I've been an Army wife for just under 17 years. All but ten days of our entire married life, as a matter of fact. It certainly has its *challenges* <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />, but with all the added stresses, we have a pretty good life. Problems have presented themselves and we've also (duh, this is the infidelity section of the forum!) had problems brought into our marriage. I've got to admit, the extra pressure of military life makes it doubly hard sometimes to hold to MB principles. Pretty much every single policy has a loophole when it comes to life in the military. Especially when it comes to rebuilding our relationship after an A.

If nothing else, I just wanted to start a dialogue with some other military folks (active, retired or spouses) to see how you have adjusted MB principles in your own situations. How do you work around the special circumstances of deployments and security clearances and TDY and.....and.....and.....ad nauseum? How has military life posed a significant challenge to your recovery from infidelity? Has it helped?

It is wonderful to hear from another military spouse. My husband has been in the military 15 years, we have been married 9, in recovery 2 years 2 months. It was I, the WW who had th affair 3 years ago. I can say, we are making it. We spent 6+ months separated legally and by 3,000 miles. Then my husband got orders overseas, where we are currently living. He had to decide if he was going alone, or with me...well, he took me. We have been here a year and a half, and of that he has been deployed frequently (from weeks to months, for a grad total of about 6 months apart). He feared that he could not trust me, but I proved myself trust worthy, a little more each day. We are getting ready for a 9+ month deployment to Afganistan, it will be our longest separation ever. We feel strong, and know this is the next giant step in our recovery.

Military wife for 17 years (3 more years and we are out....yahoooo!)- married 20 years- 13 months into recovering after H's A.

I think the military throws us some extra challenges that we would not have thrown at us if we were civilians.

My H had an A with another soldiers wife last summer, it lasted for several months. Her H was deployed (go figure!) Our marriage was going down hill before the A, mostly it was taking each other for granted after 19 years of marriage-seemed like our M had no emotions holding it together. Anyways, I found out and we have worked things out with a lot of changes in our life.

One thing that makes our life harder is the deployments-if our spouse deploys or if the OP's spouse deploys. (the H of the woman my H had an A with will be deploying again in a few months.....stomach is already doing flip-flops because I know from past behavior of hers that she will most likely try to start up contact with him when her H leaves) We live off post, she lives on post. I can't follow my H every minute of the day while he is at work-nor would I want to.

One thing that is good is the military offers counciling for free- we spoke to a Chaplin that really helped in our situation. I am not sure how many use what is offered free to them, but it is there!

With all these deployments it breeds of people who feel they have the right to get affection elsewhere, no matter who it hurts. Situations in the military make it easy for A's to be covered up. BUT, if our spouse messes with another soliders wife/soldier it is very easy to get a lot of info on them. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I couldn't believe how easy it was once I found out her name. Bumping into "them" is likely if you shop on post. (Thank God for Walmart!)

Bottom line, the military makes us stronger. We are multitaskers to the biggest degree! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Somewhere in the mix of our never ending multitasking we were thrown a nasty bone(an A!!!) and it is wonderful to see that there is another military wife out there that is surviving it! Nice to meet you!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />Maggie

GettnThere, it's nice to "meet" you! I'm also along for the ride on an overseas assignment (Germany), and up till last week we were getting ready for yet another deployment. We just found out that my H will be on rear detachment, a major relief for both of us and our teenage kids. We're a year behind you in recovery, it took both of us a while to get to the point where we were fully convinced that NC had to be permanent and all-encompassing. My H found it a little too easy to email and call the OW behind my back from work.....so our trust factor is still, well, gettin' there! It's great that you have proven yourself trustworthy before this upcoming deployment. What kind of safeguards to you guys have in place for your H's peace of mind and your protection? It makes it hard to engage in some of the things "normal" couples would--suddenly family friends become a little bit more dangerous when only one spouse is around. That's how my H's A happened--he "took care" of his best friend's W while BF was overseas. From hero to scumbucket in two months flat.

My H and I have spent just over three and a half years of our 17 year marriage apart, but oddly enough none of it was following D-day. It just seemed a little counterproductive in our situation, I guess. One of these days we're going to have some "us" time, but it likely won't be for another three years. I guess it's slowing down our recovery process a bit.

So how are you planning on dealing with the challenges of this deployment?

