Baubles and Emotional Battle Scars: The Weirdness of Jewelry From Exes
It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. Sometimes when I’m rummaging through my jewelry box and I see a bracelet my ex-husband bought me for my birthday, or a pair of earrings he gave me for a wedding anniversary, I completely freeze up.
Initially, I gave away or donated a lot of what was leftover from our relationship because I wanted a fresh start and was downsizing to a much smaller place. I even sold some items as part of critically assessing my divorce debt and realizing the money would help me cover a few expenses.
But there are a few pieces of jewelry I can’t seem to part with. They’re “something borrowed” from a past I no longer want to wear around my neck like a yoke.
My ex and I spent most of our life together first in graduate school and then making modest salaries working in education. When I talk about the jewelry he gave me, I’m not talking about diamonds and pearls. I’m talking about sentimental pieces that can all too easily summon a memory of my life with him, if I think too much about it. Like a pair of long, silver filigree leaf earrings that are dangly and lovely, and look perfect with sundresses. I believe they might have been a Christmas present? There’s also this costume-jewelry statement bracelet with bright flowers and leaves that brings the right splash of color to all-black outfits.
I used to feel guilty about keeping these pieces, these lingering reminders of our life together that initially felt more like vanity than anything else. I didn’t let myself wear them, for the longest time. But then I thought about how he often asked me to pick out my own presents from him because he didn’t really know what I wanted. And how living with him was like living by myself because he didn’t understand my heart, and love in general. In this context, the earrings and bracelet I still own were gifts from me as much as from him. They were my attempt at the time to rationalize his inability to connect with me, and to make myself feel better about a bad situation.
The only item that doesn’t fall into this category is my engagement ring, which incidentally I also picked out and looks nothing like a traditional diamond ring. It was created from an old Art Deco mold that someone found in an attic somewhere and gave to the jewelry designer who created it. It’s got a white gold band and a raised square mount, with tiny triangular chips of sapphire situated around a light blue topaz. People freaked out over that ring when I used to wear it, not because it was my engagement ring, but because it was so damn cool. I loved it. But even if I could pull it off as an accessory on its own with no traditional connotations of engagement, wearing it would disingenuous. Instead, I keep the ring in this special bowl on my bookcase with other talismans from moments when my life became something different. I’ll probably hold on to it forever.
When I did an informal poll about this gray area of breakups on Facebook with my friends, they revealed that they usually keep the jewelry, but can’t bring themselves to put it on again, either. As one of my friends stated, those pieces “come as part of the journey, and I get to keep them.”
I’ve also read about women taking jewelry from their exes to an artisan and melting it all down to design something new. This feels off to me somehow. I guess I’m too nostalgic about how lovely something already is without needing to destroy it.
I’m not the only one who made off with jewelry in my divorce.
On my wedding day, I carried a bouquet with lace tied around it. I had the florist sew a silver locket into the lace, something my dad gave me. Inside the locket were five sea doves, those tiny, thorny pieces you find when you break open sand dollars. My dad died when I was 15 and having that locket and those doves brought me peace and made me feel like I was holding his hand that day.
The lace and the locket ended up with our wedding photos in a trunk my ex and I kept in our basement, and though we discussed me eventually picking it up, after things got really bad between us, I’m pretty sure he threw it all out. With no wish to communicate with him ever again, I’ve never tried to contact him about it. I’m kind of glad I no longer have any of it, as like the doves, I flew away, too, and the locket served its purpose during those years I missed my dad growing up, and on my wedding day.
To be fair, I still have this bracelet that belonged to my ex’s grandmother that his family gave me after she died. I’ve never worn it, and I’m sure my ex-father-in-law wishes I had returned it. But after such a painful, angry ending to our lives together, I don’t owe my ex or his family anything. I think I might sell the bracelet and donate the money to an organization who helps women get back on their feet after getting out of a bad situation, like I did.
I recently spent a Saturday in downtown Annapolis with a good friend of mine. She’s one of my favorite people: funny, down to earth, silly, successful and honest. We were wandering through antique shops and she picked up this beautiful silver ring with three rhinestones in it. We both fell in love with it, but she wouldn’t let herself get it. She insisted I buy it. I purchased it, and we decided it would be known as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ring. I’m wearing it for a year, and then I’m passing it along to her. I have an upcoming international trip, and I’ve promised to take photos of my hand wearing the ring and share them with her, to let her know I’m having fun. I’ve also put it on while writing something new and texted her, telling her how special it is and how happy I am we decided to create meaning around this ring and how it celebrates our friendship.
I have another ring, one that I bought with my ex while visiting D.C. years ago, before I knew I would eventually come back here and create a life on my own. I purchased it in a store that today is only a few blocks from where I live. It’s a large quartz square ring and goes with everything I love. I call it my True North ring.
Objects have a life of their own, independent of us. They’re along for the ride, and we assign them our own little rituals and meanings. Jewelry is fair game for redefinition of any stage of your life — not just marriage. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something … truer to who we are, all along. ❤
Baubles and Emotional Battle Scars: The Weirdness of Jewelry From Exes
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