Should I return the engagement ring I was given? My fiancé and I broke up just before the holidays. We were engaged for 2 years and never really got serious about planning a wedding. The breakup was pretty much a mutual thing, I want more from a relationship and more from a husband and he is comfortable with his life as it is. We drifted apart and rather than push each other to change or try to compromise we ended it. My question is I really love my engagement ring and now my ex Jacob has asked for it back. After 2 years I feel like I have earned the ring. I really want to be friends with my ex, but I find it very upsetting that he wants the ring back that was a gift and is MINE! I am not asking for all the gifts back that I gave him over the last 2 years. Don’t you think I should be allowed to keep my ring, after all, it’s my ring.
- Tanya
Dear Tanya,
Thank you for your question, the subject of “should she keep the ring or should she return the engagement ring” is a relatively new one (the last 2 or 3 decades or so) before then people were taught hard and fast social rules that one lives by and this type of question would not come up.
First and foremost, let me ask you a simple question, I am just curious and really has no bearing on my answer about whether or not you should return the engagement ring. Why wouldn’t you want to return the engagement ring? Why would you want to keep a ring that is a symbol of a failed venture in marriage? Are diamonds really all that valuable and you all that desperate that you need to have this death grip on the engagement ring? I would think that if you truly did want to make a fresh start at life, that ring would be the last keepsake you would want in your jewelry box or even worse on a different figure (don’t get me started on that faux-pas)
Also how you feel about the occasional post-engagement romp in bed with Jacob? If you are allowed to keep the engagement ring without having to commit to being his wife I would think the least you could do is allow him to come over every now and then when he fancies a shag. Ridiculous isn’t it? So is not returning the engagement ring.
Once any engagement is broken, the bride should immediately return the engagement ring to her ex fiancé. Some people argue that if the groom is the one who breaks off the engagement that the bride should not return the engagement ring because she did not initiate the break up. I disagree, if the groom breaks it off, not only are you obligated to return the engagement ring but your sense of self pride should make you want to throw it at him (depending on how he broke up with his bride should constitute if a head shot is warranted or the classy hand it over) in either case you do the right thing and return the engagement ring back to the groom. There are only 2 occasions a bride should not have to return the engagement ring; I would encourage a bride keeping her engagement ring is if her groom dies during the engagement or if the ring is a family heirloom from the brides side of the family.
If Jacob wanted to go as far as taking you to court over the matter, he would most likely win. In most cases the law sees an engagement ring as something attached to a marriage, just as if a business partnership fails each partner receives back what assets were there’s before the partnership such is the case with a marital engagement and the bride should return the engagement ring back to the groom.
Recently, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stuck steadfastly to the no-fault reasoning and decreed that the donor should always get the ring back if the engagement is broken off, regardless of who broke it off or why. Lindh v. Surman, 742 A.2d 643 (Pa. 1999). Iowa, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Wisconsin have the same rule.
Justices on the Supreme Court of Kansas, which also adopted the no-fault rule in 1997, detailed the difficulties that they imagined would be theirs with a fault-based approach:
[S]hould courts be asked to determine which of the following grounds for breaking an engagement is fault or justified? (1) The parties have nothing in common; (2) one party cannot stand prospective in-laws; (3) a minor child of one of the parties is hostile to and will not accept the other party; (4) an adult child of one of the parties will not accept the other party; (5) the parties' pets do not get along; (6) a party was too hasty in proposing or accepting the proposal; (7) the engagement was a rebound situation which is now regretted; (8) one party has untidy habits that irritate the other; or (9) the parties have religious differences.
Heiman v. Parrish, 942 P.2d 631, 637 (Kan. 1997).
Tanya, return the engagement ring, move on. If you are truthful that you “want more from a relationship and husband” you need to ask yourself if you deserve more. A woman that would not instantly return the engagement ring may have some charter flaws that a worthwhile man would be sensible to steer clear of.
-A.
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