DISCLAIMER: These are my unfiltered and honest opinions and advice based on MY experience in a long term relationship with someone in the military. Although it is based on my experience, these are all things that I have seen ring true for MANY other people. It can be very hard to hear/digest and face a lot of the realities of being in a relationship with someone in the military. So, be warned that this post may feel harsh but I wish someone told me these things when I first became a military girlfriend. Do with this information what you will.

• Please, please, please, remember, your significant other is the service member. You are not. This goes beyond being on a high horse because of your partner's rank (DONT BE THAT PERSON). It takes putting your ego aside and being self aware enough to realize that many of us feel more important in the world and like we are apart of some special group of people because we are in a relationship with a service member. Yes, we play a role in supporting our service members (which is SUPER important), but you're not higher up on the totem pole of life because your significant other is enlisted. I see many girls feeding this glorification of the idea of being in a military relationship and then allowing things in their relationship and holding on for dear life when they otherwise would not, just because they want to ride this wave. I'm sorry, it sounds harsh but....real talk. I don't judge anyone for catching themselves feeling like this because I get how it happens, but for your own good, try to recognize when you're doing this and stop. You will get yourself really hurt. I personally feel like this mindset is the root of all the other points i'm going to discuss.

• I can almost guarantee you, that there will be a point in your relationship where you start to feel like your partner has changed (is being cold, distant etc) for a period of time. If you're one of the lucky ones who hasn't experienced this....i'm jealous. Post bootcamp seems to be the most complained about one that I see. A close second is during or after deployment. TRUST ME, I get how confusing it feels while you're in the midst of all the emotions. At the end of the day though, no one else will ever be able to answer your questions about why this is happening. If a deployment or bootcamp is able to change your partners desire to be with you, it's time to be reaaaal honest with yourself. How is that supposed to work in the long term ? Don't drive yourself crazy and suffer for weeks and months.

• Don't get married after knowing each other for weeks or even months just because it seems to be within the norm. I know it seems like the military world seems to be a world of its own but keep it 💯, you're still in the real world and in the real world getting married that fast is not normal. It's like that for a reason. If you want your relationship to last, learn how to be apart from each other & navigate the challenges of a military relationship dynamic first (because a lot of that is ahead of you). There's a million reasons, many of which are terrible reasons, why people do this, but just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

• If you have an unwavering inability to trust your partner, this is not the lifestyle for you. You will be in emotional survival mode if you overthink and overanalyze every little thing. If that's you, your options are to either learn how to regulate your own anxieties or to accept that this isn't a relationship dynamic that works for you and your own peace of mind. REAL TALK. Nuff said.

• Y'all, the sheer amount of posts that I see on a daily basis of women asking for advice on how deal with long distance and with their partner either being away at bootcamp or on a deployment is baffling. Before you post asking for advice, watch a youtube video and I guarantee any advice you get is going to be the same. Keep yourself busy, communicate etc. It's all true. To answer your other question, no it does not get easier, but you learn how to deal with it over time (and only over time). Nothing that anyone says will take the pain away of being far away from someone you love or without contact. You are not alone. There is a good community of women who are going through or have been through the same thing, who are empathetic and will listen to you vent. You may get something out of it to just vent. If you ask for advice it may result in you getting more upset after you realize they aren't saying anything that helps.

That's all the energy I have in the tank for now to write on this topic. Just have good discretion in your relationship. We go through a lot as partners to service members, so it's important to keep a high level of self love and respect. I feel your pains, & hope no one took offense to any of this, I just wish I was told some of these things straight when I first started in my relationship. ALL LOVE 🩷

I’m ranting, I don’t need to be told I’m an awful person or a failure or “the mission comes first” because I’ve heard it and it can stick where the sun doesn’t shine.

Background about me: I’m a litigator. I absolutely love what I do. However, it’s not the most flexible job. My husband is in the military. We have a child.

When I’m in court, aside from me actively dying and needing immediate medical attention, I cannot get out of court without (a) pissing off a judge, (b) potentially dealing with malpractice (being sued, losing license, fun stuff), and (c) a contempt of court charge (which can be jail time).

I cannot easily leave and I’ve attacked for “not caring about the mission” (which I don’t, I care about my job more and avoiding collateral damages), a bad wife, a bad mom, etc.

I also am not joining my husband on his PCS because it’s impractical. Many states do let military spouse lawyers “waive in”, but it’s under the supervision of another attorney and as I’m a litigator that’s impractical at best. I also have an insane amount of student loans which are manageable at my current salary but would be financially ruinous otherwise. I’ve had his command tell me I don’t love him.

