My wife is as well. When we were married we were too poor to buy a diamond, but she always held out the desire for one. Coincidentally, about the time the movie "Blood Diamond" came out (2006) was about the time we were able to afford a decent diamond for her. The movie had a huge impact on her and she spent weeks slipping in between diamond shopping and learning about blood diamonds.

While she knew that diamonds are more or less worthless logically, the marketing and social drivers kept it in her head that she needed one - the emotional need was very very high. But the more she read about the human cost the more in conflict the social worth of the things became.

Ultimately she decided that the moral cost aligned with her logical mind and that's what finally overrode her emotional desire to get one. She still wanted a sparkly thing and after spending some time looking in to lab grown diamonds, she coudn't get over the basic worthlessness of having an expensive sparkly thing and ended up just getting a modest lab grown moissanite ring -- on sale and with a discount coupon.