Engagement ring

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Question: is a person supposed to wear their engagement ring all the time or do you take it off for showers and what not?

Depends on the individual, there are no set rules or anything, though it's generally expected that it be worn in public except under special circumstances.
Taking it off for showers seems fairly practical, though, unless you're not worried about accidentally dropping it down the drain.

Do people usually wear them to bed?

I only wear mine sometimes. I don't remember to wear it on a daily basis. I don't see why it matters anyway.

My rings are welded together (engagement and wedding). I take mine off when I shower so that the soap and stuff doesn't corrode it and then I also take it off when I wash my hands in my house. I hate the moisture that collects underneath it when I wash my hands, but I'm too paranoid to take it off in public because I'm afraid that I might lose it. So out in public, I just slide the ring around and get everything "dry enough", but at home I take it all the way off before I wash my hands.

Oh and I also take it off when I'm going to eat something really messy like wings or crab legs. I've gotten sauce stuck in it before and it's way nasty until I can take it to get cleaned.

Funfact: The ring tradition was started by DeBeers. The same company that uses slave labor from Africa to produce diamonds that it uses in its products.

I really don't think I could wear a ring 24/7

Around here (central europe) the engagement ring is normally "bigger" and so less suited for wearing it daily, while the wedding ring is very simple and comfortable. After the wedding you normally wear the engagement ring only, at festivities and such stuff, together with the wedding ring. While for everyday you only wear the more comfortable wedding ring.

I know my mom wears both her rings all the time. But at work we are only allowed a plain wedding band, I imagine stones would tear gloves and trap dirt.

It depends on the person. My parents usually don't wear them around the house or to bed.

I work with a few female firefighters who are married, they usually don't wear their rings when at work either.

I think my parents said if you leave it on it could get swollen around the ring, then someone might have to cut it off. I would think leaving it on in bed would be a good way to damage it, like glasses.

So, I would say take it off.

My ring is not traditional for the USA, it is silver (not gold) and has an emerald (not a diamond) and the band is decorated with leaves. The stone does not protrude from the band, so I can wear it with gloves. It also decreases the likelihood that I will dislodge the stone while being my normal clumsy self.

I have decided to wear it while sleeping so that I do not forget to put it back on in the morning (as my morning routine can be forgetful), but not showers (or beaches or pools).

I know some work places do not allow rings to be worn (like where my SO works, thus we will be getting tattoo marriage bands as well as normal ones).

Because of the ring most likely being of gold, as long as you are not working with really bad chemicals, it cant corrode. (And if you get those on your fingers, you have worse stuff to worry about, then your wedding ring.) So soaps, cremes, gels, ...can do a foggy look on it, but that is removable, and is only on the outside, and does not affect the material itself.

Its something else, if you often do mechanical work with your hands, so using hand tools with full force can use to scratches on the material of the ring, because of tool-steel simply being harder then jewelry-gold.

About the fingers getting swollen, cutting of the ring ...: The ring should never be so tight, that it hardens the blood circulation of the finger. As long as you are not really overweight, normally the position, where you wear the ring on the finger, should be a bit tighter then the fingerjoint above. So when choosing a ring, you normally care for it being cozy on the phalanx of the finger (So it should be easy to move at the finger phalanx when softly pushing.) while at the fingerjoint it should be tight enough, that you can remove it by screwing a bit, but not too hard. Even when wearing the ring all day, you should care for trying to do this once a week. If you feel that removing the ring around the joint becomes harder, (which should still be possible, so in a week you dont gain that much weight immidiately, so with soap or butter or some oil, you still should get it off) then you simply carry the ring to a jewelry shop that have as well a little workshop for repairs, and then you can let the ring get "widened". Because of gold being a good material to work with, a good shop can easily stretch it a bit, so that it fits comfortable again. As well that its pretty common to do so.

As long as you dont have an sudden disease or injury, that lets your finger gets swollen overnight, its pretty impossible, that the ring suddenly stucks, and causes so your finger to get more swollen, and so being forced to remove it. If you feel it becomes more tighter, then let it get widened by a jewelry-shop again on time, before that happens.