Hello,
I'm on the flip side...I am the AD member and H the WS. Lots of our M deterioration happened with a gradual erosion from me spending most of my efforts at work and then after work with the kids and very little H time. Too tired to meet H EN's and at the time not aware of MB principles. H was a bit resentful of all the kudos/recognition/accolades I recieved although through it all he continued to encourage me and tell me to do what I needed to for my career...all the while he was brewing, getting more and more bitter and resentful and I was oblivious thinking he was just a wonderful and supportive spouse! I had no idea. Obviously we did not communicate well.

H had a "friend" this entire 4yr timeframe that I was never comfortable with and just last week he admitted it crossed the line (which I figured all along but was too entrenched with work and committments to do much about sad as it is). He has since had 2+ OWs to meet his needs and we are now in the trenches trying to make some sense of this and how we got here.

Trust and honesty are our 2 biggest issues and having chunks of time away only makes these issues ever so important. My personal goal is to work on these issues and build our friendship back so that H doesn't need to rely on others to meet these needs (this was actually his suggestion). It is difficult with any AD deployment/separation but when the H is the one at home or primary caretaker during separations he is usually relating and getting support from other military spouses and often they are wives. Huge challenge for us since H has hard time with boundaries.


Just wanted to intro self and join in your discussion; nice to meet you all...gotta run for now! Would love to hear your challenges, strategies, opinions!

It is wonderful to meet you too! We are in Japan.
I never thought moving overseas could be a gift, but in our case it has. We have been able to basically start over again. My affair was with our mutual best friend, a co-worker of my husband's. Our physical affair did not take place while my husband was away, but the emotional affair did. He too, trusted our "friend" to look after me. Big mistake! To make a long story short, I no longer have any male friends.

Since we have been here, my husband has deployed a lot. The shortest was a few weeks, the longest was a few months. With each deployment that we made it through, we got stronger.

As for safeguards, we live on Okinawa, it is a small island, and if I do anything, my husband will find out about it...our lives are really a fishbowl here. We share an e-mail account now, which helps because that is how he found out about the affair in the first place. No more cell phone, etc. He even put a listening device on our home phone to listen to my calls while he was deployed. I only found out later. He says he finally trusts me. It has been a very long hard road.

This upcoming deployment is going to be rough, but I know it is really going to help our recovery to make to through this!

2much, you hit on a biggie there. From either side of the fence, I think military marriages don't make for the best "friendships", so to speak. It is HARD to be each other's best friend when you spend so much of your time/effort/energy on nearly separate lives. Add in those deployments/TDY's and WOW....it's like there is a huge gap in the friendship overnight. When my H came home from his first deployment to the Middle East, I realized I barely knew this guy, and we'd been married ten years at the time. He had six months to form friendships with the guys he was bunking with, to work on his career without my assistance (or help sewing patches...the ONLY reason I like the new ACU's, by the way!) or needing my input or encouragement almost at all! I was home working my butt off being two parents and he came home and.....nothing.

For some of us it is hard to keep seeing the military member heaped with medals/kudos/accolades while we jsut "live". I mean what kind of thanks is there for holding down the fort? It's hard sometimes, but I think by and large every single one of us is proud of "our" servicemember.

That support we can get from family support groups (readiness groups, whatever they are this week) can be a double-edged sword. I was a co-leader during the war and it was shocking how many "way too close" relationships were formed just during those hour-long monthly meetings. You've gotta be on guard, EA's can sneak up on you in the strangest of places!

Hey Maggie, you're doing the three-year-retirement-countdown too, huh? Wow, our timelines are pretty close! I had the run-into-the-OW-at-Walmart problem too....and church.....and everywhere else, it seemed. Strike one plus for military life, this overseas assignment four months after D-day saved my sanity--and probably my marriage!

"My H found it a little too easy to email and call the OW behind my back from work"


Yikes, are we married to the same guy? Maybe they are brothers? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />I guess they don't think we would find out, or that we had on our super duper radar hats!

I am 99% sure that there has been no physical contact between my H and the ow since the day I told him I knew. Now he knows without a doubt what ANY contact will do to our marriage....I hope it sticks. I wonder if there will be a day where I can say to myself that he will never contact her or respond to her. I am just not there yet.

I applaud the rest of you who are proving your trust to your spouses. It is hard work no matter what end you are at.

