I take off my engagement ring when cooking with messy stuff (dough, meatloaf, etc.) or for cleaning. I have never removed my wedding ring (13 years at the end of this month). When I’m wearing gloves I turn it around so the stone faces my palm, so I can get the glove over my hand.
My husband used to take off his wedding ring and fiddle with it like **beanpod’**s until I told him it pisses me off; now he takes it off only when he has to solder something at work or do something else that might be dangerous.
I almost never take off my plain wedding band, but my engagement and anniversary set comes off whenever I get home, along with all the rest of my jewelry. As soon as I walk in the door it all suddenly becomes uncomfortable, even though it hasn’t bothered me all day at work.
My engagement ring was about 50 bucks.
It was a mutual decison to spend that little, and not to get wedding bands.
Even so, I sometimes still look at sparkly rings and think: “That would be so cool/beautiful…but think what more useful things we could do with such money… blood diamonds yadayada…what if I lost it…rings aren’t practical… but it would still be cool if my husband had gotten such me a ring… oh never mind.”
Anyway, the novelty of wearing my engagement ring wore off after a couple weeks/months. I hardly ever wear it anymore.
I pretty much take mine off only when I need to clean it, or when my finger itches under it and I need to scratch it.
I take mine off when I come home from work and change clothes. I always wear my wedding ring when I leave the house, the only exception being when I go the gym. I never wear my ring at home.
My ring is like my wallet, shoes, watch and cell phone. I grab it out the door and unload it all immediately upon returning home.
My wife takes her rings off at night but generally has them on throughout the day whether she’s in or out.
I take it off when I get home from work. Lots of times, I just forget to wear it. I haven’t worn it in like two weeks, for no real reason.
I never wear it when I exercise or cook.
My wife never wears hers. She works with her hands, so she doesn’t wear them then, and doesn’t wear them at home when we’re just chillin, so she pretty much only wears them when we go out.
Mostly when I shower. They don’t bother me if I’m sleeping.
Sometimes my skin gets too dry underneath, though, so I’ll keep 'em off for a couple of days to let the skin heal. That’s maybe once a year or so.
I take mine off every night. I take off all my jewelry every day.
Why the “never take it off” policy? Convenience? Or is it something like you feel the commitment is stronger, or better, or something because it’s never (or rarely) been removed?
I got my first “real” ring when I was 10yrs old. (9 emeralds and a tiny diamond, a birthday gift from my grandmother) My mother drilled into my young brain that rings residing firmly on your fingers do not get lost. Therefore, do not take it off for handwashing, sleeping etc. and give it a chance to slip down the drain/fall off the dresser/quantum tunnel into the ether. They belong on your hand or in your jewelry box.
The lesson stuck. When chosing engagement/wedding jewelry, I specifically chose settings that don’t stick up any more than necessary. I can wear them under the gloves I use at work. They don’t tend to get meatloaf or bread dough caught in the settings when cooking at home. I only take them off for cleaning, which admittedly isn’t very often (they get a little soap scummy after a while).
If I worked with tools or electricity and risked degloving or electrical related mishaps, I’d probably take them off.
I still have that emerald ring. (but it lives in my jewelry box now as the setting has proved too fragile for everyday life).
My engagement ring was an opal, so I took it off frequently, lest it be damaged. My wedding band was rather wide and trapped moisture, so I occasionally took it off just to let my finger dry out. I also took it off for messy chores or hobbies.
Age has taken its toll, and my knuckle has swollen to the point where I don’t wear my band any longer. Nor does my opal fit. One of these days, I’m going to get a plain band, slightly larger than my old one, but for the last month or so, I’ve been unbanded. Oddly enough, I haven’t had to beat back the men - does no one lust after a 54-y/o engineer with swollen knuckles?? 
When I’m making something with my hands (like meatballs or meatloaf) or when I’m cleaning them. My husband never takes his off. Never ever.
I take mine off for cleaning/inspection, when I’m making something really messy, and that’s about it. Of course, I’ve lost a bunch of weight and have had to move my wedding/engagement rings over to my middle finger. I keep thinking I’ll have them sized to fit my ring finger again, but it’ll feel so weird to not have them on for that week! I may actually buy a CZ set to wear while I’m having it done!
Hubby never takes his off either (just a plain gold band, no diamonds or anything; he didn’t want them), except when he gets poison ivy on his hands (at least once a year). I tease him that he just wants an excuse to take his wedding ring off so he can hit on the women in his office. It won’t do any good, though; he’s got a permanent indentation where it’s been for all these years!
