Woman Calls Off Engagement after Fiancé Gambled with Her Grandmother’s Ring

One woman took to Reddit to ask if she was overreacting after discovering that her fiancé had gambled away a priceless family heirloom.

In the post, the woman shares that she has been with her fiancé for three years. She notes that he is “kind, attentive, and makes me laugh.”

They often talked about getting married, and the woman knew he planned to propose because her mom told her he had asked about her grandmother’s ring. The woman says the ring is a family heirloom, “a delicate art deco diamond band that has been passed down for three generations.” So, her mom gave her boyfriend the ring to hold on to until he planned to pop the question.

One day in July, the woman says her fiancé went out to gamble with his friends. When he came home that night, she noticed her grandmother’s ring in his pocket. 

“I confronted him right there, and he admitted he’s been bringing it to poker nights ‘for luck,'” she writes. “He said it started as a joke—his friend called it ‘the engagement talisman’—but then he swore it actually helped him win. He promised he never bet it, just kept it in his pocket.”

The woman made it clear she wasn’t comfortable with him using such a priceless piece of jewelry as a good-luck charm. After they talked about it, the man swore that he “wouldn’t do it again.” He also stopped going to the weekly poker matches, instead just joining about once a month.

Soon after, he “finally proposed” with her grandmother’s ring, and she said yes.

Everything was going great until their engagement party. While they were celebrating, one of his friends made a joke about how he “almost had to propose with a Cracker Jack ring.” 

“I froze. When I pressed him later, my fiancé finally admitted that months ago, he actually did gamble the ring—and lost it. He only got it back after weeks of playing until he won it back,” the woman writes.

“So not only did he risk my grandmother’s heirloom, but he lied to me when I confronted him. He let me believe we had ‘worked through it’ when really, he was hiding the worst part of the story the entire time,” she continues. “Now I feel like the proposal itself is tainted, because all I can think about is how that ring was sitting on someone else’s poker table.”

The woman went to stay with her mom for a bit. She gave the ring back to her mom because she doesn’t “feel comfortable wearing it anymore.”

“I told my fiancé that if he still wants to marry me, he needs to propose again—with a different ring—or it’s over,” she writes.

However, he says she is being “dramatic and “ruining a good thing over one mistake.” Still, she “can’t shake the feeling that this was more than just a mistake. It was reckless, disrespectful, and dishonest.”

She then asked the Reddit community if she was overreacting or if this was a fair boundary for her to set. 

One person commented, “Ooh, saying ‘you are being dramatic’ instead of taking accountability is so frustrating. He made an objectively horrible choice, lied about it, and got caught. You were understandably hurt, and he’s dismissing your feelings. Really consider if that is a person you want as your partner/teammate/person through all the tough times ahead (regardless of if he comes through with another ring).” 

The woman replied to the comment, adding, “That comment from him is the sole reason I packed up and left. If he had just taken accountability from the beginning and been completely honest— maybe we’d still be engaged.” 

Another person wrote, “Don’t be stupid and stay with him. Kick him to the curb.”