And when I am baking something messy, like bread or cookies.
Husband doesn’t really take his off. Except that time Opal wanted us all to stick our wedding rings up our nostril.
Nope, Sebago Lake. I love that lake.
I take mine off when I shower. I can just see it getting tangled in my hair or going down the drain or some stupid thing, so I just keep it on the sink. And sometimes I forget to put it back on for a day or so…though I’m not really a sentimental person and neither is my husband. He doesn’t even have a wedding ring anymore.
I wear a heavy gold wedding band, an anniversary band that serves as my engagement ring, and a small emerald (birthstone) ring that was a gift from hubby a few years ago.
I take them off when I’m doing anything particularly grungy, or kneading dough or other squishy food prep. When I was working out regularly, I took them off on weightlifting days (and I did wear gloves, but the rings were still uncomfortable). I didn’t wear my wedding band for a few weeks when some kind of irritation developed under it, until the rash or whatever healed. Sometimes I take them off before putting on latex gloves, because it can be hard to put the gloves on otherwise.
Hubby removes his thin gold band when doing grungy stuff (if he remembers). I think he was also required to remove it during his clinical (working in a nursing home) for his CNA class.
Mine is flat-profiled with no stones, but is really loose and prone to slipping off at inopportune moments.
I take it off if I’m kneading dough or ground meat, or if I’m doing a heavy-duty butchering. I would really prefer not to take it off at all, as I’m terrified of losing it. I need to have it permanently resized, but for a variety of reasons can’t have it done yet.
I don’t wear mine unless I go out of the house. Most of the time it’s in a dish next to my computer with my watch and three pairs of my favorite earrings.
I never take mine off. The wife removes hers before she flies, because they are a bit on the snug side and her fingers swell. Also when making meatloaf. 
Only to polish it. My finger is calloused so it fits perfectly. Other than that, never. No need. Well, I could end up in jail I suppose. Nah, not happening. John Q. Public, that’s me. 
I don’t wear my engagement ring any more (not part of a set, looks weird with my wedding ring) but when I did, I took it off when I was doing anything messy like cooking, cleaning, working on an art project, etc. It has a tiny setting and I didn’t want to damage it. My wedding ring is much more durable and I only take it off occasionally when it bothers me or if I’m mixing/cleaning something especially sloppy and I remember. I fiddle with it a lot, though, sliding it over my knuckle and stuff, so I don’t feel the need to take it off because it feels weird. It’s 14k gold, and I’m beating the poor thing up, I know. I’m going to get one made of tungsten soon so I don’t have to bother with keeping it out of certain substances.
My husband takes his off to play with it. He nervously twirls it around like a spinning coin and puts it back on. Other than that, he only takes it off if he’s got his hands in something messy or dangerous. (He did lose his first one this way, though.)
What you guys decide will depend on the material, setting, and how emotionally attached you are to the ring(s). I thought about what I’d do with it before I started wearing it (I never wore rings before) but I got used to it and developed a habit pretty quickly.
I don’t wear my engagement ring anymore (got tired of forgetting to take it off and having to pick it clean of pie pastry). My wedding ring is as simple as a band can be. I take it off if I’m going to paint without gloves or when I am (was) very pregnant and my fingers were too puffy to wear it.
I take off my engagement ring before bed (I’m worried I’ll scratch myself with it as I sleep), before showering, when doing messy things in the kitchen like kneading cookie dough (if I remember first), when going on vacations to foreign places where I don’t want to bring expensive jewelry, when I clean it, and a few other activities like kayaking. Overall, I remove it when:
A) I might gunk it up
B) I might hurt myself or others with it, or it would be uncomfortable
C) It might get lost or stolen
I also think of putting my engagement ring on as part of getting dressed to go out. If I don’t leave the house on a Sunday until three in the afternoon, I may not put it on until I’m getting on my shoes, finding my purse, etc. (Sometimes I’ll put it on when getting dressed in the morning even if I’m not going anywhere.) I’ll then leave it on until getting ready for bed.
I occasionally take my wedding ring off when I shower, usually not, depending if I am so moved. It’s a plain, relatively slim gold band with a comfort fit (it’s rounded on the inside, rather than being right angles - I highly recommend it), with nothing to cut into me or others, or to accumulate junk. I don’t see a need to take it off, pretty much ever.