Seriously, though, one of the considerations when we were selecting an engagement ring for me was “how wearable is it on a day-to-day basis?” Mine has a pretty low profile. It’s certainly not as “showy” as it could be, but it’s comfortable and practical for everyday wear.
I don’t know that I had that lesson drilled into me, but yes when my jewelry’s not on me, it’s in the jewelry box. In the event I take the jewels into the kitchen, I have a little dish in the cupboard to place them in.
Then again, I’m pretty careful, overall. I just recently dropped my cell phone for the first time, ever, and I’ve had one continuously for the last eight years. And one for two years a couple years before that.
Anyway.
The superhero and I both had engagement rings (only fair for him to have one too!) and I still wear mine with my wedding ring which was specially designed to fit with my e-ring (it’s a claddagh with a sapphire, and the wedding ring has stones in it as well). We both got in the habit of taking our rings off for showering, cooking messy things, gardening, and washing dishes/cleaning with abrasive cleansers, etc. Now that we’re married, we do the same thing. There’s a little dish in the kitchen where we put our rings when they’re not on our hands and one in the bathroom for the same purpose.
I keep them on for sleeping and always wear them to go out of the house.
I think your fiance should do what she’s comfortable doing in regards to her ring. Even though my e-ring and wedding band have very low settings (they’re nearly flat!), I’m still always concerned about gunk getting into the ring, and the person who made our wedding bands told us that they’d stay cleaner longer if we didn’t wear them in the shower, etc. Both of our rings have nooks and crannies (his is a manly claddagh); if we wore plain bands we’d probably keep them on for more activities.
My wedding band is titanium, I take it off when I hit the bars and clubs.
No, seriously, I take it off when I work with clay or dough. Otherwise when I bathe. My wife takes off her set when she does dishes & in the tub.
I take mine off all the time – I want to make sure it doesn’t get welded to my hand. Besides, sometimes my fingers swell, and it gets uncomfortable. I take it off to sleep at night, and I’ll leave it at home if I’m playing racquetball.
Pepper Mill takes hers off occasionally, too.
Oh, and we take them off to show to people. We both have Puzzle Rings as wedding bands
As a practical matter, these only work for that purpose if only one spouse knows how to put the rings back together. Pepper Mill and I can easily re-do each others’ rings pretty quickly.
My engagement and wedding rings are, by far, the most valuable jewelry I own. I don’t want to lose them. There’s not really a good place to put rings when you take them off if you have cats who like to bat things around, except in a jewelry box, and I’m terrible at remembering to put stuff back in there (it doesn’t help that the box has a flat top, so, like all flat surfaces in our house, it gets junk stacked on it). I’m way too disorganized to do anything like have a dish in a cupboard to put them in, and if I did I’d probably forget where they were.
I don’t have to worry about it getting gunky when I cook or garden. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had an aversion to doing anything that gets my hands really gunky. When I cook or garden, I don’t get my hands down in the food or dirt unless a spoon or tool really won’t work for the job (meatloaf is about the only thing I cook that fits this description). The only bread we bake is the no-knead kind (and Mr. Neville generally does that), and the only kind of cookies I’ve ever made were drop cookies, so dough isn’t an issue. I’m not at all handy, and I’m afraid of working with electricity, so tools or electricity aren’t an issue. I don’t flirt or hit on people (don’t know how), so that’s not an issue. I haven’t managed, in the 5.5 years I’ve had the engagement ring, to scratch myself badly enough to notice while sleeping.
I pretty much wear my plain platinum wedding band all the time. I usually on take it off when I am cleaning with strong or harsh chemicals- to prevent chemical burns under my ring.
My engagement ring on the other hand (heh), I will wear on the weekends, when we go out or I know I am not going to be doing anything rough with my hands. Due to the nature of my job, it would have been destroyed by now. Now it spends about 90% of the time in my jewlery box.
The Mr. takes his band off to sleep. Other than that he wears it all the time.
I actually have two wedding rings. The nice one with the emerald is for going out in the evenings or other formal occasions (I’m afraid the stone would get damaged most of the time). The standard band is all the rest of the time. I take the band off when I shower, when I’m doing a long session of writing, and when I sleep.
My original diamond wedding ring is at the bottom of a river. I had applied sunscreen, making my hands slippery, and then went through a class 3 rapids underneath the raft (not one of my more dignified moments). Someday someone will be panning for gold and end up really happy…
My wife takes her wedding ring off when she’s showering, doing dirty work around the house, or working with the horses or equipment.