Oh shit, I’m married

In July, I will have been married for 12 years. At least I think it’s 12 because I always forget. I am not good with number. Anyway, I’ve been married a fairly long-ish time and it just recently occurred to me that I’m like a wife now.

Husband and I got engaged. I loved my initial engagement ring but it was made in a way that a wedding band wouldn’t work with it. So then I got another engagement ring. And then we got married. I like white gold. I got diamonds because I felt like that was what you were supposed to do. But I don’t like diamonds and they get dirty and you have to clean them and you have to get the white gold re-plated and it’s a lot of work. So I stopped wearing them.

And then I decided to try and be traditional one more time and we got a diamond eternity band. And I got bored of wearing them all. For the majority of my marriage I have been ringless which bothered a lot of people. If you know anything about me it’s this — if it bothers people I will keep doing it. It drove people crazy that I was married and ring-less and it was funny seeing their faces when I told them that the guys I gave handjobs to on the side were uncomfortable with the ring.

I wore a Tiffany Infinity bracelet for a while there but then I played a lot of tennis and had to take it off. So that didn’t stick either. So I kept searching because it was important to me {the Husband didn’t care because, hello, he married me - he knows who I am} and, finally, one ring stuck. A “danza” ring. Because I call my Husband Danza. Because he is the Tony Danza I want to hold me closer.

For a while there though I didn’t wear it daily. I hate things touching me. It makes my anxiety really bad. And then he went in for surgery and I wasn’t allowed to drop him off or visit him in the hospital because of COVID and I missed him and I didn’t know if the surgery was successful yet so I put the Danza ring on, as well as one of his hoodies, and I felt connected to him in a way I never have before.

And it’s stuck. I feel naked without it now. It’s definitely not a traditional wedding ring which makes me love it even more {god forbid I conform}. The other day I contemplated adding my Boo {for B.} ring to the Danza and it felt… weird. I couldn’t do it. This is my wedding ring. My symbol of commitment to a man I adore. Nothing can touch that.

It may have taken me 10 or so years of marriage to actually wear a ring to symbolise my commitment to this adorable dork of a human but now I don’t think I can ever take it off. He is not my everything. I don’t need him. I want him. I choose him everyday. And now this ring reminds me of that and this time in my life where I feel truly content and safe and madly in love with the most infuriating person I have ever met.

And, I guess, if there’s any advice to come from this it’s — if you’re married, wear whatever the fuck you want. A ring doesn’t have to symbolise shit if you don’t want it to. But, also, if you don’t want to wear a ring that’s covered in diamonds you don’t have to. Stop feeling you have to conform to society’s expectations of you. Society doesn’t know shit.