I hate it! (Picture: Getty)

The moment when the person you love drops to one knee and asks you the ultimate question, should be a triumph.

For many of us it’s one of the happiest moments of our lives.

What it feels like... to have two strokes

But what if the moment is ruined when your special someone opens the ring box and shows you something that you really, really don’t like?

Should you pretend to be happy, but the ring on and hope that you learn to love it?


Or should you be honest with your partner and tentatively suggest choosing something new together?

And what if it’s not just the design that you don’t like, but the price tag?



These are all issues which one anonymous Mumsnet user had found herself coming under fire for.

The poster shared the following story in the Am I Being Unreasonable? section of the parenting website, where parents go to get a dose of straight talking (and very occasionally some sympathy).

(The women of Mumsnet have said that they don’t like their usernames being replicated in the media, so we’re not including that detail here)

The original post DP proposed and presented me with the ring he’d chosen – a diamond solitaire in white gold. I was so happy and excited to accept but was disappointed when I first saw the ring. The first word that entered my head was ‘small’. There’s nothing to dislike about the type of ring per se, as a diamond solitaire would have been my choice, but it’s the whole thing – the colour of the gold, the setting, the small stone and relatively chunky shoulders. His salary is nearing a 6 figure sum and he’s usually very generous. Having seen the receipt I know he paid £1,300 for it – which is a lot less than I would have imagined he would have spent on such a significant piece of jewellery. He’ll be more disappointed in me for making a fuss over it when, in his eyes, it fits and there’s nothing actually wrong with it rather than being disappointed that I’m not truly happy with it. Someone at work apparently told him that ‘if she makes it all about the ring, then she’s not the girl for you’. Ideally I would have loved for us to have chosen a ring together and made a special day finding one we both liked. As it’s something I’ll be wearing every day and is such a special piece of jewellery I wanted to really love it and I just don’t. Has anyone else been in this situation? What did you do?

The responses to this woman’s dilemma are a little bit less than sympathetic. Far from adhering to the old ‘three times salary’ rule, most of the commenters seem to think that £1,300 on an engagement ring is absolutely fine.

‘Blimey. I’d have been delighted; talk about being ungrateful, the person at work is 100% right.’

‘What do you want? Do you want to marry him or do you want a big twatty ring? 1300 quid is a lot of money to most people (I don’t give a shit how much he earns) and you sound like the worst person imaginable. I hope he dumps you.’

So natural. (Picture: Getty)

Some of the people on the thread have been a little more understanding, claiming that while it’s pretty bratty to get annoyed about the cost, it’s okay to be fussy about the design.

‘If I were you I wouldn’t mention the cost or the size of the stone – just stick with the fact that it’s not your style (the gold and the shoulders). You know best how to communicate with him, so he can understand and you can go off and shop together.

‘If you want something much more expensive you probably want to at least offer to pay the difference though, otherwise his colleague’s words will start ringing in his ears again.’

Another commenter leaped to the original poster’s defense, writing:

‘Talk about sisterhood! Most of you seem to think it’s fine for a woman to be presented with any old ring, chosen by the man, and should be fucking grateful to be proposed to and given a ring.’

There’s also another discussion going on, which claims that the poster is fake, and probably a journalist who is trying to place a story, based on the fact that the poster had no history of using Mumsnet.



The user’s private messaging function has been suspended, so we can’t get in touch with her, but we’ll keep you updated if we dig up any more dirt…

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