For all the divorcees out there, I have some questions:
What did you do with your wedding ring when you divorced? If you initially kept your ring, do you still have it? Does it have feelings attached? Do you future plans for it?
If you are remarried, does your current spouse know you have the previous ring? Just in general, do you think any of this is significant?
In other words, do these inanimate objects that are symbols have energy? If they do, how should it be handled?
Anyone?
goddess – what specifically did you do with the ring???
i don’t have an old wedding ring (1st marraige) but i had a promise ring from a former boyfriend. i got rid of it.
i personally believe there is energy that remains in objects, particularly rings since they are symbols. also, metal seems to hold the vibrations…to me, the need to purge or not would largely be connected to my feelings about the marriage. but for a wedding ring, i probably would not keep it, myself.
i have also had “releasing” rituals with other meaningful objects before that were connected to things i wanted to release from my life, and found them very satisfying and helpful. and sometimes, the results were surprisingly swift from doing it.
Oh, that ring I don’t remember how I disposed of it specifically. That was like, 25 years ago, and before I was plugged into the energy equation or the power or ritual. (I didn’t really clue on that until after I started reading your stuff, Elsa!)
If I were to do it now with a ring, I’d probably bury it under a full moon; this phase of my life would be complete and ready to put to rest, integrated into the earth as symbolizing integrating the experience into the collective. I might even plant flowers over it to represent the growth that comes from that hunk of living, you know? But when I’m doing it, I look to pick anything that is symbolic or representative of what I want to do with the energy or the type of energy is it.
Emotional stuff or cleansing, I use something water related. Physical, earth, intellectual, air (e.g. smudge), growth/change, wood, plants. I just use the elements…
I will probably be getting divorced… if I do…I am definitely not keeping the ring. I would probably give it to my husband and he can do whatever he wants to do with it.
I gave my daughter the ring from her dad on her 16th birthday in a lovely jewelry armoire (along with some other hand me down type stuff). I’m undecided still as to what to do with the ring from my 2nd ex. It wasn’t cheap but I don’t like to look at it because of the memories. Don’t think I’m ready to pawn it yet, either. I do like what the goddess said and will think about it 🙂
I would not keep the ring because it lost its meaning, but if you don’t have emotional attachments to it, you may not need a ritual, because rituals are always and only for our mind. If your mind is free, no object gets any emotional energy.
GOOD one! Even with so much Cancer and Libra I find I have zero sentimentality about them. I have an enormous engagement ring that I’m planning to sell, hopefully to buy a piano. The wedding band I’ve actually been wearing lately on my other hand, just because I decided it’s pretty. Absolutely zero feeling connected to them whatsoever. They feel like mine. I am totally surprised at myself. I had no idea that I would attach no meaning to them – it may be a Sun/Uranus thing. Detach.
Now, my Cancer man asked me the other day what to do with his old ring, and I said he ought to keep it. I know he was happy with that advice. He’ll probably keep it, where he can see it, forever.
http://www.exboyfriendjewelry.com
it’s kind of like an online pawn shop. i think it’s free to sell (not like ebay, etc.), but they ask that you dish the dirt on why you’re parting with the pearls. 🙂
I do think partners should get rid of items from old lovers/husbands/wives (except for the children!) One thing you might do is melt down a ring (or sell it)and have something made for the child/children of that relationship. Afterall, there must be some love in there somewhere! As for me, my diamond engagement ring and wedding band (from my ex) were stolen by someone I thought was a friend in unusual circumstances which I did not figure out until years later so I did’t have to deal with getting rid of them. I do think it says something significant to the new love of your life if you cannot part with (or do something symbolic with)objects/symbols from your former lover. I am sentimental and keep everything so I know it can be a diffficult decision.
My sister threw hers into a bonfire. . .
My first wedding ring was a gold band and its in a box with junk jewelry.I have no feelings attached to it just like I have no feelings for husband # 1 – my sons dad. No feelings is a complete improvement from repulsion. He did give me a beautiful nice round diamond engagement ring and that I had reset without a 2nd thought for my right hand.
The ring from my 2nd husband was not just a metal band but a diamond with a diamond band. I still have a hard time remembering i’m not married to this man although i’ve been divorced almost 5 years. I did take the ring to the jewelers to see about having it ‘restyled’ but i just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Probably like I can’t dismantle my marriage in my mind.
b/c it was so beautiful and the day we picked it out was so special, I continuted to wear it when I couldn’t help myself. This Feb one of my clients said ‘no wonder that no one asks you out, you’re wearing that big hunking diamond’. I put it in its box and locked it in a little jewelry safe with alot of sadness.
Even when I see the box, that ring just calls me to put it on but I don’t. It’s part of making a complete break from #2 which I don’t know will ever happen.
