So, me my fiancé dated for 5 years. Last December, on our 5th year anniversary, he proposed to me, and I accepted. In my country, engagement rings are not a major thing. Couples show that they are engaged by wearing their future wedding rings on their right hand. Once they're married, they start wearing it on their left hand.
Because I always watched men proposing to women with wedding rings on American movies, internet videos, tv shows, and other media, I always had that same ideal in my head.
Knowing this dream of mine, and since his family doesn't have any heirlooms or family jewels, he had a goldsmith craft a wedding ring specially for me. He knew I don't like fancy and flashy jewels, I'm a very discreet person, so he had a ring made for me that was exactly what I'd like. And I did. I absolutely adore it.
Sadly, a couple months ago, my fiancé fell ill and passed away. I'm not doing to go into details about it because just writing this out makes me sob. I'm still very much not over it.
Skip a few weeks, and his sister and his mom (I never reeealy got along with neither the sister nor the mom, but we were friendly towards each other) called me asking for my engagement ring. They said that, since we never got married and never will, I should give the ring to the real family, since it represented a promise that will never be fulfilled.
I told them no. Don't get me wrong, if it were a family jewel or family heirloom, I'd not hesitate do give it back. But it isn't. He had it made specifically for me, and I'll be keeping it, because he gave it to me on our 5th year anniversary together.
Now they have gone to my parents (who they've talked to, like, twice, in all the five years me and my fiancé were together), to all their community friends (some of which I share) telling I'm appropriating of property that doesn't really belong to me anymore.
My parents are on my side. Community friends are divided. Some say the ring is rightfully mine, some say that it was a symbol of a contract that fell through due to sad circumstances, and that I should give it back, that I'm keeping one of their son's property and that it should stay with his sister to pass along to her future children.
I keep saying no, but they have been so insistent that I'm starting second guessing myself. So, AITA for not giving the ring to them?
Lovely-summertime said:
NTA. First of all, I’m so sorry for your loss. Second, the ring is yours. Your late fiancé’s family doesn’t have some kind of ownership over it. He made it for you, and the fact he sadly passed doesn’t change that. You’re the rightful owner.
nnea-shark said:
NTA. The promise was to spend the rest of his life with him. A promise you fulfilled and the ring is a symbol of that.
Kellymargaret said:
NTA - the ring was custom made, just for you. You received it as an Anniversary gift. Keep the ring and try to lose his negative, greedy family.
Le-Deek-Supreme said:
NTA and my deepest, sincerest condolences for your loss. I can’t imagine going through what you’re dealing with or how a family can treat you this way in the aftermath.
Info: Where you live or as a culture, does the family get to keep all his possessions? Is that why they feel so entitled to the ring? Were you able to keep any other momentous from him? Is it an expensive ring or do they think it is? Not that any of this negates the ring being yours, I’m just so confused by this callous behavior.
OP responded:
Yes, possessions usually go to the nearest blood relative if the deceased has no spouse or legal partner. But when the deceased has been in a long term relationship before passing, it's common courtesy for the family to offer the gf/bf to do through their things and see if they want to keep anything.
This courtesy was not shown to me, but he didn't really have much, and the important stuff that we shared is mostly sentimental and are already kept with me.
And this ring is probably not expensive at all - he didn't tell me exactly how much he spent on it because he thought it wasn't elegant. As I said, I don't like big and flashy accessories, so I doubt they would be making much money from selling it, whereas for me its value is immeasurable.
Familiar_Sir_8542 said:
NTA. I agree with every reason you have to keep the ring. Are there going to be problems if Fiancé's family decide to get nasty? Only you can weight the risks and benefits.
OP responded:
I don't think they have any legal ground to pursue this. I will try to go NC with them, tho...
SethAndBeans said:
NTA. Wow, so not nta. I'm so sorry for your loss. I've been with my wife for 6 years, and I can tell you with 100% certainty she was my life long before the 5 year mark. Married or not, you were his wife in his heart. The proposal means he saw you as such. I'd want my wife to have something to remember me by and I know he would too.
And OP responded:
Wow thank you so much for your words. They really warmed up my heart. Made me remember when we first started dating... The day he asked me to be his girlfriend, he brought me a bouquet of flowers with a note that read: would you give me the honor of being my companion and partner for my whole life? I said yes. Well... I guess I was.
crazycatlady45325 weighed in from a legal standpoint:
Unfortunately the law is probably against you. Engagement rings have to go back if there is no marriage. I would look up the laws where you are. Upon your fiancés death all of his belongings go to his next of kin. It is a family heirloom and should go back to the family. Although it holds sentimental value to you- it has held sentimental value to his family for generations.
The right thing to do would be to return the ring. Even if you want to consider it a gift- the gift was given on the condition of marriage. That condition cannot be met. So it should go back. I think everyone is grieving here so I will say no one is TA. Although if you actually keep the ring it will make you TA.
And OP responded:
By law the ring does belong to me. Jakes grandma wrote him as the recipient of the ring in her will while Jake and I listed each other as the main beneficiary in our wills, from a legal standpoint I'm 100% entitled to keep it.
I do understand the importance of the ring to the family but at the same time I'm so incredibly angry and upset they didn't even have the decency to wait before asking for it back, not to mention Stacy keeps saying this is what their grandma would've wanted when she never met her in person. I know if Jake was still alive he would've been furious and that makes me even more upset at the whole situation.
I know the ring is rightfully theirs but I don't think they deserve it, I can already imagine Stacy going online and posting her picture with the ring while using Jakes and I relationship as a sob story claiming how it strengthen her love for Jim and that drives me mad.
I don't know how to add pictures to the post and given the circumstances I don't know if doing that is even a good idea but I don't mind describing it to you. When I said the ring is ancient I meant it, the ring is from the victorian era and was first brought into the family around 1850-1870 (no one is sure exactly when since the first owner died young)
The ring is a golden band, the center piece is a 2.5 caret diamond framed in between two 1 caret diamonds that are each framed with 2 additional smaller diamonds.
So 7 diamonds total. What I love most about it is that the inside is engraved with the first initial of every woman who wore it including myself. It's a gorgeous ring with a rich history so I understand why Stacy had an eye on it for a while.
The more I think about it the more I'm becoming sure that gifting the ring to Jakes cousin is the right idea, when the time comes I might also engrave her initial before gifting it to her but before that time comes it'll be safe with me.
Also I'll say it here since a lot of people are concerned with the legality of my ownership of the ring. I do have an amazing lawyer that helped me tremendously throughout this whole process, when writing the Will Jake stated clearly that the ring goes to me.
His family can try and take me to court for it but considering it's been consistently in Jakes Will for the past 2 years their chances of winning are very slim to an non-existent. I think they also know this since although they've harassed me a lot on a personal level they never mentioned taking to to court for it.