Car Chronicles EP 27: Rings Aren’t The Point

A wedding ring looks like a simple piece of jewelry, but for a lot of couples it’s a live wire. One person sees commitment and sacrifice. The other sees a material object that doesn’t prove anything. We dig into that tension from a real place, including why we’re married without rings and how past relationship trauma can quietly shape what we do now, even when we think we’ve “moved on.”

We start with some personal life updates, then pivot into the ring question that blew up from an older reel: what does it mean when someone still hasn’t put a ring on it, and what if you’re already married but don’t wear one? From there, we get into the part that actually decides the outcome for most marriages: communication. If something causes you emotional pain, your partner needs to know clearly. If you never say it out loud, you’re gambling your peace on mind reading.

We also talk about why people get stuck, like the fear that a past engagement or expensive ring purchase ended in heartbreak, and how that can create resistance that looks like “I don’t care,” when it’s really self-protection. Then we land on the practical takeaway: state the need, ask the direct question, and pay attention to actions over time. That response tells you what you need to know.

If this hit close to home, subscribe for more honest conversations about marriage, emotional needs, and rebuilding trust, then share the episode and leave a five-star review. What does a wedding ring symbolize to you?

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Transcript

Life Updates And New Projects

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Yes, sir. Back on the road again. Been a little minute. Got a lot that's happened recently, actually. So let's go ahead and get started with that. Right now, my wife is currently on a 30-day TDY in North Carolina. And she comes back in 10 days. There might have been a time in my life where I enjoyed being by myself. And even still, like I don't mind it to a degree. But bro, when she's not here, life just seems so bland. It's like, yeah, I can move at my my own pace and just do what I want to do, whatever I want to do it. Because when she's here, we're usually sticking to her schedule because she I mean she works more than I do. She's busier, she has more clients, she's doing more, she has more on her schedule. And when she's here, we adhere to her schedule and her time to when she can do things and when she can't do things. But bro, when I'm by myself, I still stick to a schedule. But I'm like, I can just do whatever I want, whatever I want to. I don't know, but just something about it. I'd just much rather her be here and then not to have a conversation with her, talk to her, hang out with her. It just sucks that she's here. That's what I'm ultimately getting at. There's that. Then I don't know if I can't remember if I ever talked about the farm stand. I think I did it on the episodes. But your boy, I'm a little bit excited about it. I ain't gonna lie. I downloaded, I bought on Etsy a farm stand blueprint, downloaded it, and I've been building my own farm stand. And I must say, it has been an experience. A lot of lessons learned already. One of the biggest lessons learned is I will not be doing screws next time, and I will be doing nails. Because having to use first, you have to pre-drill the hole, switch out the the the bit, put on the bit for the screw, drill in the screw, pre-drill the next hole, switch it out here, and you have to keep going back and forth like that. I wish I would have done this beforehand. I'm sticking with the nail principle at this point, but I would have much rather have gotten a nail gun and just bim, bam, done, bim, boom, done. Oh, it would have been so much faster. And this is my first time ever working with wood like this and figuring out the calculations and cutting it and doing all that. It's not difficult, but you can for sure at least tell that I'm an amateur when it comes to cutting wood because some of my cuts have been questionable. Well, I was like, you know what, I'll deal with it when we get there. Like the old timber cuts that I had to do for the top to put the roof on, I know it's gonna be an issue, and I'm just waiting to get there before I deal with it. And I have a lot of the structure built out. I put on three pieces today. Obviously, I'm gonna work right now, it's not gonna do anymore. But I put on three pieces today for one side, and then I'll put on three pieces. Well, I gotta cut two by seven, and then I'll put on those three pieces. And that'll give me the sides, and then I'll put the two or the three braces on for the back, and it'll hold everything together because right now it's really wobbly, so I gotta propped up. And the questionable about the amount of screws that they want you to put into some of the pieces, like one the siding is like one screw, and I'm like, it's kind of wobbly. I'm gonna put another one in there. And then I'm running out of spaces with all the screws going left and right. I don't know, it's been it's definitely been a learning experience. And when I finish it all up, I'll definitely have more to talk about. But if you follow me on TikTok, I'm on my banking TikTok, I'm posting about it so you can see it. And currently going through the reinstatement process to be reinstated back into the Air Force. And I talked to one of the task force members today, and he's going, he got in contact with an Air Force recruiter, they're gonna give me a call, and then once they call me up, that'll be the starting point, and obviously I gotta fill out all the forms, and then they'll send me DFAS will send me a contract with how much they owe me, and then from that point on, if I accept the contract and payment, then that'll be the actual me getting reinstated process. Right now, the process is just making sure I'm I'm able to do everything to actually be in their force and then how much they owe me. And all that has just been really interesting, but I'll have them all that as the weeks go on. Outside of that, I guess I did change up my workout routine. I switched to a building capacity phase, because I was just doing a lot of heavyweights. And it it does take a toll on the body, but my body is actually pretty used to it, even still, I was doing I was taking more damage than I would have liked. So I switched over to building capacity. So, for example, say, you know, you want to do 315 on bench press, or you just need to be able to bench 225 eight times, and by theory, you should be able to do 315 from one. That's what I'm told now. And so far as it's been I guess working. I I used to do it back in the day, 2013 to 2016, before I switched. Or I would say 2018 is when I actually made the switch. But yeah. That's basically everything that's been going on with me.

