So, here's a sticky situation I need your help with...I am a single mom of two young children (5 and 2) and I have found the world's most wonderful man (who is also in the process of getting divorced). Everything is perfect, and we will be getting married on 1/1 of next year. Initially, when we talked about rings about 6 months ago, he gave me a budget of $12K. Then, things became tight for him financially given his settlement agreement, and we took the ring off the table. I told him I didn't need one--that I could just wear a simple band and that he didn't need to spend any money--he agreed and we talked about designing it/picking it out together. He then came to me a few months later and said he had a jeweler take apart a necklace his grandmother left him and was having them use those diamonds to make me a ring. The necklace had tons of teeny tiny diamonds, some slightly bigger than others (something you'd find in a delicate band) and one mine cut diamond, about .75 carats. I was somewhat surprised that he did this--and a little disappointed, since he's very sentimental about his grandmother and her jewelry, and the necklace was such that it can never really be put back together. And, although this sounds crazy, the main stone is the same cut as the diamond from my first husband, and I'm kind of superstitious about it. I wanted something different the second time around.
Although he had already taken the diamonds to the jeweler and sent them off to have a wax mold of a setting made, he told me he wanted us to design the ring together, so I looked around, got some ideas...bought a couple of fake rings for inspiration...but I never got a chance to share them because the drawing came back and it was awful--and what he had in mind was so far from what I had in mind that I just kept my mouth shut. I didn't like anything about it...and since I'd only seen the necklace once for about 2 seconds (back when I didn't know it would be used for my ring), I couldn't remember the different sizes of diamonds and was trying to figure out how we could rework a few things...I asked him all kinds of questions trying to understand and he kept getting increasingly frustrated...so we got into a tiff about it and then didn't talk about it for a few days...then the wax mold came in and we went to the jeweler to look at it. I tried to explain to her what I wanted, she pulled rings, I tried on different rings, and gave her a good sense of what I wanted the setting to look like. He said he liked me giving that input...but then things fell apart again--(I think because he's anxious about using his grandmother's diamonds--he says no)--he was so sensitive to any comment I made that I think he interpreted it like I didn't want it...and we called off the whole idea for a while.
The next day, he shows up with one of the rings I tried on in the store--a ring I didn't even really like, just one I was using to illustrate something about the setting--and proposes with it. I told him no--that he didn't have to do that, that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, that it wasn't that I liked that ring better, I was just trying to design it with him. He recognized that he had backed me into a corner by telling me we were going to use those diamonds and that he hadn't given me an opportunity to weigh in at all. We agreed that everyone was too sensitive on the topic, and that given all the hurt feelings, misunderstandings, etc. a simple band would suffice for me. We both acknowledged a ring had been something we both really wanted, and that the whole thing was now kind of ruined for both of us. I told him I didn't really want to talk about it anymore until the summer.
Long story short, I found out earlier this week--totally by accident--that he reached out to the jeweler AGAIN to have her try AGAIN to make a new setting...and he sent pictures of rings that a) I don't even really like and b) will totally not be able to be replicated with the diamonds he has. I was disappointed when I found out, and we kind of got into it...I was upset that he kept at it when we agreed it would be off the table and I was upset that again he left me out of the entire process, since that was all I wanted from the beginning. He said it's impossible to surprise me, and that I should be happy. So, now, we've made up about it...but everything is a bit on hold...he now wants me to be involved in the process...only, I don't really want to be. The whole thing is so filled with tension--and I don't want that main diamond--AT ALL--I'm too superstitious, I don't like it, it's not particularly pretty...so my options are as follows, 1) stick to my guns and go with a simple band, 2) take the teeny tiny diamonds and make two diamond bands, 3) shut up and take whatever he wants to give me, or 4) somehow try and break it to him that I don't want that main diamond--that I want a different one altogether? I should also add that our finances are merged and I make WAY more...
Any advice, thoughts, opinions would be SO appreciated, ladies!!