Wedding Rings… And Other Sensitivities
I couldn’t WAIT to get married. Throughout my youth, I couldn’t wait to meet my husband. I dreamed about it, wondered what he would be like, what he would look like, all the things…
For me, I could have cared less about the wedding, having my husband say I do and commit to me was everything. I had faced an incredible amount of rejection from being bullied in school, family rejection (especially during my parent’s divorce), and from men I had dated. I experienced quite a bit of trauma with men (a story for another day). The last man I dated before my husband decided after being with me for 6 years, he didn’t know if I was the one. Needless to say, I was conditioned to crave that sense of desire and security.
To me, wedding rings were one of those things that were a sign of my future husband saying to the world “I’m taken, I’m committed to my wife and only my wife.” It was a symbol that meant a lot.
We had the PERFECT wedding. Our guests still talk about it to this day. It was unique and it was us. We spent less than $1,500 on the whole thing, including food for our guest at the reception. Someday I’ll write in detail about it. We had a national park wedding. It was BEAUTIFUL! We had fun. I couldn’t have asked for a better day. Finally, after 26 years, I had found the one willing to commit to me forever. Rings exchanged. I was so happy.
For our honeymoon, we went on a road trip out west. We went to a lot of great national parks; Canyonlands, Arches, Grand Canyon, and Mesa Verde to name a few. It was incredible (although I definitely need to write a blog post on the epicenes that was our Hoover Dam experience).
He had worn his wedding ring the first night and into the next day, but by the time he went to bed, he took it off. He said it was getting uncomfortable. I understood. It was new and he wasn’t used to it. It was extremely hot in the desert and uncomfortable. The next day he put it in the center consul of the car. I don’t think he wore it the rest of the trip.
When we got home, he didn’t wear it. When we went out he didn’t wear it. Meanwhile, I was wearing mine and excited that finally I had a ring on my left hand. I asked before going out if he would wear it and he did. But it bothered him all night. After that he’s worn it maybe once in 15 years.
It really bothered me that he wasn’t wearing it. I wanted everyone to know that we were married. I didn’t want him to appear single. I wanted him to want to wear it to show his love for me to the world. I was hurt.
The thing is, in reality, the ring isn’t the end of the world. He has never sought out another women. He isn’t any less committed to our marriage. To him the ring is purely a hunk of metal that’s uncomfortable. A construct of the world and society.
Knowing what I know now… I get it. When we were married, I knew he had ADHD and Dyslexia, but Autism (formerly Aspergers) never crossed my mind. I knew very little about sensitivities and often took them personally instead of calling them what they really were. He didn’t choose to not wear a ring because he was trying to hurt me or because he wasn’t committed to me. It drove him CRAZY and it was impractical for working on projects, etc.
The ring didn’t change anything. And you know what? I almost never wear mine anymore. Its not the most comfortable thing in the world. Every now and then I wear it out, but not often. The ring is beautiful and it is what I wanted, but its not that important.
No one has ever questioned why we don’t wear our rings. No one has ever questioned if we were actually married. It doesn’t matter to God that we don’t wear our rings. What matters is that we are committed to our marriage. That we have been for almost 15 years. That we have had some major ups and downs, yet we still love each other (and tolerate each other most of the time).
The rings used to be a huge thing for me and now, they are hunks of metal and rocks in a drawer. We are so conditioned to want the things the world tells us to want, we forget to be flexible. We forget to desire the important things. We have thoughts and things said that make us doubt what is real.
Looking back now, I realize this was never really about the ring. It was about what the ring represented to me.
One of the things I've learned in a neurodiverse marriage is that two people can look at the exact same object and see something entirely different. I saw commitment, pursuit, belonging, and connection. My husband saw a piece of metal. Neither of us was wrong. We were simply assigning different meaning to the same thing.
That lesson extends far beyond wedding rings. Many of the conflicts in neurodiverse marriages happen when we assume our spouse experiences the world the same way we do. We expect them to place importance on the things that matter to us, notice what we notice, and express love the way we would express it.
Sometimes they don't. That doesn't mean they don't care.
Over the years, God has taught me that understanding often begins when we stop asking, "Why don't they see this the way I do?" and start asking, "What might they be seeing that I don't?"
Marriage has required both of us to grow in grace, mercy, humility, and curiosity. It has taught me that covenant is not built on thinking alike. It's built on choosing one another despite our differences.
And perhaps that's one of the most beautiful pictures of God's love for us. He knows us completely, understands every difference, weakness, and limitation, yet He remains faithful. In many ways, marriage invites us to practice that same kind of faithful love every day.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that transformation is possible. Not because life suddenly becomes easy, but because we learn to approach it differently.
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