A Viral Take On Engagement Rings

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And now to get into this episode today, it's actually brought to you by a reel that I made like seven months ago. I feel like it's been that long. I made it a while ago, and for some reason has gained traction lately. And it was about I said, you know, if it's been one, two, three, four, five, six, seven years, and you don't have a ring yet, then he doesn't see you as worthy. And I checked a commented on it yesterday. And she said, Well,

Why We Married Without Rings

SPEAKER_01 8:20

what if you're married but don't have a ring? Which is interesting because I don't think I've ever said this before. Stephanie doesn't have a ring, and I don't have a ring, and I didn't give her, obviously, a ring. Our whole situation was weird because when we were friends, we were already discussing marriage before I got by divorce when we were legally separated, and she had asked me when I went to the courthouse and turned in everything I needed to turn in to finalize the divorce. And she asked me, you know, you're divorced now. Do you want to like take a break and see other people? Or I was like, no, dude, I'm not. You've already I'm you're the reason why I'm getting divorced because you have showed me everything that I needed to see. So I'm not out here trying to go on dates when I already have the one I need right here in front of me. And so when we got to Moody, you know, we literally got married at the chapel by the chaplain, and there was no rings. And I told the woman who commented, I mean, ultimately, he still asked you to marry him, which far outweighs any materialistic object, and by that I mean the ring. And he tells you to spend the rest of his life with. And apparently, he was engaged before, spent, or married before, spent $26,000 on the ring, and for whatever reason, it didn't work out. And she said that she feels empty without a ring because people ask her, you know, why are you married and you don't wear your ring? And she feels like it symbolizes sacrifice that you're willing to sacrifice, you know, your money or something of value for another person. And this is a big thing that people tend to forget or don't understand.

Stop Expecting Mind Reading

SPEAKER_01 11:07

When it comes to certain things, and I've talked about this a lot, but there are things in this world that I do not care about. I don't, like, I do not care about. Like, I don't care about what goes on in Renicarve. I just don't care. Or I don't care about what the Kardashians are doing. I don't care about any of that. But you might care about that, and it might mean something to you. But unless you let me know that, I will never know. Because I don't care enough to ask. I just don't. And so I told her, excuse me. I well, I tell her I asked her. I was like, have you talked to him about this? Because his answer will probably tell you everything you need to know. And if you have, maybe him spending $26,000 on an engagement ring and it not working out caused him to have trauma.