Interestingly, all of this actually has religious implications for me. Orthodox Jews wash their hands before eating bread, and if you wear rings, you generally remove them for washing, the exception being if you don’t consistently take a ring off for any other reason, at which point it’s not considered a blockage between you and the water. For me, this means that I take off my engagement ring when I wash, but not my wedding ring, which is unusual enough that people have occasionally commented on it.
For the first few years of our marriage, I never removed my wedding ring, even though I could.
Then, I could barely remove the ring anyhow, so I only removed it if I had to - I would sometimes get a rash under it.
Then for about 5 years, I just could not take the ring off, so it stayed on. I finally got it cut off and resized about 3 years ago, and I still hardly took it off.
Now, having lost weight, I may have to get it resized back down, or I’ll lose it when it falls off. It’s really loose.
Si
I have just taken my engagement ring off after a little over 14 years - it’s an eternity ring with diamonds in claw settings all the way round, so you can only see diamonds and little bits of gold from the top. I chose it specifically because it was flat and less likely to catch on something, but the other day a diamond fell out and was lost. I am very sad, and am saving up to have it replaced - there are 22 diamonds round the ring, and they are each very small, but the setting has worn badly because I have two very narrow wedding rings worn either side of it, and they have ground down the edges of the diamond ring.
Before then, I took the rings off for surgery , pastry and bread baking and gardening only.
My advice would be to NEVER take it off to wash your hands - a woman on a bus tour I was on did that at a rest stop in France and she left them there. Never saw them again… It ruined her holiday.
My other advice would be to make a fixed place that she puts them when they come off and to never, ever deviate from that! I have a pill box on my kitchen shelves and my rings go in there or my hand.
I used to keep all my jewellery in my bedroom because I thought that’s what you did, but I found that I would take off earrings and necklaces in the evening and dump them on the coffee table, where they’d roll off and disappear. So on the “if you can’t beat them join them” method of living, I brought my jewellery box downstairs and it’s now in the cabinet in the living room. I can take stuff off and put it away right away now.
I take mine off to clean them, and not nearly often enough. You really don’t want to take them off near the sink; a lesson I learned the hard way.
I never take off the wedding ring.
I don’t have an engagement ring - I was affronted by the very idea that my then-fiance, a hardworking poor student, should have to figure out a way to buy me a stupidly expensive present, when I wasn’t required to do the same for him. I still don’t get the point of that tradition, which I find very sexist and materialistic.
But if I DID have an engagement ring, I’d take it off while practicing the piano. The simple gold band is no problem, but there is a family diamond I sometimes wear and it is a PITA while trying to play. I hate taking it off because of the risk of losing it, but it is far too distracting while attempting Pischna or difficult passages.
I had surgery once and the anesthesiologist said “remove all jewelry EXCEPT your wedding band.”
This has been interesting, since I’m new at this business of having rings to wear. In addition to my engagement ring and my wedding ring, I also wear a cross my husband gave me on New Year’s Day. He had brought back from Armenia for me and it’s similar to one he keeps with him. I take all three off before I go to bed and put them in a box his mother gave me last Christmas. I’ll also take them off when I’m bathing or showering, and I’ve taken the rings off when I’m working with bread dough or cookie dough.
I used to take mine off when I did really messy stuff like working on a car engine. However, I did that once & placed it on a glass lid of a jar in the kitchen that was rarely used. Being white gold, it blended in completely. I forgot where I put it, of course, and my wife was livid. We ended up getting a replacement band before someone moved the jar causing the ring to fall on the counter. I liked the original far better than the replacement, so that one went back on & stayed there.
I have only removed it once since and that was when I sprained my hand and started swelling up. I yanked it off pretty quick (and yes, it hurt), but I figured that was better than having it cut off me in an emergency room.
You do realize they could have cut off the ring instead.
My wife takes hers off when sleeping, showering and doing grungy work. Mine stays on much more often, but I also take it off for work occasionally.
I haven’t taken mine off in more than 10 years. I don’t even think I could any more.
I take my ring off often. It’s very large and tends to snag. It’s also sterling silver and I’m afraid of letting it get wet and rusty. I don’t sleep, shower, clean, or cook with it on.