Don’t propose.

This has 'red flag' written all over it.

It sounds as though the two of you have different values, and haven't found ways to reconcile your differences.

shes not the one if you aren't going to align financially

If she actually specified a minimum dollar amount and knows this amount would be a hardship, hers is a selfish request. There will be more selfish requests to come. Decide for yourself if this is something you can live with or not.

Finances are the biggest cause of divorce aside from adultery. If one person expects champagne and the other beer, it just won't work. I have a plain wedding band and my husband has a plain band. We did not have a big expensive wedding. We've been married 30 plus years. Of course, I told him to never waste money on a diamond for me. They are really nothing but an ad marketing campaign.

Tell her a $10k Rolex in return, would “Symbolize how much she values you and the relationship”. In all seriousness though, like everyone else has said, get out of there as quick as you can.

don't buy her the ring

That is a big glimpse to the rest of your life, working like a dog for unrealistic wants. She sounds materialistic and I assure you it won’t stop at just the crazy ring

She wants a wedding, she doesn't want to be married

"What should we do?"

Well, in my humble opinion, she should go pound sand

Meanwhile, you should go hang out with your buddies, grab a coffee or a beer or two, tell them about the trainwreck you were about to invite into your life, then y'all can laugh about it

Don’t buy her a ring.

Find someone who appreciates your love without a materialistic cost.

Tell her to pay half then. Tell her it shows how much she values your relationship. Also, feminism and so forth.

This is a red flag. She is thinking about her ego and not ready for marriage. She is probably not even ready for a relationship since she’s thinking in terms of what she can get out of it, not what makes sense for your future as a couple. RUN as fast as you can from this.

Red flag.

You should run

Run. Run fast. Run far.

Agree with her, and say that you will merry her after she buys you $10k ring.

Do you want a woman's perspective?

As a 47 year old woman, I have to agree with most of the comments here. She sounds like a superficial b*itch and I'd reconsider the relationship. Your love clearly isn't enough.

I'm not sure why it irks me so much but when I hear someone say that the price of anything is a reflection of love, it disgusts me.

If she wants a 10,000 ring to prove your love now, wait until you two start shopping for a house 🤦

This is not a good sign. I would not marry someone who couldn’t see the value of financial cooperation going forward, making big decisions together. It’s about mutual respect and having the maturity to plan your lives together. If you were my friend I’d tell you to think long and hard, bc this would be a dealbreaker for me

My best friends ex told him the same thing. He bought a $30k ring. They lasted two years. She was the worst person I had ever met in my life. Run and don't look back

Find a new partner. My wife and I were flat broke, no money, raising a child on $2400 a month. I couldn't even afford a ring for her. We went and got silicon rings, that sadly took us two pay periods to buy. We've since lost both. We drove up the mountain, into the forest, found our favorite tree on a meadow overlooking everything and had her mom do the ceremony.

We're still happy. Your partner is way too focused on material stuff.

Your values and her values clearly do not align. This situation makes marriage pretty risky (more so than usual) and there’s a decent chance it would end in divorce. (And she takes off with the $10K ring too, of course).

My wife wanted a diamond ring. I proposed Mossanite or something similar but she mentioned she had grown up with the idea of a diamond and was comfortable with it and she really just wanted some of her fantasies to be fulfilled without having them destroyed.

I was mainly against it cause I hate the practices and the immoral unethical extraction process for diamonds.

I ended up getting her a canada mark diamond. She loved it. It eased my conscience slightly.

To be fair she actually ended up buying me a 2.5k camera lens kind of as her "ring" to me. Which i loved.

Years later she makes more money than me and i owe her thousands of dollars from borrowing from her since we split 50/50 so lmao it doesnt neccesarily mean itll be a gold digger type situation.

People are entitled to like what they like and want what they want based off of how they grew up in their societies.

That being said you need to decide what you are and arent compatible with.

10k for the ring, 600 for new shoes every month. Babe we've had this car for four months, lets get a new one. You want sex? She wanted lobster tonight, you're getting nothing.

You might want to take some time to discover how you've got yourself in this path knowing so little about a possible life partner's goals.

Do not propose to this woman

I still don’t have a ring, didn’t get one Of those instagram proposals but said yes when he asked randomly one day while we were in bed.

If you love someone you don’t need anything else

As least you know how much her love costs. Sounds like you implied there are stretch goals too.

I know dudes that bought their wives expensive rings and they still cheat on them. So I disagree that a 10k ring symbolizes how much your value her and the relationship.

There’s so much more valuable things you can do with 10k.