Past Ring Trauma And Money Fear

SPEAKER_01 12:24

And so he didn't want to give you a ring because he was still dealing with everything that happened in his last engagement. And that's what happened with me. That's the real reason why she doesn't have a ring. There's a bunch of things from my last marriage that spilled over into my current marriage that I had to work through. Yeah, one of those things is like, well, I gave a ring to somebody and it literally meant nothing. So what's the point of even giving you a ring if you can just if we can just say all these things and then one day divorce? Isn't it crazy? You go from saying, I love you, I'll do anything for you, I'm gonna be with you for the rest of your life through sickness and health and thick and thin, and boom, divorce. And dire news, I asked for the divorce, but it's because I wasn't I didn't feel like I was getting any of those things, like the vows that we took. It felt like I was just spending my whole entire eight years trying to uphold uphold my end of the deal while dealing with all my trauma, you know, the porn addiction, and at the time being in the military, and then her feeling like she didn't really take an interest in my life or didn't want to be part of my life. But then again, you know, she was going through her own stuff and she was dealing with her own traumas, and neither one of us really ever got a chance to talk about it with one another because she was working or I was working. There wasn't a lot of time where either one of us wasn't working, and when we weren't working, we were usually, you know, watching TV together or something, but not a lot of deeper communication went on, it was all surface level. Part of the reason for that was when I was trying to, you know, go deeper with her, she would just shut down. And I never could get her to open up to me. And that was another thing that really bothered me is that if you can't trust your husband, the person that's supposed to be there with you, then what does that say about me? And does that make me not a good husband, or are you just not a good wife? And ultimately, things like saying, I love you, I stopped doing that in my current marriage, why do it now? Not to uh to the degree I did it in my last marriage, because I said all this stuff, everything I said to her, and then just nothing happened, nothing came from it. Like it's still in and in divorce, still in it pain, still internet heartbreak.

Cynicism And Choosing Your Partner

SPEAKER_01 15:24

And this is part of the reason why I'm a cynic and my cynicism is so deeply rooted, is because of things like this. And let me ask you this thing. You know, if if it came down to it, if you're in a relationship right now, and you had to choose if you if you if you had to give your decision to your wife, and she chose, and she had to choose between you or herself, who she's gonna pick. And that's why the cynicism runs deep. It's like at the end of the day, when it comes down to the wire, who are you choosing, yourself or me? I know what I'm choosing. My wife thinks it's me. But I would choose her, depending on the circumstance. And there's many things that I've mauled over in my head. And I know this is like dark and gruesome, and I've thought about deep things like this, but one of the people when I was in the military at work asked me this question. He's like, if somebody put a gun to you and your wife and said, You have to choose her or yourself, which one of you is getting killed? Who would you choose? And I said, her. Now I I know that would sound like, oh my god, you would just look her white eye, yes? And I look at it at a deeper meaning because I don't believe she would be able to carry that burden with her through life, knowing that she had me killed. And I feel like I would be able to carry it better, albeit it would still hurt very much so, knowing that I had my wife killed, but I felt like I would be able to carry it better than her. And so it's it's deep questions like that, that when we get into it, it's really about how how deep are we talking here. And I just think about these philosophical things, you know, the the reality of having to make that decision is probably 0.1.

Building A Marriage With Real Talk

SPEAKER_01 17:59

And at the end of the day, my current marriage has been far more fulfilling than my last one, and that's because of everything I learned from my last one, and then the things that I currently have to unlearn and then learn new things in my new one, and now we spend more time actually on a deeper communication level, and we do talk about the needs of one another to make sure that you know I might not care about rent a car, but hey, you know what are your feelings about this? What are your feelings about rent a car? She's like, Oh, you know what? I just can love rent a car. Oh, okay. I guess we'll just start using rent a car then. Obviously, and that's an example of not reality. But people don't have those type of conversations because they are unaware that they're significant other and then of it bothering them.

When Silence Keeps Problems Alive

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I know I gotta keep going back to the pornography thing. But like I said, in my previous marriage, I think she caught me like once or twice, and she never said anything. And I feel like she never said anything because she did cheat on me twice, and she never said anything because I think she didn't feel like she could, and this is all high type, and I think that's part of the reason why I just felt like it was okay. And had she had said something, well, I would obviously have stopped, just like I did for Stephanie, because it bothered her, and Stephanie had bothered her, and we had three discussions about it, and I stopped, and now I've been porn for him for six years, but I say I say all of that to say if you're not bringing it to the person's attention to alert them that there's an issue for you, then how are they supposed to know? There's there's so many different things that a person could be into, and there's so many different things that somebody doesn't care about, and you can't you can't read minds, and you can't possibly know everything. And so you have to ask, or the person has to tell you, more more than likely, you know, you would have to tell somebody because I you can't expect me to ask about something that I don't care about, and just like I said, with support. Say, for example, she wants to go learn how to dance with salsa professionally. I don't I don't dance. I don't I don't want to dance. I I used to want to dance, but now I just like you know it's not something that really pay any mind to because it's not something I'm like, oh yeah, I get excited for. But say she wanted to go do it. I don't have to like dancing to support her to go dance. Or say there's something that she just randomly brings up one day and then I'm like, oh wow, I didn't know you like that. Okay. And then now you know. And so now you make an effort to do those things. You make an effort to learn a little bit about it. You make an effort to take a little interest in it. Because when you can do that, that's when the dynamic actually starts to change.

