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“What would it take for you to remove your wedding ring?”
That’s one of the first questions I was hit with this morning when I got to work. It was posed by one of my coworkers and inspired by speculation that Monica Brown and her husband, Shannon Brown are on the outs following rumors of infidelity.
According to B. Scott, the beautiful wife and mom stepped out for a performance this weekend sans her gorgeous, diamond-studded eternity band and engagement ring, and folks are busy connecting the dots, trying to figure out whether or not this means that things are over between her and Shannon.
I always try to remain optimistic, especially when it comes to people’s marriages, so until we see that this has become a pattern or Monica comes straight out and says that it’s over or that the rumors are true, I’m going to assume that she simply forgot to put her rings back on before the performance. I hate to assume the worst or speak negativity over anyone’s union, and I don’t want to speculate. I do not know what’s going on in that marriage. So I’ll just send some prayers up for them and their family and mind my business. But the question presented by my coworker did trigger an interesting discussion, and that’s what I’d like to explore in this post.
“What would it take for you to remove your wedding ring?”
My coworker, Veronica, is always talking about people who treat their spouses like a boyfriend or girlfriend. You know, the types who change their relationship statuses on Facebook from “married” to “single” or “it’s complicated” after every little fight, who regularly threaten to pack their sh-t and head over to their mama’s house, drop their married name from their Facebook pages, who remove their rings in a heartbeat just to make a point. Most of us have witnessed someone act out this way, and in many cases, the person is just trying to push their partner’s buttons. In many cases, over time, the relationship shrivels up and dies. When you continuously threaten to leave a partner just to get a rise out of them, after a while, the fear of losing you loses its power. Not to mention that these kinds of threats seem to erode the foundational pillars of a relationship. If I can count on you threatening to leave me every time you’re angry, what do we really have?
I can recall one couple who was engaged to be married. The woman in the relationship was always taking off her ring and telling her fiancé that the wedding was off. This went on for years, and eventually, the guy got to the point where he stopped taking their engagement seriously. By the time she seriously started working towards making wedding plans, he was mapping out his exit strategy.
I know that marriage comes with its share of ups and downs, and spouses have the potential to hurt their partners in a way that no one else can, so I really can’t be 100 percent certain of what I would do or how I would react when placed in challenging marital situations; however, I would hope that I wouldn’t remove my ring until papers are served and it’s clear that things are over. One coworker agreed that she, too, would wait until papers have been signed. Another colleague shared that she would take off her ring once if she is completely sure that she’s done with the relationship. But for some, it’s not that deep. For them, the ring is just a small symbol of the union, and removing it out of anger is really no big deal. They just put it back on when they’re not angry anymore and keep it pushing.
We’d like to hear from you. Do you remove your wedding ring when you’re angry at your spouse? Do you believe that this has had an impact on your marriage in any way?
