Bride secretly alters grandmother's ring; cousin cries, calls her 'tacky.' AITA?
Family heirlooms carry a lot of emotional value and being gifted them is often a precious honor.
One woman was shocked when she found out that her cousin had melted down the ring that their grandmother had given her for her wedding. It was a special gift for her special day and she says she completely destroyed it. It didn't help that the woman had secretly been hoping that her grandmother would give her the ring. When her grandmother finds out, she is speechless.
AITA for telling my cousin that she ruined a family heirloom?
I (F26) have two cousins (F33 and F28). My oldest cousin, “Jane” is married. My other cousin, “Amy,” just got married. (I am single.) Right before she got engaged last summer, our grandma gave Amy’s fiancé “John” a diamond ring to propose with.
This ring is a gorgeous white gold and diamond ring that our grandpa gave her. He died when our dads were teens. My grandma has since remarried and always said that she’d pass on the ring.
I won’t lie, I’ve always loved that ring and hoped it would be me but I’m also the youngest cousin so I tried to temper my expectations. Mostly I was happy for Amy and glad the ring was staying in the family and Jane agreed.
Fast forward to this weekend, which was Amy’s wedding. Neither Jane nor I were in the wedding but we both went to the hotel room where Amy was getting ready. She asked if we wanted to see the rings.
We were both confused, but said sure. And what she showed us was a gargantuan, tacky engagement ring and wedding band set. I sputtered something like, “But I thought you were getting married with grandma’s ring?”
Amy just smiled and said, “Yeah, it is grandma’s ring!” She explained that for her wedding gift, she asked John to “upgrade” the ring into this monstrosity since he didn’t have to pay for an engagement ring in the first place. One of the diamonds was grandma’s and then she had the white gold melted down to make one of her wedding bands. The rest was all new stuff.
I burst into tears, I was so shocked and hurt. I told her she destroyed our grandparents’ heirloom. If she wanted a giant diamond to wear every day that’s her choice but the ring was important to our family. Amy got huffy and said she had to finish getting ready so Jane and I left.
Jane was also upset but had the attitude of “it’s Amy’s ring, nothing we can do now.” I told her I didn’t think grandma would have given it to John and Amy if she knew she was going to take it apart.
I found Grandma and asked her if she knew what Amy had done. Amy’s mom had told her that Amy had to have it resized and have the setting fixed but Grandma had NO IDEA that it was made into an entirely new ring. She didn’t say anything but I could tell she was upset.
The wedding went on but everyone could tell that there was some awkwardness between me and Amy and Jane. Grandma is refusing to talk about the matter. Amy is saying I owe her an apology. But I don’t think I’m in the wrong for saying she destroyed a family heirloom.
Plus the fact that she didn’t tell anyone what she was doing and misled Grandma says to me she knew she was wrong or at least it wouldn’t have been condoned. I feel like she saw it not as an heirloom but a way to subsidize what she really wanted.
I know the mature thing to do is just get over it and accept that it was given to Amy and she made her choice but I’m finding it really hard to get over what she did. Am I the a**hole for feeling the way I do?
People had some pretty passionate responses to this story:
NTA. What kind of a**hole takes apart a family heirloom? You can’t be blamed for having an emotional reaction, and she’s so trashy for what she did.
I could understand having something separated to be re-set, but not utterly destroyed like that, that's horrific.
And to do so while the relative it belonged to is alive and you can legit ask them if they are OK with it. :(
There are tons of people who have family jewelry remade, because they want to keep the actual jewelry but in their own style. It’s not uncommon at all. It does sound like maybe Grandma was left in the dark about this, or maybe it was a failure of communication on both sides, but it’s not a weird thing to do.
The deed is done and it was given to her. However, if she just wanted the diamond she should have, ideally, kept the setting to pass on to others or even use it for a different stone. Perhaps ask grandma if she has pics of the original setting so you can have it remade as an homage to your grandparents.
NTA if your cousin didn't want the ring as it was, she shouldn't have accepted it. That's what normal people do, not entitled AH.