I really don’t care what people say about me, I have tough skin. But when you’ve been constantly harassed, nearly excluded from getting deployment info, told you don’t support your husband since you got married because you refuse to place a job that isn’t yours above your own career, it’s insane.

I also hate how if I don’t know the specific terms in his field mean I’m not supportive. Like is he not supportive for not knowing what res ispa loquitor or the attractive nuisance doctrine is?

I also hate how I’m labeled as a “dependasourus” for not risking my livelihood and JAIL TIME to drop everything around the military. It’s one thing if you are a stay at home parent. Yeah what do you do other than watch your kids? You won’t be facing your life being ruined to put the “mission” first. And the military acts like every spouse is a stay at home parent, which is 2021 is not the reality of the world.

It’s worse because the military has 0 benefit for me- I had a good job, high salary, good health insurance (I will be fair and say costwise Tricare is better), I owned a house, and besides student loans and my mortgage I have 0 debt before I became associated with the military. I’d be one thing to deal with the bs if I had no other way of getting these benefits, but I had them before I got married. In fact, military has cost us money because on deployments and tdys I hire a full time nanny due to my work hours being long and being a single parent essentially.

I love my husband, but I also will not give up my job for anybody. Law school was HARD for me and I developed an eating disorder and got major depression from it. It cost a lot of money. I spent a lot of time and effort getting to where I am today and I cannot emotionally throw it away. We’ve been married for 5 years and his reenlisting period (?) is coming up soon. He’s interested in reenlisting but honestly if he does it might be the death of our marriage.

Apologies if this is incoherent. I’m just so burnt out on the military and I cannot do this anymore. I love my husband and I want to be his wife, but I can’t me a military wife.

I’ve seen quite a few posts from some ladies asking for advice regarding marriage, so here’s a couple I hope you find helpful.

1. You should not marry your SO because “it’ll be easier, that way you can be my dependent, you can get benefits, it’ll be better when I’m deployed”. It’s common for service members to want to marry just to get it done with because it’ll make life easier, let aside they will get a pay raise and some other benefits for having a dependent, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it if you don’t feel ready. You should only marry your SO once you’re absolutely sure they are the ones you want to be with for the rest of your lives, through the best and the worst.

2. Why is number 1 important? Because making military marriages work is HARD. Marriage alone is hard already, now add to the normal struggles being away from your spouse months a time, having to move to the other side of the world, leaving your family + friends + everything you’ve known to join your spouse in his new station, having to make new friends almost every year, and of course, having to explain to your new potential employer why you have such a big list of jobs that lasted 2-3 years max. AND, don’t forget there’s a chance you’ll spend your pregnancy alone, or give birth while your husband is watching through FaceTime. This will only be harder than it needs to if you married not being sure if that was what you wanted, so really, marry because you really want to, not because you have to.

3. If you’re young, take some good time to really think it through. It’s common to see couples getting married in their early 20s or even before that, just to divorce not long after or getting involved in a bad situation (eg waiting for their spouses to deploy so they can cheat on them). When you’re young, you might think you really want something, but after a couple years you change your mind and now you want something else, which is completely fine when talking about cars for example, but in marriage things are a bit more complicated. Take your time to think about ALL. This is you today, where do you see yourself 2, 4, 8 years from now?

4. Be honest to yourself, are you really willing to make all these sacrifices? Are you the type of person that could make a marriage like this work? Nobody knows yourself better than you do, so you should know the answers to these questions. I’ve seen way too many cases where wife thought she could and ended up filing for divorce 4 years in with a baby (or two) because she just couldn’t take one more deployment, and once kids are involved, it’s just a messy situation.

5. Did I already say it will be hard? I mean it. There will be times when your SO will be deployed for months, even over a year, sometimes in a submarine with no means of communication and sometimes on the other side of the world where antennas don’t exist. You’ll be at home with a newborn, 10000 miles away from your nearest relative, dealing with leaking pipes, a termite infestation (or some other pest, which is kinda common when living on base), utility bills racking up waiting to be paid and, as if it wasn’t enough, a global pandemic. Understand you’ll have to put your big girl panties on and suck it up buttercup, sometimes all you have is yourself.

6. You have to always expect the best but prepare for the worst, ALWAYS. I can’t tell you how many wives thought they would have their husbands back home after a 4-5 months deployment...but COVID (and chain of commands) had other plans. Husbands are just starting to come back...after being away for 10-12 months instead.

