My wedding ring

When I met my now ex husband, I'll call him Scot, I was 19 and he was 41. I fell in love quickly and hard. We talked of travel and a life together. We made plans bigger than where we were. We wanted the world and talked about taking it on together. His face lit up, specifically his eyes, when we talked about life and a future. When I looked into his eyes a saw a window to his soul, bright, fun, and full of life.

I knew I wanted to spend my forever with him.

He spoke passionately about his past travels and plans to do it all again. He knew exactly that it meant to be a good partner and parent. He spoke of values and generations to come, wanting to do it right for out great great great grand children.

While cooking dinner for us he would tell me stories of running with the bulls in Spain and backpacking for months on end.

At 22 I graduated with my bachelors in nursing. We talked of opening a bar on the beach and we could take adventures while I did travel assignments during off season. We were starting to make plans for tomorrow instead of talking in broad '5 years from now' ideas.

A year later the plans for tomorrow had disappeared, he was barely working 3 days a week, and the spark in his eyes began to fade. He had a hollow laugh he used when talking to others. He played video games at night and slept during the day. He began criticizing my behavior, saying I had ulterior motives.

By the time I turned 24 I had watched him fade away. With such a large age difference he had lived a life before we met and some how he had started living in the past. He couldn't move forward, he couldn't move beyond his PTSD. He hardly cooked, stopped working completely, and only went out at night. The only time he seemed like his old self when when talking about having a wife and a family. He was only alive when he talked about having purpose. The spark in his eye was gone and when I looked into them I saw a hollow, empty, and sad soul. He stopped trusting me and the gaslighting and manipulation increased.

We made plans to get married. I was focusing on the future. I wanted my Scot back. I missed that passion and light in his eyes. I knew that having a wife and kids would pull him back into now and give him purpose. I knew that once he was my husband he would treat me as a partner, with respect and care.

We went to our friend's shop to pick out our rings. We pieced together a beautiful yellow diamond in a custom setting surrounded by little while diamond and a Byzantine style band. It fit my hand perfectly. Every time it glittered in the light I thought of the spark in Scot's eye that would come back when we said 'I do".

Our wedding was beautiful and perfect. We said out vows as the sun of the summer solstice set and the full strawberry moon rose. My yellow diamond sat on my finger by itself giving me hope. On that day we added his grandmother's wedding ring next to it, another reminder of what's important, our future, relationship, and commitment to each other.

And then...nothing changed...he still didn't get a job, didn't eat, only went out at night. 6 months later he brought a girl home into our bed while I was sleeping. I moved into the spare bedroom and eventually my own place.

I still wore my wedding ring. I still looked at it and saw the same spark I used to see in his eye. I missed him, I missed the light. I missed the passion. I wanted my husband back and my wedding ring represented all of that, it was the only place I could see the real him.

2 months later he told me it was my fault he brought someone home and he was so drunk he didn't understand what he was doing. He tried to have sex with her but couldn't get it to work because he was so high/drunk/etc so it didn't even count. But it was still my fault. All of it was my fault, I should have done more. I was too young to understand it all and he was waiting for me to 'grow up' so he could show me what life was really like, so he could trust me and believe in me.

With tears in my eyes I took my ring off and stuck it on my key chain. I hardly looked at it any more. Sometimes the light would catch my eye and I would cry. Other times I would get mad. The rest of the time I shoved it back in my bag so I didn't have to think about the hope and dreams that no longer existed, so I didn't have to think about how bad things had gotten and how naive I had been.

The day I gave him his grandmother's ring back he kicked me out of the house then chased me out to the car and got on his knees begging me to stay saying he needed help and couldn't work on himself because he had to get a job after I cut him off and moved out. I pulled out of the driveway and cried all the way to my new apartment. I moved the ring into a box where it lived in the dark for months on end. I didn't see the spark anymore. The only interactions I had with him were negative. I was all my fault, I didn't do enough, how could I leave my husband, on and on and on.

6 months later I was trying to sell it, desperate for money, yet too exhausted to spend any more time on it and him. I made it up to New York and tried taking it to all the jewelry stores on Canal street. 8 stores later no one was interested and I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I couldn't spend anymore time, effort, or energy on it.

After that it never moved it from my wallet. A part of me hoped it would be lost and I wouldn't have to deal with it any more.The energy I saw in the ring, once full of life, was now so draining. I didn't know how to go about selling it, I didn't want to recycle the metal and gems. They represented something that had fallen apart and hurt me. So in the wallet it stayed, maybe it would fall out and find itself a new home.

A year and a half later my boyfriend got me a little necklace for my birthday and introduced me to the lady who made it. Betsy was sweet and gave the best hugs. She had a tiny shop in the corner of her house and made beautiful pendants and earrings. When she brought them out to show us she talked about where she found the materials and how she became inspired for a piece. Her eyes lit up. Her hands were rough and calloused. Her pieces were bright and beautiful. I decided in that moment that I would give her my ring.

I brought it back a few weeks later. I told her that once upon a time there was a lot of love, hope, and beauty in it. It used to represent the world to me. I asked her to make something beautiful with it so that the love and energy could brighten someone else's life. She looked at me with big eyes that were welling up with tears and gave be a giant hug thanking me.

Never has it felt so good and so right to give something a new home. As I pulled away from her house I felt lighter and freer. The weight and heaviness of a failed marriage had been lifted by brightening someone else's day, by giving to others without asking for anything in return. I no longer think of my ring with a heavy heart and avoidance. I think of how beautiful it was to me and how, now, it can fill someone else's life with a little more beauty and love

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