AITA for giving my ring back after my fiancé made a comment to his guy friends regarding why we haven’t gotten married?
A Reddit user shares their experience of returning their engagement ring to their fiancé after feeling hurt by a comment he made during a conversation with his friends.
After being engaged for four years and dealing with various life challenges, the user expressed a desire to have a simple wedding. However, during a gathering, the fiancé laughed along with friends who made negative comments about marriage, saying he was “dragging his feet” on the subject.
This comment, combined with his subsequent dismissive attitude towards planning, led the user to believe he might not genuinely want to get married. In a calm moment, they decided to return the ring, expressing their desire not to hold onto false hopes about a future wedding.
The fiancé reacted defensively, insisting he still wanted to marry her but claiming she was overreacting. Read the original story below to see how the user navigates this emotional conflict with their fiancé.
‘ AITA for giving my ring back after my fiancé made a comment to his guy friends regarding why we haven’t gotten married?’
My fiancé and I (both 30) have been together for 8 years and engaged for 4 years. We got engaged right before COVID really hit and obviously that put a huge halt on any sort of planning and then from there forward.
life events halted it more (became homeless, ended up pregnant and having our child, now we are back on our feet but not financially where we could be YET). Back roughly 5 months ago (ish) I brought up marriage and basically approached the idea of having a backyard wedding and a pot luck.
Basically going cheap because I don’t really care so much about the wedding or price or whatever. I just want to wear a pretty dress and have all eyes on me and get married to the love of my life. I don’t care about the expensive bells and whistles.
When I brought it up he told me that that wouldn’t be a bad idea and that we could ‘probably’ try planning for July-ish 2025. Okay! But we haven’t really talked about it since that point, as other s**t came up.
Here’s the issue though.. back about a month ago we were down to our neighbors home (people who have grown to be really good friends since we moved here 1.5 years ago). I was hanging out with the neighbors wife and her best friend.
My fiancé was hanging out with a group of 3-4 guys, having beers and working on vehicles. Well, one of the guys there was talking about his wife and said “once you get married, everything f**king stops” (I overheard in the middle of the conversation so I have no idea what “stops” during marriage but it was a negative comment irregardless).
But anyways, my fiancé then starts laughing and goes “that’s why I’ve been dragging my feet on marriage” and the guys just laughed and said “don’t do it man, it’s a trap” etc etc. It really hurt me, but I figured it was just ‘locker room talk’ and tried my best to move on. But like.. I couldn’t let it go. It sat in the back of my head.
So a couple weeks ago I brought up getting married again and just ran some ideas by him on simple things (like what he saw our wedding colors being) and he shut down a bit and said something to the affect of “I think we need to weigh the pros and cons of being married first” and shut down the conversation.
Instant plunge to my gut, honestly. So I walk outside to calm myself down but I just couldn’t shake it honestly. So I went back inside and calmly handed him my ring back and asked him what he wanted for dinner. I didn’t want to make a big deal so there was no yelling, no crying, nothing.
I was calm and moved on. But he instantly asked me what I was doing and why I gave the ring back. So I mentioned his comment to his buddies about dragging his feet and now his comments about needing to wait and weigh the pros and cons before going through with anything and told him I don’t want to wait,
nor do I want to get my hopes up for a marriage that he’s clearly changed his mind about so I would rather he have the ring back and go in to this without the sound of wedding bells in my head. Let’s just move on, basically.
We can still be together but I don’t want my hopes up. Well, he got extremely defensive. Started saying “I’m not saying it’s not going to happen” or “you’re being extreme for no reason”. AITA?
Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:
DesperateToNotDream − “We need to weigh the pros and cons” he’s had FOUR YEARS since proposing to think about that. He absolutely doesn’t want to get married; if he did, you would be.
cloistered_around − You called him out and now, apparently, he’s going to backtrack instead of double down. Don’t fall for it OP, if you marry him (if he begged you to, theoretically) he’ll just resent you for it.
Honestly people are so silly because having a baby together is *way* more of a commitment than a “marriage.” And you’ve been together 8 years already! He’s still afraid of verbally committing?
This paperwork and a single party is the line in the sand for him? The law already considers you married anyway so it can’t be divorce settlements he’s worried about. He just doesn’t want the *commitment* of marriage.
Good for you making it clear what the relationship is. And if you had the finances for it I’d say leave and just co parent because you deserve a partner who loves you enough to make that choice. NTA
BillyandGizmoDotCom − He sounds like a dud
BlazingSunflowerland − I’d really start to reconsider spending the rest of your life with him. I think you just lost respect for him and don’t be surprised if the love follows. I’ve found that it is impossible to love someone whom you can’t respect.
I find it impossible to love someone who strings you along without telling you the truth about what they want. Don’t be surprised if you end up not liking him anymore and not wanting to spend your life with him. It is okay to move on if you hit that point.
coppeliuseyes − NTA. Honestly, in my opinion you under-reacted. You handled this with so much grace and I respect you for that but this man feels that committing himself to you is a trap. He has intentionally led you on for years, dangling the carrot of marriage in front of you and placating you with maybes.
Whatever his doubts were, he never valued you enough to communicate them with you. He never treated you like a partner to work things out with, he sat alone with his thoughts and doubts, keeping you quiet with empty words to avoid the conversation, and laughed about it with his buddies.
IMO you should have made it a bigger deal. You should have made it a conversation. Because you’re both just silencing parts of your feelings to keep the peace, and eventually that silence is going to rip an even wider hole in the fabric of your relationship if you don’t address it.
Do you want to get married? What does marriage mean to you? Is it just a thing that people do that you’re happy to forget for your relationship? Or is it a want that you’re silencing for fear of being alone? What *are* his pros and cons? What is marriage to him?
Is he worried about the expense, has he seen too many people divorce? Or is he keeping himself open to other options? You need to know and discuss these things if you want to move forward from this.
Open_Equal_1515 − okay hold on , you’ve been engaged for four years , survived a pandemic , a pregnancy , and a potluck planning session , only to hear that he’s “dragging his feet” because marriage is some mysterious “trap” ? yikes.
handing the ring back was the calmest “nah , we’re not doing this” move you could’ve pulled. sounds like he’s treating marriage like it’s a life sentence , when really , it’s just a party with cake and a promise to keep putting up with each other.
honestly , if he’s that defensive over a hypothetical wedding color , maybe he needs to go back to the drawing board on what commitment really means. so no , you’re definitely not the a**hole – you’re just saving yourself a lifetime of “weighing pros and cons” over breakfast !!
Key_Bluebird_6104 − I’d d**p him. If, after all this time and all you’ve been through, he is still not wanting to make that commitment he never will.
Cursd818 − NTA
You have a child together. Any man who hesitates to marry you after that kind of commitment is a waste of your time. Of course he’s getting defensive that you’re refusing to let him play these games.
He felt all-powerful, dangling the idea of marriage whilst never intending to follow through. The only way to win these games is to refuse to play at all. If he wants to marry you, he needs to make you want to marry him again. If not, he can leave now, and you can find the man you deserve.
thisisstupid- − You are giving him wife privileges without the vows, that would stop right now if it was me. NTA.
Grumpy_Lurker − NTA. If you want to stay in this relationship, you absolutely should be realistic about what you can expect from it. He is not being honest about what he wants, and you’re right to insist that he start.
Do you think the user’s decision to return the ring was justified given the comments made, or do you believe the fiancé’s remarks were misinterpreted? How would you handle a similar situation regarding communication and commitment in a relationship? Share your thoughts below!