This time I just want a cigar band.
I think it’s so interesting how the different ways people feel are connected to how they interact with these objects.
I replaced a ring from my husband about 3 years ago. It was a very small diamond, because we were much poorer when it was purchased, and had been sized up too much for me to possibly wear or get sized down to something I could keep on after losing weight.
I hung that ring on a ribbon around my rear view mirror as a protective talisman. I figured an item with lots of love attached would be the most potent form of protection available.
My first husband was French and we lived in France (I’m an American living in the US now). Funny how a month before my remarriage, I had a business trip to France after not having been there for 4 years. I took my wedding ring with me. Since our business trip consisted of a day at Mont St. Michel, I threw the ring into the high tide there.
I think I’ll elaborate on my last response…In the time leading up to my remarriage, I thought a lot about how I could get rid of my previous ring. I lived near a lake and thought of throwing it in there (don’t know why disposing of it in water seemed so important to me), but I didn’t want it so close, and certainly not in a landmark that I would drive by all the time. When the trip to France was scheduled, I felt like it was kismet to be able to dispose of the ring geographically nearer to the memories/pain associated with it. Then, when I learned we were going to be at Mont St. Michel, my water burial idea came back. I got up early in the morning and found a place to hold a little ceremony before throwing it out into the water. It was a great feeling to be able to leave that object behind in that way.
That’s a great story, Stacey. You buried your pain at sea in France…
You gave me shivers, Stacey! Like goddess said, that’s a great story. 🙂
My mom kept the ring from her first marriage even though she hated my sister’s dad after they split. I asked her why one time and for once I saw a Gemini at a loss for words, she couldn’t explain it. It’s still sitting in her jewelry box after about 33 years, I saw it just recently.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, my mom’s been a waitress or bartender most of her life. She doesn’t wear “hand” jewelery often: rings, bracelets, or watches. Sometimes I wonder if she forgets she has that ring until she unearths it.
I still have the unworn rings from my first and only engagement.
I love those rings. I hate to get rid of them. But wtf am I going to do? Get married with them?
*lol* Oh, cheeze, I hope not, ewinbee! Just thinking about someone doing something like that makes my Libra parts squirm! *snert*
(Not that I think you would, you’ve got integrity. But, man! The IMAGE! *squirm*)
i have a friend who tossed his into a (significant) river, as a gift to the spirit of the place.
i’ve given away rings to the sea, but they weren’t wedding rings… just things that had lost their resonance and i no longer felt right keeping.
i think the gesture of passing along the energy in form of the object to a natural force is putting it in good hands… given how i see things. but it depends on what you d=trust to take on that energy for you.
i love tossing things into water.
it’s what caused me to get engaged. i’d been tossing all this stuff out, and then came across a cross necklace an ex had brought back from seattle for me.
i couldn’t toss it. i stayed stuck. (I was also fasting for a week and slightly – well, otherworldly). i tried to go back the next day, to toss it. no go.
i wrote him. he was in london; it had been eight months. we met up again and got engaged. it lasted not very long.
the diamond belonged to my grandmother and was given to me. the setting we bought.
my mother wears the setting now. she wanted it so i gave it to her. i have the diamond in a chain around my neck and love to wear it; it’s gorgeous and it has a different significance. it’s just me.
seeing the ring on my mom’s finger at first was a little weird. but it actually lost all meaning, and so it’s like it never existed. it’s just a ring.
I dont have an old wedding ring (or ex hubby) but when I was single & a break up happened I typically took everything I had from that person (letters, cards that sort of thing) and burned it. Usually I kept one or two items (the things that hurt me the most usually) and held onto them until they no longer bothered me, then I burned those as well. I figure thats the Scorpio.. burning bridges.. clean breaks.. pulling my energy off of them.. that sort of thing. Because for me, its a lot easier to forget someone (and you dont ever really forget, but you DO loose a lot of details over time)without the stuff associated with them lying about. The thing is, I was doing this way before I had any knowledge that was a totally Scorpion thing to do.
This is an excellent blog! I think it is very important to do what you think is best. Ritual is good. Absolutely, wedding rings carry strong vibrations! If you put one in my hand, I get all sorts of visions and feelings. As to having to give one up, I have not experienced this because I have been married for 27 years. I know, we were babies when we were wed. Once I had to get rid of a hammer. It was actually an heirloom, probably 80 or 90 years old, but it freaked me out. It had such a strong negative vibration, that one day, I put it in a small suitcase and drove across town and tossed in to to the Juan de Fuca straight. A small ceremony with a prayer and…. kerplunk
Alright, spinner, I gotta ask: what about this hammer was so freaky? Think it was involved in some foul play?