There are so many other suggestions/advice I could give you but we’d end up writing a book! Please chime in if you have any others! Most of these things you only get to learn when you experience them, and until it’s your turn, you keep thinking “maybe that won’t be my case”. You have to keep an open mind, learn to turn adversity into opportunities, communication is key, flexibility is a must, be strong but understand asking for help is not a sign of weakness, learn how to keep your relationship alive and how to reconnect with each other.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not me trying to tell you not to marry, this is me just telling you to do so if it’s what you really WANT and not because you HAVE to. Many times you’ll only be able to come out of hard situations because of the love, trust and respect you have for each other. Marriage should always be 50-50, but there will be times when you’ll have to hold the fort by yourself and it’ll be 100% all you.

If you keep an open mind, you’ll be able to see (and live) in many amazing places other people would just wish to go for vacation, you’ll meet tons of new people, you’ll have many chances to make new amazing friends, you’ll regain faith in humanity when that wife you just met a month ago comes to help you at 2am when you had an emergency, you’ll have award deserving multi tasking skills, you’ll know what a great time you can have at a ball, you’ll feel proud of your spouse when it’s your time to put a new rank on them, you’ll enjoy many benefits (including military discounts), you’ll know what it feels like to fall for your spouse over and over again every time they come back from deployment, you’ll feel like a true goddess (or god) after you’ve dealt with everything that went wrong while your spouse was away, and you’ll grow strong, stronger than you ever though you could be.

Military life is hard, but I wouldn’t change it for a “normal” life, I love it, and I love my man to death, and the feeling that we’re stronger than anything that life may throw our way, that nobody can take away from us!

In the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, much will be said about her life, legacy, and what comes next. What many don’t know is that the military is a better, more equal institution because of her contributions.

First, she was an Army wife. Shortly after RBG and her husband were married, they were stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Second, early in RBG’s career, she filed an amicus brief in Frontiero v. Richardson, the case that found military husbands are entitled to the same spousal benefits as military wives. Third, as a justice she helped decide United States v. Virginia, which is the case that ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women.

No matter your politics, RBG’s many contributions have touched all our lives. Our country has lost a true patriot. Rest In Power, Justice Ginsburg.

I know posting anything in here about hating this military life is dicey because you get die hard military wives, and long term military wives that love to invalidate, but Jesus I need to vent and hopefully this reaches my kind of people in the same boat.

I hate this shit. Can’t wait until his contract ends, but idk if we’ll last until then. 2 kids (a baby and 7 year old). I feel like we are props in his life. Background characters. Supporting characters. I hate the military. I hate what it does to people. I hate how it takes takes takes.

Our lives were better before he joined. I fucking yearn for normalcy. I fucking yearn to not be on the military’s time. I fucking yearn to actually have a husband and father to my children.

God damnit, fuck a hobby. I want my fucking family whole.

If the shoe doesn’t fit, this post isn’t for you.

I was prior enlisted with my husband and we both got out to go to pursue degrees, he then commissioned and I decided to stay civilian.

When I was active duty, I never understood why so many SO didn’t work or would become SAH parents even if they had careers prior (I think being a stay at home parent is an insanely difficult job in itself but never something I was interested in). I always kind of internally rolled my eyes when leadership would thank the spouse for the sacrifices they made.

Being on the other side now, I completely understand. It’s a painful realization that your life goals, interests, and career may need to be given up or take a back seat, possibly for years, due to an assignment. It’s hard when it feels like your individuality is gone and your purpose has shifted. I know this isn’t always the case and location/their job/ and how often you’re PCSing can have a huge impact on this but man am I feeling it right now and it’s kinda put me into a depression.

Just wanted to give a long overdue thank you to spouses and SOs.

Life as a military spouse can be... Boring, Repetitive, Beaurocratic, Isolating, Lonely, Frustrating, Unpredictable, Filled with fast forever friends, An adventure (looking at you OCONUS people), Joyful, and honestly is just like every other marriage, which can also be all these things. It's nothing special and yet very unique.

Also, Your spouse being in the military doesn't make them cheat, cheaters are in the military just like they are found among civilians. In fact the military doesn't change who a person is in most cases. If they are a jerk in the military they would have been a jerk as a civilian. If they are distant and not making you a priority, it's who they are and the choices they are making. Even the most bad a$$ operators I've met can make their families a priority most of the time.

Oh! And,
The way you do things is likely the same as you would as a civilian. Have a question about your medical coverage? Call Tricare! Just like you would BCBS or Cigna.... Want a divorce? Get a lawyer and file. Overly stressed? Find a therapist! Need a job? Go apply!

