After I got engaged, my fiancé and I started fighting a lot. All of a sudden there was a lot more pressure. And it wasn't just about picking our wedding venue, guest list, or color scheme. (I don't really give a fuck about any of that shit. Being a bride just isn't as appealing as I thought it would be. It's odd how making this one, very important, life-altering decision suddenly brought on a host of meaningless decisions over things I totally don't care about.)

Still, about one month into the engagement, after the initial excitement had faded a bit, there was this sense of all-or-nothing now that we'd decided to raise the stakes. I could feel him freaking out about the finality of what we were about to do, which I think is normal, and which I'd kinda been going through, as well. I was just dealing with it better, having the ability to ease my fears with the knowledge that this is exactly what I want, the confidence that I have in us both, and the idea of how much the rest of my life would suck if it weren't spent hanging out with him.

Still, we were bickering a lot, and alcohol never helps these situations. One night, after returning home from a bit of a bar crawl, we somehow started fighting, and it got really heated. We were screaming and eventually I kicked him out of my house. He was in his boxers and I literally pushed him out the door, and threw his pants and shoes at him.

He slurred something like, "You think I'm gonna marry you now?"

And I was like, "You're not!" I took my ring off and hurled it. I could hear it clink a bunch of times down several flights of stairs in my stairwell, and then I slammed the door. I immediately thought, Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I felt horrible. I knew it was way too dramatic and stupid; I just wanted him to wake up and quit his bullshit.

I opened the door and he was standing there, holding his pants. We were both still mad, but we knew we still wanted to get married. It took us what seemed like forever to find that fucking ring. It was wedged between the floor and the molding on the wall a few flights below. That was the last time I took it off. After that, I stopped being so dramatic... and he stopped drinking whiskey.

I felt like such a bitch after I did that, but was thankful that I threw it in an enclosed place and not out the window or something. My mom told me that her friend threw her engagement ring at her fiancé on a Queens street...and never saw it again. (They've been married for over 30 years now.)

I thought that perhaps this was a common thing. Kind of a milestone on your trip down the aisle. I started asking around to people I know who are engaged or married. A few women admitted to throwing their rings during a fight. Some were found, some weren't. One woman said that instead of throwing it, she "removed it dramatically and sadly and slowly put it down audibly." Almost everyone else said that if they didn't throw it, they definitely thought about it while fighting.

Maybe it's that when you decide to shake up your life in such a way, so many issues begin to bubble to the surface that you need to just explode in a display that really tests yourself and your partner. And when you're done, and if you still like it, then put the ring on it

Gavin says that he never said "fiancee" when referring to his now wife. "I think I just said 'my wife.'" I've actually contemplated just referring to my fiancé as my husband a few times, like to people who don't need to know my life story, e.g. the lady who does my nails. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, because we don't even live together, and it sorta reminds me of something that a weirdo habitual tale spinner like Kim from Real Housewives of Atlanta would do.

Sadie has the same problem. "I say 'boyfriend' and then people check my hand to see if we've called it off." Anna, who got married this past summer said, "I would either say 'boyfriend' or i would say 'fiancé' but I would preemptively explain how much I hated the word. There was always a warning before it came out of my mouth."

Sadie suggests that we "just go totally archaic with 'liege,'" but that still sounds weird. We tried to come up with some other options like "pre-wed" or "GIM" (as in "guy I'm marrying"), but neither of those seem very viable.

I know it's just a word, and I'll probably continue to say "boyfriend," but it would be nice to find a word that conveyed the distinction of our new relationship status without making it seem like our relationship is a status symbol. Any ideas?