Treading, I feel sorry for you in the aspect you don't feel recognized for your efforts and support.

In so many ways the stress put on a spouse during deployment is much greater, and certianly more dynamic than the AD member.

Factor in the basketball team you are often raising solo is an incredible accomplishment.

I can honestly answer if I were asked... Which is harder the job of a spouse raising childern normally without additional family support, or being put in harms way in a foreign country? What times my flight!

I guess as anything else. You train yourself to handle the task required. You have to, what other options do you have?

For this 2+ year retired squid... What you are doing is recognized, and applauded! Thank You

We moved overseas to Japan 9 months after d-day, and it has really be a "gift" to get away from our old lives and start fresh.

We too are counting down, 5 years till retirement for us.

I agree with support groups being a double edged sword. My affair was with a close frind to both my husband and myself. Over the course of 3 years our friendship became too close. It began as an emotional affair, turned into both a EA/PA, then ended as an emotional affair. The emotional aspect has by far been the most difficult part for my husband and I both to deal with. For us, the solution is absolutely no male friends what so ever for me.

All,
I have to chime and and say...I have spent the past year in a position where I am at home as the primary caretaker and H is gone to work 12+ hr/day.

I can tell you that I have a new and improved appreciation and respect for the primary homecare spouse and can see how there is little visible appreciation. I used to tell H that his reward was in knowing that he molded, shaped and formed future leaders (kids) and got to experience all the first's (steps, words, lost teeth, day in kindergarten etc).
I was there when I could be and carried heavy guilt for missing all that I did. I do appreciate the military kudo's however my family/children are my prized possessions and always have been. I think that is what irritated me the most is that I could live happily without all the accolades etc I'd rather have a hug from my kid...H never understood that since I believe we are wired differently.

I've pretty much been single parent the past year and understand how easily it would be to have support and friends that could cross the line...it happens home and abroad and although it is situational there are many things one can do to try and build up preventive measures to use in times of crisis. This being said, we all have a hard time regardless of which role we are in.

My H's suggestion is to start from scratch and begin getting to know each other again---like meeting a new friend. No dates, just outings to rediscover fun and laughter since we are both so bitter and resentful of each other. No more saying ILY until it actual means something and has the actions to back it up.

As far as the trust and honesty goes...it will be a long haul to get to a place when I can believe anything. Right now I am trying to back off and enjoy life, take each day as it comes and be forgiving and try to be the best I can be for kids and H. I'm working on my shortfalls and trying to find a place where I am happy with myself and life with or without H. If it gets to D at least we will be friends for the sake of the kids and will have our business issues all wrapped up!

I'm sure you all have tremendous challenges and lessons learned to share. I really feel that the military should have ongoing Marriage Education/Enrichment programs that are a part of the AD/spouse training. I know the Army used the PREP for a while and there are lots of resources to use short term in crisis situations but I believe there is a need for more long-term and consistent programs. I have always told H, "as long as we are ok I can handle anything at work or with others"...life has been much more difficult since we have not been "ok" for past 7 months. I guess you learn to dig deep and pull out all the tricks when you have too!

wow

more and more of us are appearing here lately. My husband has been in our country defence force for just under 20 years and we married when I was just 18.

So much of what you have discussed, even though not our military, is very familiar. Its so EASY to fail as a wife, or husband in such circumstances.

I was the ww in our M and it was at the end of some very tough dark times for us both. We lost our little boy through illness while my H was away, mutual blame society began and so it went.
Took years to rebuild our lives and very slow at first but we have a 21 yr old daughter, my 20 yr old son is in the Military training to be an officer and is so annoyed to not be allowed to go to Iraq or Afghanistan like his dad has now 5 times. Sure upset about that ..not!!
And we have a 12 month old boy who is sooo heavy lol ... totally unplanned too. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> but a joy.
Unfortunately my H is being deployed again this month for goodness knows how long.

I have to say the separation and security is a big hurdle to cross but MB principles can still be used,, its just harder in some ways. Like the trust building issue... how do you do that 1000's of kms and months away from each other? I've used a blog to record what I do every day, have my family around, my mum who wasn't a happy camper about my behaviour but a great support and gave heaps of encouragement and a shoulder to whinge on.... and wouldn't accept excuses and became like a trustee if you will. It can work but needs some thought and commitment, especially when the trust level is nil.