The biggest difference is that as a military spouse (legal spouse only) you have access to so many free resources. I recommend all new spouses take time to get acquainted with their base, their family resource center (this is called different things depending on the branch of service), and find spouses in the unit/squadron etc... (there frequently a Facebook page).

Finally, Remember the military is your spouse's job and one day that job will end so make sure "military spouse" is just one tiny aspect of how you view yourself.

Some of y'all are scarily controlling. Some of y'all remind me of my abusive ex-husband. And ya'll get away with it because you're women. Some of y'all are so fucking codependent it's scary. If you have to be up your partner's butt all the time, maybe you should work on yourself because that's not normal, that's not healthy, and you have issues.

And if you think just because a woman is in and friends with your man she's going to fuck him, I invite you to take a long hard look at yourself. You're projecting your own bullshit, and if he cheated before or you can't trust him, that's either a you issue or a him issue. She isn't the one cheating or forcing him to cheat; if she does that's rape. Do you want to fuck every dude you see or work with? No? Then why the fuck would you assume she would? And if you do, stop projecting! Not only that, but honey, let me tell you something as a woman who was in. We have to fucking work with him! He's never as charming or as fascinating as you think he is, and 90 percent of the time if you're one of these SOs, he's at work talking shit about your ass! No thank you, fucking drama galore.

And if he's a piece of shit running around cheating on you, divorce his ass! Life is too fucking short for that noise! If he's abusing you, report his ass to the MPs and to the local cops. You scream that shit from the rooftops, because no one man or woman deserves to be abused ever! That's it. Some of y'all need to grow the fuck up and look at yourselves. The rest of ya'll, keep doing what you're doing, y'all are awesome. I'll take my downvotes now.

I won’t say I thrive and live my best life when my husband has duty or is underway, but I do pretty damn well because the time apart allows me to focus on myself and the things I want/need to do in a way that I just can’t when he’s home. So if you find yourself doing really well when your SO is away, don’t feel bad, because it just means you’re capable of being an independent badass. And anyone who says otherwise is just a jealous hater who can’t fathom being independent.

Sincerely, Someone who got told she doesn’t love her husband in the groupchat 🙄😂

Especially in the current global climate operational security is essential.

Boot camp, training schools in the US, and PCS/asking about a new base you're moving to - OK.

Deployment, underway, detachment, any other kind of troop movement keep as vague as you possibly can.

Do not share who, what why, when, or where.

Examples: How do you deal with your SO being gone?

What Hobbies do you do while your SO is gone long term?

What kind of support does X base or X branch have for SOs of servicemembers that are deployed?

Nobody needs to know what command, when they're leaving, what their timeline is, or where they are going.

First let me tell you, you’re not alone, this is actually more common than people think but is not widely talked or discussed because people is scared of talking about it. Now, second, there are two things that could be happening:

1. You’re just going through a phase, which feels worse than it actually is due to the level of attachment you have with your SO. This is similar to separation anxiety, only that in this case would be called attachment anxiety. If you were madly in love with your SO before he went away, were pretty much best friends, super close, almost like just you two a perfect team against all odds, but not long after he left you started getting concerned about your feelings for your SO, feeling detached from him and your relationship, feeling like you no longer love him, getting anxious because of those feelings, going through some levels of depression, getting anxious about the future “what if when I see him again I don’t feel nothing anymore” “what will happen to all these plans we had together” “do I really not love him anymore?”, and such, BUT, as soon as you get a call (voice or video) from him you automatically feel crazy in love again, then this is you. Think about it, you’ve been used to feeling loved and having his attention and the feeling of “everything is perfect”, but now you have to settle with letters. You are, unconsciously, going through a stage of resentment, against the situation, against yourself for putting you in this situation and against you SO for “taking away” all that “perfect state”. This mostly happens when SOs don’t have access to make a call or a video call, or when they only can do so once every full moon. However, if you feel like walking on clouds again as soon as you talk to him through either (voice or video), then you’re most probably fine. Just don’t get anxious and worried thinking about this and how you feel, it’ll only make it worse. As many wives recommend, keep yourself busy to the point of exhaustion, don’t give yourself a chance to fall into these negative feelings.

2. This is the ugly one. If, even when your SO calls or video calls you you still feel like you fell out of love with him, than that probably is what it is. Relationships are hard the way they are already, but military relationships are definitely not for everyone, and that’s ok. You don’t have to stay in a relationship when you no longer have feelings for the other person, service member or not, understand you don’t have to prove nothing to you or to anyone else. Staying in a relationship without feeling love for your partner only makes things worse, for both, so don’t do that.