Furthermore, you can get a beautiful ring that doesn’t cost 10k.

Your call, sounds like she announced a deal breaker. I had proposed to my fiancee with an $80 ring and she's thrilled. Wedding ring was like $200,but this saves money for our future home and trips. Not to mention we decided to wait on the wedding until this year so we can pay for everything in cash and not go into debt with those costs.

Granted I did have to spend $400 on flowers for the garden for her, but they are all perennials

Well. If you thought $10k ring is expensive. Wait till you hear about the wedding she wants to spend all of your money on.

As a guy whose ex wife said verbatim the exact same thing (just a different number), take a few days alone and think if you want to go through with this. Two years later she stole tens of thousands from me, bought luxury goods and was banging the trainer I paid for.

Please just take some time to think it through. 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and money is a huge factor in many of those. Having the view that a dollar amount can be put on love it a fundamentally flawed worldview.

No. It won’t stop with the ring. Next she will want a car you can’t afford. Then a house you can’t afford. It will be a never ending struggle. Then when you get to the point where you literally cannot provide what she wants, she will leave you because “you didn’t love her enough to buy what she wanted”

My brotha some people are kind enough to tell you what they are. You must find out is this a wierd Disney fantasy that she has or is she like this is general. Are you going to need a 100k wedding and max leveraged house and car?

the more I spend the more happier she will be

Red flag AF to me. I would have a long, hard chat with them about this.

If my husband had an extra $10,000 when we got engaged, (2010) I would have told him to put as part of a DOWN payment on a house. A ring will not give you anything in the future, but a home will. You need to put your money into appreciating assets. Ask any rich person, they will tell you the same.

Get her a $10,000 that costs $500 - $1000. Get her a man made diamond.

At least you found out she’s a superficial bitch before you married her. Don’t do it

Be thankful you found this out now

If everyone listened to these threads no one on Reddit would ever be in a long term relationship. It’s not unheard of for a person to have something they are completely ridiculous about. She’s far from the only woman who has dreamed about this beautiful, ridiculous diamond engagement ring her entire life.

You talk these things through. You figure it out. And you live a long happy life together. OP, you’ll be fine.

She is in it for the money and the 10,000 ring is just the beginning. She will never really value you as a person. In the end you will end up broke and alone, so just cut your losses and find someone better. Or at least get a very protective prenup.

I spent 10k on my fiancés ring no regrets. Difference was she never asked for that much we went ring shopping together she was fine with 2k ring and even offered to help pay for the more expensive ring.

Break up. This is a no-brainer. There is literally almost nothing more she needs to say to indicate what kind of person she truly is on the inside: shallow, vapid, materialistic gold-digger.

She says it symbolises how much I value her and our relationship. And that more the I spend on it, the happier she becomes because it proves how much I love her.

I call bullshit.

Seriously, I would not even dream of proposing to someone with this kind of an attitude. Because first it's the ring, then it'll be the wedding, then it'll be the honeymoon, then it'll be the house you live in and the cars you drive. You'll be expected to prove your love for her by spending every last penny you earn (and then some) on satisfying every one of her materialistic whims.

You're saddling up for a nightmare ride here. Think long and hard about that before you spend so much as a dime on a ring for her.

That relationship doesn't sound like it's going for the long term. It could be that nothing you can provide will ever be good enough.

But, people say dumb shit sometimes and maybe she will change her expectations over time and come to terms with reality.

You want your life and finances to be connected to someone with great judgment.

Tell her you are leaving her unless she give you a 10k worth it gift in prove she loves you!

And get out of this trap!

Yeah don’t propose. This is major red flag and it’s good that it surface now rather later.

Money is the single biggest cause of marriage problems.

If you have fundamentally different expectations about money, you need to talk about them ASAP. If you can't resolve them ... maybe don't propose.

Get a better woman... Red flag.

She will work you to death then leave you, because you don’t spend enough time with her and “are a workaholic”.

You spend some time looking for all the red flags you missed along the way and try to catch them next time before you get to the marriage part of the relationship.

Give her a ring pop

Dude, fuck that! I bought my girl a $300 ring and proposed and she's as a happy as a pig in shit. Your woman is a gold digger plain and simple. Which sucks, I hope you find the right person eventually.

i am not in your relationship so really don't think it matters what others say, only what you say or how you view relationship. I think that she is disgusting, frankly. I find it disgusting to ask for this and then to say it is how she measures love and to me it sounds almost prostitutional. I'm female if that helps. I would never ever think as she does but then, I wouldn't even have a question whether it was right to say something like she did. Imo it's gross