably shouldn't be getting married.

I think you should spend your hard earned money on whatever you want.

If it’s not hard earned then maybe consider charity every now and then.

Cock ring and have her personally bless it

I hold the same position. The way I phrase it is "pay it the respect it deserves."

The logical side of me says it doesn't ****ing matter. But the practical side of my life pretty much exclusively shows that if you do little shit (like dressing up for important shit) it does something to the psychology of yourself.

That being said, there is nuance and exceptions. Some people it doesn't change things psychology. RE: Divorce, some people can take it seriously and shit goes off the rails. People change, people weren't grown up enough to understand real life, shit happens. But I'd agree. Taking it seriously and doing "right" improves the probability of success.

My ex-fiance had the diamonds put on a different ring.

It's not the 'doing it right' that improves the probability, it's the willingness to do so. If your parents give you $10K to go buy a ring but your wife never knows, that doesn't mean anything - you've not demonstrated a fundamental commitment - it's no skin off your ass to spend daddy's money.

But those that ARE willing to do so and make sacrifices to get it done, are those that have put the requisite amount of thought and care in the decision in the first place.

The nicer ring and more substantial wedding is simply a byproduct of that level of commitment and dedication to the union. If it matters, you'll treat it as such. And you likely won't give it a second thought.

But as you and I appear to be the same person in a dozen different ways, I suspect you already understood all of that...

I've been rolling this around in my head a bit and IMO this doesn't accurately depict the skin in the game.

If you have Elvis marry you in Vegas drive through chapel the night you meet someone, you obviously don't have any skin in the game and chances are probably higher that it'll end poorly.

OTOH, if you date someone for a year or two, give up your personal space to live together, spend money on dates and gifts and so forth... and the get engaged, that's quite a bit of skin in the game already, no? Does paying 3 month's salary on top of that really change anything?

Or to turn that around.... if you met someone at a bar tonight, bought a $10k ring for her and got engaged.... you wouldn't expect throwing $10k into a 6 hour relationship is going to help anything, right? And if it did, probably not for good reasons.

I think there is sometimes a psychological component to it, like Buehler mentioned... dress for success or for the occasion. Granted, my wardrobe was pretty casual before working from home all the time, so can't exactly say I abide by it.

I also think that it depends on what your relationship is really like in the first place. My wife and I had lived together for two years before we got engaged, and we shared a lot of our expenses. If I'd spent $10k on a wedding ring, her response wouldn't have been "OMG how thoughtful." It would have been "Why the **** are we living in this shithole if you can afford $10k on a ring?"

Agreed. I like the term sacrifice you threw out there because it seems super counterintuitive to put a ton of focus on material things to represent love. But sacrifice is a good term for it. We value money and give up something we value for the one we love. Much better approach than focusing on shiny shit instead of what's important in the relationship - like how it seems in my head.

So thanks for closing that divide in my (our?) head. :D

I got a mighty chuckle imagining your wife saying that. ROFL