I love wearing rings. In fact, whenever I go out it’s common practice for me to be wearing four at a time – two on each of my ring fingers and two on my index fingers. But when at home I don’t wear any.

When I go on vacation, I still always wear my signature four rings when out painting the town, albeit, the only diamond I travel with is my wedding ring along with my silver jewelry, but I’d never worn rings out to the pool or beach – that includes my wedding ring.

My husband  is never short of compliments. He always compliments me on how I look or on something I’m wearing, often adding, “I’ve never seen that before.” Seen may denote he may never have noticed me wearing it, or even noticed the latest deliveries as I hastily bring up packages from the mailbox before he gets there so I can avoid being grilled, “What’s in the box?” Lol. But never had he asked me where my wedding ring was while at a pool. That was until our last winter vacation.

After almost twenty years of marriage, we were lying in our lounge chairs at the pool one day when the revelation came over him that I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. It was like after over 100 vacations together that he only noticed I had no rings on. I remarked to him that I was amazed that he’d only waited till then to ask me where my wedding ring is.

I’ve always had a thing for wearing nothing but earrings and my ankle bracelet (besides my swimming attire) when it comes to sunning and swimming. My first reason is because I don’t like ‘tan lines’ on my fingers, and secondly, I don’t like suntan lotion getting inside the crevices of my rings and dulling the stones every time I apply. I’ve adhered to this practice ever since I can remember back and honestly, I’d never thought anything of it.

Hubby didn’t lecture me, it appeared he asked out of curiosity, but made sure to proclaim that he NEVER takes his wedding ring off. “Okay, I get it,” I replied. I didn’t wish for him to continue harping on the conversation and felt if he felt slighted in some way I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so for the rest of the vacation I wore my wedding ring everywhere, including to the pool.

I have to admit, it felt weird having a ring on my hand in the hot sun and in the water as I found myself always double-checking to make sure the ring was still on. I still didn’t like the idea of lotion re-applying with my ring on and was paranoid of taking it off while doing so in case I’d forget to put it back on, so I’d pop it in my mouth every time I applied lotion, knowing I wouldn’t forget it was in my mouth!

As it turned out, since I began wearing the ring all the time, I didn’t have to worry about tan lines on my finger because it was always covered. Once back up to our condo and taking off my jewelry, I got to used to the ring tan line serving as a good indicator of how nicely my tan was coming along. Hubby was happy too. He no longer felt threatened that his wife was showing as ‘available’.

I’d be interested to find out who here never takes off their wedding rings when out in public and why, from both – male and female perspective.