Why I’ve Never Worn My Wedding Ring

It’s probably not why you think

My wedding ring is a slim gold band that feels nearly weightless.

My husband placed the ring on my finger during our wedding ceremony in the spring of 2013. Our dear friend Claire officiated our ceremony.

The wedding was joyous. A full marching band played “Call me Maybe” for our first dance. We partied with our dearest friends in an ornate graduate school dining hall where I was attending school. Students were studying for their final exams in the library just a few doors down.

Years later, my marriage is struggling. But that’s not why I don’t wear my wedding ring.

In fact, I’ve never really worn it.

There are plenty of reasons people choose to wear wedding bands. Rings can represent tradition, loyalty, even ownership. They announce to the world that you are in a married partnership, and they can remind you of the person you love.

I never rejected these views of marriage or rings. I have never ascribed to old-fashioned marriage traditions and had no religious guidance underlying my decision to marry. But I was still intrigued by the idea of a simple object like a ring carrying great meaning.

I even looked forward to wearing a ring one day.

You see, I’ve long been attached to heirlooms and trinkets as a way to hang on tight to memories. As a child, I would finger the gold brooches and clip-on earrings on my grandmother’s dresser and imagine having my own collection one day.

I remember thinking about the fact that one day my grandmother would be gone, and these jewels would remind me of her.

When my father spent the night away from home for work trips, I would dramatically collect the odds and ends that reminded me of him — a small toy he’d bought for me at the liquor store, a fossil we’d found at the beach — and sleep with them under my pillow that night.

I have no problem assigning meaning to objects that hold memories. I have done it many times before.

And yet somehow this wedding band has never represented much to me. It doesn’t feel sacred or profound or meaningful. It looks funny on my finger.

My wedding ring feels like an object that I was expected to ascribe meaning to before I had spent any time attaching it to my actual life.

This ring is nothing like my grandmother’s pearl engagement ring, which I wore on my own wedding day on my right hand. Every time I looked down and saw her ring, it made me smile. I thought of her wearing it as a young woman in love after WWII. I thought about the cake she’d left on my doorstep on my 18th birthday, and the smile on her face in the pictures I had of her holding me as a baby.

My wedding ring is nothing like my Aunt Meem’s cheap gold-plated ring engraved with her initials. I wear that ring now and think of Aunt Meem’s spunk. I think of her swimming laps at 85 and sending me postcards at college.

And my wedding ring has certainly never felt as meaningful as my favorite ring in my own dresser collection, the one I bought for myself in Senegal nearly 20 years ago.

I bought this ring for myself in Dakar during a difficult period of depression. I chose a simple silver filigree design that looks like ocean waves.

When I wear that ring today, it reminds me of my own resilience.

Perhaps there was always an element of doubt underlying my rejection of my wedding ring in the early days of my marriage. I worried I was supposed to feel something more deeply for this man I had chosen to marry.

I had known my husband since we were 23. We had trekked the remote highlands of Laos together. We had slept on an airport floor in Zagreb during a Christmas Eve snowstorm. We had lived for 6 years in different states, traveling back and forth by subway and train and borrowed cars.

On the day we married, we had already shared endless hours of time together. And yet I didn’t feel the emotional connection I assumed others feel on this special day. He was my best friend, the person I’d reach for, but I worried our love didn’t reach deep enough.

Perhaps the ring always reminded me of the risk that I was faking it all, just playing a part.

A few days ago, inspired to write this story, I was shuffling through a dresser drawer to find my Aunt Meem’s ring. In the back of the drawer was an old wine cork.

The cork had been there for years, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it. I had held onto that cork since I was 23.

When we were first dating, my husband and I lived in different states. I don’t remember why, but one evening I saved the cork from a cheap bottle of wine we shared at dinner.

Thus began a playful game of hide and seek with that wine cork that lasted for years. I would leave it in his sock drawer when I left his apartment for the early-morning train back to Brooklyn. He would place it next to my toothbrush so that I’d find it when I woke up, and he was the one who was gone. I would place it in his suitcase before he left for a summer abroad.

I don’t remember when we stopped this game with the cork. It was years ago, before we were married. It was before we bought a house, had our boys, and lost who we were.

When I hold the cork in my hand now, it makes me think of youth and endless time. It reminds me of feeling light and playful. I haven’t felt this way in years.

I’ve written several pieces about the current state of my marriage. I am struggling to determine what our next step is, whether I should stay or go.

But I do know that whether this marriage continues or comes to an end, my gold wedding ring won’t be the thing that makes me think of my marriage. Holding that ring won’t cause me nostalgia or grief.

But that cheap wine cork will.

This story was partially inspired by Kim Kelly. Her story about her watch collection made me think about the objects we carry with us in our lives and what meaning they hold for us. Thanks Kim!

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