If A Ring Matters, Say So

SPEAKER_01 22:43

If having a wedding ring means something to you, and he is unaware that it means something to you, then you can't blame him for the pain that you're going through. So until you alert him of what you're dealing with and the pain that it's causing you, it's on you, but the moment you let him know, now the ball is in his court. And if he chooses to not get a ring for you, and it continues your pain to the point where you feel unfulfilled or feel like he doesn't care about you, and it starts to cause problems with your marriage, then you have

How Trauma Can Start Small

SPEAKER_01 23:31

your answer. Like I said, everybody experiences trauma differently. And I know a lot of times people make fun of people going through trauma. And there are some cases where I mean it's kind of funny, but at the same time, I understand that it's trauma. Like the the two, I think there was like two Air Force members who got bronze stars and they were finance and they were just sitting behind a desk, but some combat at combat action, combat action, some combat had happened in their area, and they got they got bronze stars for it. Something crazy like that happened, right? And you know, you can claim PTSD for that. But they were just in their office and it just happened in their area, and they weren't actually exposed to it. But the the the thing is, it's the thought of somebody could have actually busted in this door and killed me. Somebody could have killed me, I could have died. It's all psychological. So when your mind thinks it is, then it is, and it doesn't matter if it happened or not. But when you think about scenarios where it's like now you're at, you know, I don't know, freaking Home Depot or something, and maybe something falls off the shelf, and you relive that experience of being almost killed, it triggers a traumatic response. Heart rate up, palm sweaty, breathing heavy, and that's trauma. And so, as minuscule as it may sound, yeah, she gets asked multiple times, hey, why don't you have a ring? Like, does he actually love you or whatnot? It can become a traumatic experience because now she starts to question her whole marriage, starts to question reality, starts to question him, and just starts to question everything, and it does the same thing heart rated up, palms sweaty, trauma. And it's different for everybody at the end of the day, the biggest takeaway from all of this is if you are experiencing something and it's causing you pain, does the person or the does the thing that you're experiencing the situation that you're in, the person that you're dealing with know that it's causing you pain?

Ask The Question Then Watch Actions

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And if they know why are they continuing to cause you this pain? So you have to get answers. If you're not asking questions, if I if I say, hey, I would really love a ring, it would just make me feel whole, make me feel complete, and it would really help me believe that you truly do want to spend the rest of your life with me. If I came to you with something like that and told you that, and then two years go by and you still haven't got me a ring. I mean, not even two years, you know, maybe a couple months or a year go by. And you have to ask, why, even after I told you how much this means to me and how much this pain is causing me, have you not gotten me a ring? That's the answer that you need right there. Because that's gonna tell you everything you need to know. Because someone who truly cares about you and doesn't want any harm to come to you physically or emotionally, mentally, spiritually, they're gonna do everything in their power to make sure that you're taken care of. If Stephanie wanted a ring right now, I get her a ring. But she said it doesn't bother her, so I don't get her a ring. But that's because I understand that we both value different things, but yeah, that's what I got for you guys today. The important takeaway of all of this is you can't leave it up to chance. But oh, I hope he just realizes how much this is how much pain is this causing me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to communicate what you are going through so they are well aware, and now that you have done everything in your power by letting them know, now it's on them, and this is going to expose who they really are. Are they going to take action to right or wrong? Or are they gonna continue to cause you pain by saying, nah, you dealt with this alone, you can keep dealing with it.

Closing And Five Star Ask

SPEAKER_01 29:09

So if you guys like this episode, don't forget to like, comment, and share and leave that five star review. And until next time, studio.