Good to hear from some fellow survivors <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
(don't you just hate those bloody dress uniforms??? ) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

As for marriage support from the military community...

We have used the free couseling, and will continue to do so. We have both recieved individual as well as marriage counseling. (Through mental health).

The Marine Corps still offers PREP classes. Personal Services center.

My husband and I also attended a CREDO (Chaplans Religious Development Organization), Marriage Enrichment Weekend Retreat. This is a wonderful gift to your marriage. It is a free weekend retreat for couples, focusing on communication. It is actually not religious at all. It is available to Navy and Marine Corps, I'm not sure about the other services. We went on one last year to a beautiful 5 star resort, completely free. It was wonderful even thought we were just a mere year into recovery at the time. I highly recommend CREDO retreats. I also attended a personal growth retreat through CREDO, it was wonderful!

Hi Treading lightly.

I am ex-Navy and my husband is an active duty Marine w/ ~ 20 years in.

We met just as I was preparing to leave the military & we married shortly thereafter. As of today we have had no infidelity in our marriage-but from what I have observed, infidelity is said to be part of military life. The long deployments / travel seem to be the root cause. Many of the guys complain that their wives are unfaithful, and many of the women worry that their husbands are sleeping with fellow soldiers.

I will be reading this thread for info, because I am afraid that I really cannot say that anything other than the long deployments / travel make military infidelity different than infidelity between civilian couples.

[color:"red"]A big "THANK YOU" and blessings to those who hold down the fort, sacrificing their family time to protect ours!" [/color]

GettnThere, those sound like great programs. Long time in coming, that's for sure. Here in the community I'm in, there is not much for marriage enrichment, unfortunately. The PWOC just held a marriage enrichment retreat for spouses of deployed soldiers (????), and pretty much everyone I talked to who went said the same thing--the timing was WAY off, because it needs to be something the couples do together! No kidding, ya know? The Army just does stuff backward I guess. I'd LOVE to do the five-star resort thing, especially now while I'm still in shock from my H coming home from his latest two-week field exercise telling me that they had real beds, a sauna, nice air-conditioned gym, internet access, hot meals, and they watched all of the World Cup games on a big-screen TV whilst kicking back on comfy sofas! No fair....when do I get to go "to the field"???? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> LOL Sorry, that was a bit of an off-topic rant!

We PCS'ed a year ago from a HUGE Army base, and quite honestly I never ONCE came across any marriage enrichment activities through the chapels or otherwise. Family Advocacy was the only resource we ever heard of, and it was advertised as being a lifeline for those already IN crisis--mainly abusive situations, I guess, because there wasn't much info given on what was available. Odd that a military installation as big as that one had so little available. We haven't had good experiences with counseling services through the military, and honestly H's schedule makes "extracurricular" counseling almost an impossibility. I've gotten my own IC through a family friend who is also a counselor, and it was counseling that could go with us when we moved.

I think one of the biggest assets to our recovery was having my H's CO and 1SG give him a direct order to have NC with the OW. It served its purpose while we were there, that's for sure. He had people looking over his shoulder all the time. But of course, once we moved, all that security disappeared. Suddenly nobody was paying attention to morale calls he made and who he was emailing on the job.

I heard a startling statistic the other day--that in the years since 9/11, there have been over 55,000 divorces among military members. That's scary, and of course it doesn't count marriages like the ones you see represented here on MB who are in the process of trying to rebuild after major destruction. It also doesn't take into account the number of servicemembers who have gotten out of the military and THEN had their marriages go sour (I know of two personally, one of which "Fort Bragg Syndrome" was a primary factor in their divorce), or the marriages like my in-laws who divorce after retirement because they have nothing left of the marriage after nearly 25 years of joint service. This stuff HAS to effect morale and deployment readiness...not to mention the overall mental health of our fighting forces! It's sickening to me to look back on just one of my H's deployments and be able to isolate three divorces, two instances of "internal" infidelity (two female soldiers came back from Iraq pregnant), and two marriages that ended up in legal separation within a year of homecoming.....and that was just my H's platoon of 14 soldiers/NCO's. Ouch. We caught up with a family last weekend that we had been stationed with during the guys' yearlong training and found out that among the six families that were part of that training, only three of us are still together--and one is a "marriage of convenience" (they're together because finances are better married than divorced, but they've turned their son over to a guardian because he's too much of a "burden" to raise themselves). Yikes!

