Posted on 04/04/2012 11:36:32 PM PDT by thecodont
While most of the women I know wouldn’t stand for it, there’s been a lot of buzz around husbands opting not to wear their wedding bands.
According to some experts, people just don’t value the symbolism in a ring like they used to.
“I know I’m married, everybody else knows I’m married. I just don’t have no desire to wear it, at all.”
Richard Rhodes has been happily married for 15 years and says he hasn’t worn his ring since he tied the knot.
“I took it off right after the reception and I ain’t seen it since,” said Rhodes.
But the wedding ring is not just a symbol of love for married couples; it’s also an “off-limits” sign for singles.
Psychiatrist Gary Malone says that when a man decides not to wear his ring, it’s usually because he wants to “present himself as not married.” We didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell us that, but it helps.
“He gets all the payoff of presenting himself as single, while he actually gets the other payoff of having a wife at home,” Malone says.
(Excerpt) Read more at living.msn.com ...
I met my wife in the last semester of college. We married the following year.
I never wear my college ring.
But cannot remember when I took off my wedding band. We had our 41st Wedding Anniversary last month.
If I took it off it would still be obvious I am married. The light color of the skin under the ring and the indentation it has left with years of wearing it.
Going on 9 years. Never took it off for more than a few minutes. Leaving it off is unthinkable.
Wear another optional ring on other hand, and a watch. That’s all the jewelry I can manage.
I don’t wear a weddding ring because I hate rings.
Dad never wore his. He was an electrical engineer ... messing with electricity day in and day out was one reason. He also didn’t like wearing jewelry. He was faithful regardless.
I don’t understand the posts on here lamenting people for not wearing a ring. A ring is a symbol. That is all. Your heart and mindset of marriage are far more important.
I wear my ring. I do work at a Tech Center and when I go onto the plant floor, I take it off per regulations. I also remove it when I play pickup basketball. Other than that, I wear it all the time.
Again, it’s the heart and mindset that keep a marriage. Not an object on your finger.
I’m on my 4th ring (same wife!). Lost my first one swimming out into a lake to rescue my disoriented puppy. She was swimming in circles and wouldn’t come back to shore. It was early April in Massachusetts and the water was freezing. My fingers shrunk from the cold and my ring slipped off as I reached for her collar. Way too deep water to find it later.
Second ring was lost in Iraq. I’m a UH-60 pilot and during pre-flight I take my ring off so my fingers don’t catch on anything up on the engine deck. I would put the ring on my dog tag chain. Sometimes when I put my body armor on my dog tag chain would break. I wouldn’t know this until hours later when I took it off. So ring number 2 is in the desert somewhere.
lost ring number 3 while giving my son a bath at my parents house. It fell off the vanity and down a heating vent. Never found it.
Now I have 3 sons and I still take my 4th ring off when I give them baths. haven’t lost it yet. My wife stopped buying me new rings after number 2. So it’s a very inexpensive white gold band.
She does get upset if I forget to put it back sometimes. She knows to look for my dog tags and will usually find it there.
Himself has a huge chop saw and a horror story.
Square, very long stock of chromoly tubing, not properly clamped.
The end jumped up as the cut finished.
Then, as he always does, specifically to make me crazy, he comes into the LR and says “Honey...don’t freak out....” which of course makes me instantly freak out.
He unwraps his hand and blood is gushing from the severed fingertip.
Off we go to a hillbilly ER [seriously] where they attempt to _stitch through his finger, right through the fingernail_ in order to affix the fingertip back on.
It did stay on but deformed his finger and it’s still numb to this day.
He clamps religiously, now.
Prior to that, he was using the mill and screwdriver he’d used on the chuck was “forgotten” and when he fired up the mill, it went ripping right by his head on its way to embedding itself in the wall.
Even pros screw up now and then.
I could list my own youthful mishaps, ad nauseum but it’s not for nothing I picked “Salamander”.
Through some means a mystery to me, I can successfully regrow various body parts...such as an entire thumb tip, pulverized brain matter, the “web” between my thumb and forefinger,, an entire ankle bone, the whole top layer of my right hand, etc etc etc.
I’m not sure what my regenerative “limits” are but I’m in no hurry to find out...LOL
[suffice to say I’ve conducted some *really* stupid experiments over the years]
;]
I think she should pop rivet it to your head.
;D
“IMHO this psychologist is one of those people who sits in their ivory tower proscribing judgement on issues he knows absolutely nothing about...”
Agreed. My father will be 82 tomorrow. He was a supervisor in a steel mill. He never had a ring and wouldn’t have worn it if he did. He made it very clear how dangerous they are. (The grief I got over high heels, too!) My husband is a pilot. A peer lost his finger when he missed his footing exiting a plane. Neither of us wear our wedding rings. Neither of us worry for a minute about the other one cheating. Both of us actually have a fear of God.
Haha. That wouldn’t be fun. To be honest, I probably wear it 95% of the day.
Then a few staples should hold it on.
Less messy, too.
:)
i’m a bartender. when I was married i wore my ring all the time, but it never stopped women from from trying to pick me up.
i’d stand there, literally tapping my ring on the bar in front of them, and most either didn’t notice or didn’t care. they’d keep right on trying.
whether or not you wear a ring doesn’t always matter.
Gorilla Glue and just call it a day.
If anything, I’ve observed the opposite: it is marriages where men get to unilaterally decide not to where a ring where they don’t where one—and those don’t tend to be maiden-name marriages.
Oh, and where men work in manual labor—as many FReepers attest to here. Those don’t tend to be maiden-name marriages either.
Finally, I question the premise of this article. Indeed, ‘double ring’ ceremonies used to be noted and I expect far more marriages have a double ring today to start with. Again, older marriages were less often maiden-name ones.
The lingering scent of fabric softener does it. Sprinkle yourself with Downey when hiking to ward off cougar attacks.
What is “the symbolism in a ring”?
Gold is also a very good heat conductor. Hold a ringed finger near an operating forge or foundry furnace very long, and you'll have a blister under that ring.
Seconded! Don’t like, don’t wear, don’t need them.
I was a mechanic for years, and never wore my ring at work. Our safety office had that poster of a finger stripped of skin and muscle on every safety board. I started wearing my ring since I retired. My wife and her best friend were surprised to see it on my finger.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.