Most of the times, no matter where your SO is, they should have some available phone time, so ask him to record short voice messages for you so that you can remember his voice, or even better if he can send you some short videos, the image of your SO talking to you will help you, trust me. No man will ever decline or refuse to do this for you if they really love you and know you’re struggling because they’re away. Again, another key step to go through this is to stay busy! Take it as a time to focus on yourself, workout, exercise will make you feel better, anything that can keep you busy will help move you far away from these negative thoughts. DO NOT READ DEPLOYMENT STORIES if they are not the good positive ones, negative ones like struggling relationships and cheating stories will only make it worse, so use that time to do something more productive for yourself. Keep in touch with family and friends, and if you feel like you don’t have anyone, every single base has a readiness office, a chaplain, and an office that deals with family related matters, which are also available over the phone if you don’t have base access yet you can even use one source online).

EDIT: I do not believe my boyfriend would cheat on me! I trust him completely. I just don’t like the disrespect his peers have towards our relationship and them trying to “influence” him. Even if I don’t believe he would go along with them, the fact they are telling him to cheat on me and break up with me is still disgusting.

My (19F) and boyfriend (20M) and I have been together for a little over 2 years. We live in different states as he is stationed in Virginia and I am back in Michigan for college.

My boyfriend is in the Navy and is a sailor. He told me how a lot of his shipmates and even his chief always try to convince him to cheat on me when they deploy in the future; such as hiring a prostitute. They even try to tell him to break up with me. We are not completely sure if they are joking or being serious, but are still bothered by the comments nonetheless.

It just disgusts me how apparent this type of behavior is in the military. It is almost normalized that SOs’ cheat on their partners or have other people in the military try to convince them to.

He is deployed. His job right now directly affects when people deploy and come home. The past few days he has worked long shifts to get some deployed “group” home before Christmas who thought they were going to be down range for a few more months. My husband might not be home but I’m so happy that he is doing everything he possibly can to give a family that “surprise they are home” moment and right before Christmas at that.

Just a reminder to everyone, people care. Nobody wants family members gone over the holidays.

(EDIT FOR CLARITY: my issue is not relationship-related posts. I like them. I enjoy them. My issue is relationship-related posts where the content has zero actual relevance to the military, eg general human scumbaggery or behavior, but are posted here just because the partner happens to work in the military - even though their job is irrelevant to the question/rant content.)

I'm on this sub for military-specific information and support for SOs, but every single day there are just updates with general relationship stuff that really doesn't relate to the military/being a military SO specifically.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but your partner, spouse or sneaky link just being in the military does -not- automatically make your question relevant to this sub. Unless your situation is specifically affected by your SO's service beyond it just being long distance, or you need help or information related to processes etc that involve the military, I don't feel like it should be posted here.

For general relationship advice, there's r/relationships and other such subreddits. There are so many posts that are just general relationship or long-distance relationship related things with basically 'oh btw they're in the military' thrown in to make it somehow relevant to this sub.

Eg "They keep ignoring my texts but are online, do they still love me?" → how is this related to the military? Unless your question is whether they have security limitations stopping them from replying despite being online, this is a general relationship issue that is irrelevant to the military.

or "They cheated, do I stay with them?" → unless you are asking about things related to military divorce processes, military child support payment obligations, COC reporting, military support for families..... how does them being in the military matter?

To clarify - it's all about whether the post is contextually relevant to the military. I like relationship posts when the military aspect is actually relevant.

I understand that people are going through rough times and need support, but this sub is for the military SO-related stuff, not just 'Everything I write, even if off-topic, is automatically relevant here because I'm dating someone who happens to be in the military' stuff.

Hi everyone,

I messaged u/nickelsandvibes about writing this 2 some weeks ago...it's taken me this long to write something. Hasn't been easy so please bear with me.

I'm not a SO, I'm active Army. My wife was a big lurker there and she always thought all the advice that the community shared were super helpful. She'd show me different posts on her phone and talk about how grateful she is, even if the community didn't know about it. She didn't get a chance to write something, though, as she passed away from cancer on Jan. 22nd.

As a thank you to this community (and as a way to honor her), I'd like to make donations to organizations that the community cares about. Thank you to everyone out there. Your suggestions/advice/words make more impact than you know. Thank you for this community and what you guys have done for my wife.