Heard of a "Shut Up Ring"? This Woman Says There Are "Shut Up Moves" — and They Kill Relationships

Monica (@monicamillington) likes to give "big sis advice" — her TikTok account is a trove of personal anecdotes and suggestions from mistakes that she's made in her own life which she shares with her audience so they can avoid making the same errors.

The topic of conversation for one of her recent videos that went viral? "Shut up moves."

She went deep into the psychology of a very simple concept when it comes to relationships: if you have to ask someone to do something to ensure your needs are being met, then they probably aren't really considering your needs that much in the first place.

"OK we've all heard about 'shut up rings' but I'm gonna raise you one and introduce you to 'shut up moves.' Now 'shut up moves' are basically any action that a man will take to get you to shut up," she explains, stating that there's a very similar correlation the "shut up ring" and "shut up move."

For the uninitiated — a "shut up ring" is when a man in a relationship who is tired of constantly being nagged by his significant other as to why he hasn't legally married her yet, purchases her a ring to place on her finger so she can "shut up" about it already.

Monica says that these kinds of guys usually have "no respect" for the woman that he's marrying and is only at the altar "to get her to stop talking about it."

Monica then goes on to reference a man who ended up partaking in a "shut up move" for his significant other because she couldn't stop asking for the two of them to move in together.

She said that women who engage in this type of incessant bickering who chip away at men's wills initially think that this type of behavior is good because they ultimately get what they want.

However, she goes on to state how that only initially appears to be the case: "He's finally doing it. He's finally proposing, he's finally moving in, he's finally making moves for our future. But this is so problematic because it's a short-term solution for a long-term pain. Because it's not genuine, it's not authentic, it's not coming from a place of wanting to build lives together."

The video then cuts back to Monica speaking into the camera, waving her own engagement/wedding ring combo in front of the camera by stating that she was the recipient of a "shut up ring" herself: "It obviously ended in divorce and I've also been the recipient of many, many 'shut up moves' by my ex," she says on camera.

The TikToker says that women are ultimately the ones who set the balls in motion when it comes to the ultimate fruition of a "shut up" move: "Now these 'shut up moves' I usually instigated by us asking for something we need in a relationship," she said.

She said that only men who are in love with their significant others want to plan weddings and buy specific types of jewelry for them:

"We need to know where this is going, we need long-term commitment, we need affection, we need love. And when you're with a person that doesn't see you as their dream, these things are not on their radar. They don't want to do these things for you, they're not envisioning a life with you," Monica remarked.

"They don't think to call you beautiful, they don't think to surprise you with flowers after work. So we have to ask for them and we ask enough times that they do it just to get us to stop talking about it. I remember before I got divorced I had a whole lot of 'shut up moves' that came my way," she says, her hand on her head, talking into the camera.

"I said ... I need you to tell me that I'm beautiful. I need you to book therapy, I need you to bring me home flowers, I need all of these things so that I know you're committed to this marriage. And I probably got them for like this much time [indicates small amount of time with her fingers] before we fell back into our old habits and our old style of relationship and I realized that was actually not a long-term realistic, authentic, solution," she said, further reinforcing the idea that you can fool social media, but you can't fool mother nature.

"It was just something to get me to shut up in the moment," she continued, before getting down to the moral of her video about shut up moves: "So if you feel like the things that you are asking your partner to do are like spaghetti being thrown on the wall and then eventually not sticking, it might be a 'shut up move,'" she states, before asking users who saw her video to share some shut up moves they may have seem themselves.

Someone said that a popular comedian joked about getting a "shut up ring" ... and it didn't end up working out all too well for her at the end of the day: "I’ll never forget Ali Wong joking about her 'shut up ring' and later revealing they were miserable and cheating on each other before a nasty divorce. Scared me off ever demanding a proposal."

Someone else said that they should carefully pay attention to partners who put in a lasting effort in order to change for the better: "On the other side, ladies, when he loves and cares about you and you say hey this is upsetting or hurtful to me, he changes slowly, but it LASTS."

Another said: "I just thought all men were like this until I met mine. he locked it down quick and made it known I was the one early on."

While someone else said there were some "shut up moves" they experienced themselves, and it had to do with chores: "Asking to help around the house. He’d wash dishes one time and then wonder why everything wasn’t completely different."

Someone else replied: "We agreed we wouldn’t talk about engagement until we dated/lived together for a year. On our literal one-year dating anniversary, he took me ring shopping without me asking or even bringing it up," another person said.

Monica's video also got some people seriously thinking about their own relationships: "Just made it to 5 years with him, had the talk, he said he's not ready and needs time, I'm starting to resent him as we're getting closer to year 6. He's great in every aspect but ... I guess I'm not the one."

One commenter couldn't believe why women would go so far as to manipulate a situation that only ends up hurting them in the long run: "What is wrong with these women … typical female manipulation that only ends up biting them in the a--. Why don’t they just let the man do what he wants and if it’s not what works for them move on."