After a painful divorce, my engagement ring was a symbol of failure and rejection... until I turned it into earrings!

When my ex-husband got down on one knee, flipping open a jewellery box to reveal a gleaming band of diamonds, I loved his choice of ring.

His heart was thumping so hard, I could practically see it beating, cartoon-style. The proposal was hardly a shock (then 28, we had been dating for ten years) but still, it felt momentous.

He had enlisted my best friend to get the ring just right and the resulting three stones, a larger one cushioned by two smaller ones, was neither showy nor too small. As I sat staring at it on the bus, or twiddled it in work meetings, I felt genuine pleasure that I got to wear something so precious and beautiful every day.

Fast-forward 17 years, however, and the very same ring had become a symbol of hurt, rejection and recrimination after a painful divorce. At first, I let it languish in a drawer, a lurking reminder of a life plan derailed.

Then I decided to stick two fingers up at that unhelpful sentiment — by having it fashioned into something new. So, hello to the sparkling diamond earrings that not only light up my face, but remind me I have a bright future.

Rosie Green took inspiration from model  Emily Ratajkowski who turned her ring into two separate 'divorce rings'

I may not have much in common with 32-year-old model Emily Ratajkowski, but this is one thing we share: an engagement ring repurposed into new jewellery. As Ratajkowski said: ‘I don’t think a woman should be stripped of her diamonds just because she’s losing a man.’

Following the mother-of-one’s 2022 divorce, she turned her former engagement ring into two separate rings, revealing her new ‘divorce rings’ on Instagram and talking of her ‘evolution’.

If the moment I was given my ring was the height of joy, the moment I last slid it off after 16 years of marriage marked a brutal defeat. I had spent six months fighting to save my marriage and then watching it dissolve in an acid bath of desperation and sadness.

When he left, and I finally knew it was over, it was like a switch had flipped, leaving me numb.

I had done all my mourning, so rather than staring at photos or wishing for my old life, I looked only forward. I had more important things to worry about, like caring for my two children, figuring out how to pay the bills or work the lawn mower.

Still, a year later my thoughts returned to that ring, lying neglected in a hidden drawer.

A jeweller transformed the three stones into three stud earrings and kept the platinum band 

Turning it over in my fingers, I was so grateful I hadn’t lobbed it in a lake or flung it back at him.

But what to do with it? I could sell it, but that felt tragic. Traipsing along to a pawn shop would have felt like I was on my uppers.

Plus, I worried that selling it might open myself up to legal questions as to whether it is, in fact, a shared asset that should be divided. My ex-husband, to his credit, didn’t ask for it back or for me to sell the ring and share the proceeds.

So I decided to take the power back and not hanker after the past. I wanted to wear the diamonds — let’s be clear, I’m not someone with so much jewellery I could just wear all my other diamonds — but I didn’t want to wear them on that finger.

No, I needed my diamonds’ reincarnation to give off a message of independence and strength.

Emily Ratajkowski suggests that repurposing her engagement ring is ‘symbolic of her life becoming her own again’ and a reminder that she can ‘make herself happy in ways she hadn’t imagined’. Quite.

After dismissing a pendant or a bracelet, I landed on turning the three stones into earrings. I had never had my lobes pierced, so it was a big deal for me to take this step.

The very same ring had become a symbol of hurt, rejection and recrimination after a painful divorce. Rosie's diamond ring (pictured)

Despite my wild(ish) teenage years, in the later stage of my marriage I had become stylistically demure, some might say boring. Nude nail polish, mumsy dresses, natural hair, subtle make-up.

But I wanted to return to the spirit of the pre-children me. The one that danced on tables and wore catsuits to go clubbing. These earrings would help me find her — find myself — again.

A friendly jeweller I have known for years transformed the three stones into three stud earrings and kept the platinum band to offset the cost. In the end, I had to pay a few hundred pounds.

Wanting to wear them right away, I found a tattoo parlour that would pierce each lobe (doing my right ear twice) using a needle, rather than a piercing gun. That way, I could slide all three new earrings straight in, no cheap training studs required.

A nd so it was, in a dark basement in Fulham, that a woman tattooed from head to toe pierced my ears.

When I was handed the mirror, I instantly loved how they looked. Three piercings is hardly rebellious by most people’s standards but, for me, deviating from the traditional felt thrilling.

There was zero sadness when I saw them then and zero sadness now, five years on. Only pride. I would recommend that any woman trying to piece a new life together following divorce do the same; holding on to your engagement ring in its original form will only make you miserable.

Now the pain of my marriage breakdown has dissipated, I can see these diamonds in a new light. Given and received in love, symbolic of a past that may have ended in sadness but contained good times and happy memories.

But mostly, I just think they look nice. Which, to me, marks true healing.