I guess if anything, the military sort of "forces" you to be more independent, and that can be a blessing and a curse depending on which way you're looking at it. I personally have very little contact (other than phone calls) with my family, mainly because we've not been able to be geographically close to them for the majority of H's career. We don't have the in-law issues that a lot of civilian couples have, because our parents just don't know much about our lives.

Ok, enough banter for this morning. I'm off to round up my "basketball team" for lunch.

Hey AW, nice to finally "meet" you; I think we've managed to post around each other for way too long! Oh, by the way, my 16yoDS is already planning his military career, so it seems my days of worrying are only going to increase in the next few years!

Hi ladies. Another military spouse here. Nice to meet you all. I haven't been military for very long. Things have been tough. ANd goash darn just not very fulfilling as my H has had 2 As and we haven't even been married for 5 years yet. Well anywho, such is life, for me anyway.

I've found it is all too easy period for Infidelity to take place in the military. Yet, how could I wonder why with the easy oppurtunities. My H's friends that were married before us were basically one-sided swingers without their wives' permission.

On the other hand and to be fair I feel it is a matter of personal choice and inner fortitude that makes the man or woman. There are some outstanding people that I've met in
the military that were really stand up people who didn't choose to stray. So I don't lump everyone in the same category. Anyway, nice ot meet you all and I hope for great recoveries for you.

Hi everyone.Don't post much mostly just read but had to post here.Husband is army,been in 7 years and married 8.I know how easy it is for them to be unfaithful on deployment.My husband had a 6 month long EA while stationed in Afghanistan with a women he met over the internet.Even got a plane ticket to see her after returning here.Thankfully he came out of the fog before he came home so he never seen her.We are currently on a overseas tour though no where as far as some of you.We are in Hawaii.We are 15 months into recovery and I dread when he will leave again,the internet is so easy for them to get on now even while fighting a war.It has been a battle but we have made it through.He also had two ONS before the EA,one while he was deployed to NY.Nice to see people that know where I am coming from.

CinnamonSugar, sorry, I didn't mean to leave this out....brain drain I guess. I'm not sure if you were saying you don't understand how infidelity recovery is different or if you understand that it is...I'm going to just go out on a limb and throw out the issues I've seen folks dealing with. I'm sure there are others who can elaborate with their own experiences.

In 'our' A situation, OW'sH was overseas on D-day. Being away from his W and family was really hard on him, it forced him to focus on his own individual recovery until he could be back home and deal with his WW directly. Made for a really nasty 8 months for him, he was a wreck mentally, especially since his WW started hurling all sorts of insults and accusations at him and he had no way to have any clue what was going on back home, with the exception of what I was telling him. For the most part, his "friends" weren't supportive of him remaining married and they didn't offer much (if any) emotional support.

That's the one side. The other side was that my H was doing full-time staff duty on D-day. Every third day, he was working 24-hour shifts. We never had a 'convenient' time to talk. His free time wasn't his, it belonged to the military, and he had to handle soldier issues on his "time off", so our recovery was pretty much pushed off until we PCS'ed. Now he still has no "free time", he's working 16-hour days and is on call all the time and still working from home when he's not at work. There is no POJA'ing anything for us. He can't "decide" to spend more time at home; he (like any other military member) doesn't have that luxury. Meeting ENs is difficult when you can barely find 15 hours of ANY time, and undivided attention....well, that's almost nonexistent. Maybe if there were no children, but I don't know many in that situation.

I know there's other things, but right now I'm drawing a blank. I'll come back to this when I get my brain thinking in one direction.

Oh and a couple other things. My H too, was with people who's spouses were deplyed. And what is funny they were all (OW and their BSs)soldiers. He would fail to tell me these details and I had to hunt the info down for myself.

My H will agree to do something then back down. He agreed to write NC letter then refused when it came time. He agreed to counseling in first A but backed off. Now he told me that OW was leaving his job a month ago. I've waited for motnhs (9) now for this to happen. I went to the job the other day only to find she is still there.

I see some of you are recovered if you'd like to volunteer tips, please do. I'm almost at my wit's end. I've gotten to the point where I refuse to compromise at all either. And the Love Bank is riding on gas fumes at this point.