‘I WEAR THIS ON MY MIDDLE FINGER’: THE RISE OF THE DEFIANT DIVORCE RING
Shimmering on Deb Marino’s finger are diamonds set in an eye-catching gold ring.
“Of course it’s a middle finger ring, because, why not?” the Florida-based blogger says on her Tiktok feed.
Getting rid of her engagement ring would have suggested a regret the 34-year-old doesn’t feel – after all, her marriage brought her daughter. Even just not wearing it would have felt like a waste.
“I didn’t want it locked away in a box,” she says. “Diamonds are precious.”
Plus she does sometimes feel like sticking one finger up after the break-up of her marriage.
Deb is part of a rising trend promoted by jewellers around the world of women marking a new chapter in their life with a new statement piece: the divorce ring.
Deb had the diamond from her engagement ring set at one end of an open circle and added a new sapphire to represent her daughter to the other end. It cost $3,000
It’s a sizeable sum to part with when divorces can be expensive.
Ring resale values tend to be only around 30% of the original price so for many the trend of giving their old jewellery a new life feels a better investment.
And Deb’s middle finger statement fits right in with what the fashion pages are calling this year’s “hot divorcee summer” – a celebration of liberated glamour and a “don’t care energy”.
Divorce rings can also be a way of marking a kind of financial liberation, says Kate Daly, co-founder of Amicable, a UK company offering mediated divorce services.
“Your whole life gets thrown up in the air,” she says. “Your finances are under extreme pressure.”
If at that point a woman decides to buy a new ring it’s a sign that she is making her own financial decisions and “not needing to ask permission from anyone,” says Daly.
“It’s very easy to trivialise, but maybe that’s the first big spending decision you’ve made in a very long time, and certainly perhaps the biggest one you’ve made solo for a long time.”
Ceri Evans’ divorce ring wasn’t a redesign but a fresh start – three large diamonds in an art deco-style platinum ring on the fourth finger of her right hand.
“I say it’s my USA ring,” she jokes. “My declaration of independence.”
Ceri bought the £3,000 ring after finally splitting from her husband last year.
She paid for it “out of defiance” with her own money, not her divorce settlement, says the 58-year-old from Wales.
Alex Proie in Pennsylvania picked up her ring, made from the gold and diamonds in her five-year anniversary band, a couple of weeks ago and is still wrestling with a mix of feelings.
At 31 she separated from her husband of seven years after she came out as gay.
“My ex-husband was a huge part of my formative years as a young adult,” she says.
“It’s something I want to carry with me.”
Her ring has seven small oval diamonds and a wave design which she says illustrate life’s inevitable highs and lows.
She had to go back to working in sales after the divorce to boost her income and the new ring helps remind her how she managed to rebuild from the ground up.
“Divorce is really hard and when you start over you don’t know what your life is going to look like, and you don’t know if you’re going to be able to make it financially to do stuff like this for yourself.”
On Reddit threads where people are discussing what they have done with their wedding and engagement rings some say they continue to wear theirs, sometimes to ward off unwanted advances. Or stash it out of sight in a drawer.
Others shared they just chucked theirs, in the bin, the sea, or out of a car window.
But many say they do want to mark their new life with some spending gesture or other, it seems, from blow-out holidays, tattoos, a new pair of Jimmy Choos, returfing the lawn, or as one recent divorcee shared, refurbishing her bedroom.
“Now I’m having amazing sex with new lovers on the bed that was paid for by the ring,” she posted.
Our thanks to Lucy Hooker and The BBC for this article
