When 'should' you remove your wedding ring?

Over the weekend Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were spotted at Disney World. The Inquisitr made sure they noted that the couple both still had their wedding bands on.

There’s a lot of headlines about Ben and Jen around at the moment – as the paparazzi takes joy in following a newly divorced couple – documenting their newly divorced lives. But out of all the pap shots and rumoured ‘updates’ and anonymously sourced quotes, the one bit of information that never waivers (and is always included) is the fact that Ben and Jen are both still wearing their wedding rings.

So what? They're allowed. They can wear that band of gold to their death beds if they wish. They can take them off and throw them into the ocean. They can melt them or sell them or hide them in a dusty box among the cobwebs of the attic if they want.

They are getting divorced - wearing their rings doesn't change that. But we do care.The fact that they're getting a divorce doesn't stop us being fascinated by why they're still wearing their rings.

Our interest doesn't just apply to celebrity couples. It's a broader cultural fascination that we have.

After a divorce, when 'should' people remove their wedding ring?

One woman says she took hers off immediately because it took years for her to leave her ex-husband and she was happy when she finally did it.

"I had the wedding and engagement rings melted down and made into earrings. It was my grandfather's diamond anyway, not from my ex. I made the jeweller put a mark on the back of the earring that's Papa's diamond and I always wear it in the left ear so it's closest to my heart. Nothing about it reminds me that it was once a wedding ring," she says.

Another woman says that her mother also melted her ring down. She had it altered to represent her children, the children from that marriage, something that she would always hold dear to her.

Another woman told me the way her mother's divorce represented her freedom.

"She didn't wear a ring," she says. "It gave her freedom. Freedom to do anything, anytime, anywhere she wanted with her life and freedom to give my sister and I the 'best' (she could provide) in life without someone holding her back."

The ring resembled her being 'owned' by someone. Without it, "she could reach her potential, her goals - the world was her's to take and she could make her own choices (regardless if it was right or wrong) rather than be held back."

In 2012 British singer, Seal spoke about his divorce from wife of seven years, Heidi Klum - opening up about his wedding ring. Seal spoke on the Ellen DeGeneres Show about why he continued to wear his ring, even though they had separated.

He said that it was a token of how he felt about Heidi as a woman.

"It feels really comfortable on my hand," he told Ellen.

Relationship expert, Judy James told the BBC that there is a lot of symbolism attached to someone removing a wedding ring from their finger.

"In terms of the celebrity profile, a lot of them play games with the ring. It's a strong message to the public, but an even stronger one to the person they are married to," she told the publication.

James went on to say that taking the ring off feels extremely final and some people aren't ready for that finality straight away.

Ultimately it's understandable if people want to keep their rings on, and also understandable if they want to yank them off immediately.

There's no right way to do divorce and there's no need to speculate or comment on whether someone has their wedding ring on their finger. It's a tough time. Let's leave Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck be.

When would you remove your wedding ring?