"Did your wife buy this argument??? Where did you get her wedding ring??? Out of a box of cracker jacks???"
I just want to go back to this little gem one more time (no pun intended). First of all, what I got my wife is none of your business, nor is it anyone else's other than my wife's.
Secondly, my wife and I scrounged up our savings for a down payment on a house shortly after we got married some ten years ago. That house has since tripled in value, for a profit of $500,000 on an initial outlay of less than a tenth of that amount.
Does that make us rich? Not by a long shot. But it has kept us from going broke. More importantly, it has allowed my wife to stay at home and be a full-time mother. Thanks to that investment, we can afford to send my son to a private school, and my wife has plenty of time to help him with his schoolwork.
Had we used a good chunk of that downpayment for a diamond rather than buying a house, my wife would be forced to fight traffic every day to work outside the home, and she would have little time to help her son with his homework. I'll just bet she's happier without the diamond!
If you live in the house, it hasn't put any money into your pocket, no matter what its valuation is, vis-a-vis what you put into it as a down payment.
You keep talking about "feeling social pressure" and then bashing anyone and everyone who may have a diamond or many... none of whom have told you that YOU MUST BUY THEM. That "pressure" you feel is all in your own mind; it certainly isn't on this thread, except from you.
Oh, grown up and give it a rest. I don't geve a damn what you got her.