So I asked that you ask and you asked!
Dear Dave
I lost my diamond from my engagement ring…Ok ask me how I lost it. Fixing the battery of my car..(never took it off) Looked high and low inside and outside of the car area. Even my neighbors joined me in the search, two hours and still looking five days later. The sentimental value was great (not because it was a big, just because it was given to me by my beloved) was thinking of replacing the diamond myself. Yes, he knows (called him)he is a work warrior – traveling mostly 250 days a year (I cried all night on the phone) Thinking of replacing myself dont dare to ask him..Should I replace myself or should I ask him?
Forever lost diamond
Dear Diamond:
First off, way to be all bad ass and able to fix a car battery. Ladies can only be made more sexy with car grease. This has been proven, like, four billion times in Playboy. (Sorry, had to get that little testosterone out of the way as I embark on this decidedly sensitive bit of writing)
Well obviously the most important issue here is settled: He knows about the gaffe. As we’ve all learned from watching that bastion of wisdom that is the American Sitcom you can never watch your best friend’s parrot, have it fly away and then go buy a new one, because that parrot knows how to sing the French national anthem, and the one you bought is actually a macaw and there is a huge difference between French singing parrots and macaws.
As you can see, we’re starting off on a high point, disaster averted, openness achieved. We’re ready to move forward.
Which way is forward, you say? The tricky land of Maleprideistan.
The problem with you getting a new diamond for the setting is multi-fold. Men need to feel like they’re providers. Now, I know that’s a line straight out of Cosmo, but it’s true. Just as gravity and most of the laws of thermodynamics are true (at least one of those was made up under the influence of pot, I’m positive of it), so is this.
So then how to proceed? How do we get a diamond back on that finger? How we resolve this situation without the years of guilt and passive aggressive behavior and sniping at the Thanksgiving 2036 dinner table where he casually mentions you losing the stone and the cyber turkey dishes start getting thrown?
It’s easy, really. What you need to do is assure both yourself and him that the stone is just a symbol of your love for each other. Sounds cheesy, but it has to be true. Did you spend all that time searching for it because it was worth some cabbage? Did you cry all night into the phone because you’d lost an investment? Nope.
See, the great thing about diamond rings is that they’re worthless. Sure, people like to say you’re supposed to spend a certain amount of money on a ring and the oohs and ahhs you get are directly proportional to the size of the stone. But did the thought of selling that ring at any time ever cross your mind? Did you ever sit down and dream of the really bad-ass tricked-out Vespa moto-scooter you could get if you hocked it? No, of course not. Ergo, the ring has no monetary value, whatsoever. Its value is emotional, which is evident from the intense reaction you had when you lost it.
Now that we’ve established that stone itself has no monetary worth we can proceed to the conclusion quite easily. What I would suggest is keeping the diamond-less ring itself on your finger at all times and loving it just as much as when it did have a stone. In fact, pretend it never had a stone. Next time you see your husband, make mention of how, stone or no, the ring will always be the same reminder of your love for each other. Not only do you need to say this, you need to believe it, because it’s true.
If you do all this, should your husband ever come bounding down out of the mountains of Maleprideistan with a new diamond for that ring… it won’t be a replacement.
It’ll be an upgrade. Because there was nothing to replace. You never lost a thing.
Miss(ed) Manners 