SaDiablo- I am not sure, it may have been, but the negative vibration was very strong. It was in our house for many years it was from Northern Ireland.
I kept mine for two years. I finally realized that every time I opened my jewelery box and saw it, I felt bad. So… I took it to the local jewelery store, sold it, and bought a new computer.
I never looked back and I’m positive it was the right thing to do.
You’ll know when the time is right. It won’t hurt when you do it. I do agree that it’s a source of negative energy. I really needed to send it elsewhere.
Ahhh, spinner, I see.
I get those vibes sometimes, too. It’s always the worst when it’s a random object, almost like an intrusion. Morbid curiousity, though, I had to know if there was history. 🙂 Dumping it was very likely for the best.
What a great question. It brings up a memory that isn’t so painful, yet quite significant.
I climbed through the window of our house (he’d changed the locks) to get my diamond (birthday gift, so not marital property). I rarely wore it b/c I hate diamonds (material crap). I sold it to pay for some of the credit card debt he’d left me with.
As for my wedding band, I went to the park where we used to run everyday and ceremoniously threw it into the huge pond there. I never thought about it again, so I guess it gave me closure.
Peace and love,
Pisces
I just loved reading all of your posts. It makes me feel like tossing something into water myself.
I can’t say that I have had any rings to get rid of. I do however wear my mother’s wedding ring every day. It fits my middle finger. I cannot find my father’s wedding ring as it was a matched set. I would wear them together as I am the good thing that came from their marriage.
Both are happily remarried now.
Well I haven’t been married but I’ve been engaged. Needless to say, he broke my heart into a thousand pieces before any wedding could take place. I’ve kept it in my jewelry box safely though since I took it off, aside from a stint where the Vengeful Scorpio who gave it to me pretended to flush it down the toilet. For me it has long since lost its intended meaning. When I look at it I think of the broken promises and the poor foundation of the relationship I was in when I was engaged. It’s a keepsake from my life and a symbol of my struggles. I’ll probably never get rid of it, it probably holds some of the energy from the experiences associated with it. However, I’d rather keep it around as a reminder of the lessons I’ve learned.
I used my (late) Dad’s wedding band for both my marriages..that ended in divorce. AM TOTALLY CRREPED OUT BY WHAT I JUST WROTE– so energy-wise was married to my mother (no) or somehow to my father?? YUCK EW. 2nd marriage was def. a father figure thing (16 yrs. older, controlling), which I never accepted when we were married, but boy does it make sense now.
My first engagment ring was traded in to go towards a big honker of a ring from my 2nd husband. I have three gorgeous rings from that marriage and I’ll be damned if I’d ever give them up. I got them and my son, and that’s ok with me.
But I am knda sick about the wedding band thing. At the time it felt like it was one of the few things a girl could have passed from her father, and actually the 2nd time I thought, well, why spend money. It is now in a box in my closet and perhaps should find a new home in the family tree?? What does anyone think of that?
Pixiedust–I think a ‘new home in the family tree’ sounds great. Wash in water and pass it on!
I sold mine to a jewlery store. It, along with another ring my ex gave me was worth $150, according to the jewler. I sold it when my ex remarried. I thought it’d be worth something When I married I had so kindly let my ex buy me a ring that had a bunch of diamond dust for an engagement and wedding ring–I came from nothing and didn’t expect anything–and I was so sad when that’s what I got when I got rid of the thing.
I don’t wear any rings now. Love earrings, have two necklaces. I’d rather have a beautiful home. But I remember the sadness selling those rings–it was a reminder of how little, how small that marriage was in the first place.
I’m better off being free–from stuff as well as people.
I put my old wedding ring on a necklace for my daughter… Because she was born out of the love my ex and I shared. It was a simple gold, carved band with my ex’s name and the year we met. With a more expensive ring, this might not work…. But you could always reuse or reform things for your children! My ex and I are friends /partners in the raising of our daughter, so there is still a lot of good energy there.
no I immediately gave away my old wedding ring away (I actually don’t know what I did with it, so I must have given it away – my memory fades with stuff I have left behind with sentimentality especially if the union was not a healthy one/toxic.) my mother is scorpio dominant, with a cap moon and she seems to think that you should keep everything, like hoarding in a way, maybe that’s her Taurus rising. she doesn’t want to “let go” of sentimental things/value even if it has been old. she has taught me about keeping sentimental value of material things, however, for me, I need to be out with the old, in with the new and be living in the now. it has no meaning for me anymore, as my life with my husband is what should be meaningful. I believe there is energy in past memorabilia.
I got rid of the ring but kept the stone (1/4 carat vs quality colorless diamond) and had it reset into a ring of my choosing. Love it and wear my new ring every day.