You may or may not know this about me but I happen to be a qualified jeweller. I can melt metal AND my fingers. Queen of Multi-Tasking. Anyway I digress. The reason that I’m telling you this is because whenever I hear of a broken engagement my first question is always ‘What happened to the ring?‘. It’s always such a big deal at the time, all the fussing and showing it off and then when the engagement or marriage ends it sort of disappears. Into a drawer. The back of the jewellery box. Often forever.

I come from a family with an astoundingly low divorce rate. At last count, out of about ten marriages there’s been only one divorce. We’re total martians. There’s no step-kids in my family at all. It’s very weird. So naturally I’m quite fascinated by marriage break ups, having never seen or experienced one up close in real life. Heaps of my friends have divorced parents and I’m like a toddler asking questions about the sky. ‘Does your mum even talk to your dad? What happens at Christmas? Do you get twice as many presents for your birthdays now? Did you have two bedrooms when you were a kid? Did sad music play when your dad moved away?‘. Please don’t think I’m belittling how difficult marriage break ups are. It’s just that I have literally no idea how they happen or what you’re supposed to do when they happen, so I ask questions.

Today’s survey is all about the engagement ring. I’m curious to see what people think about the returning or the keeping of the ring when a relationship ends. Do you keep the ring if you paid for it? Or if your partner cheated on you? If you cheated on him? Is there some kind of protocol in these situations? I’m genuinely curious what people think about this.

As usual, I’ll collate the answers and present them in a fancy graph. Mathematics. I’m doing it.

Please feel free to share in the comments if your story is too complicated for the survey. I’d love to hear any ring returning/keeping stories from real life people!