Our relationship has always been very passionate and romantic. I'm a very romantic person, and she loves romance. We fell in love listening to sappy country love songs together. I do feel that she may be very self-centered. She suffered sexual abuse as a child, and I've done a lot of reading regarding that, and the effects it has on people. Namely not being able to trust others, not trusting themselves, or trusting the wrong people. Also feeling out of control and then taking drastic steps to regain control. And hypersexuality (in her case.)

A few months before we were married, after having dated for 2 years, she got the opportunity to study abroad in Germany. She didn't even tell me that initially, she just said she was breaking up with me so she could live her own life. I was shocked, and just walked away. Our life plans up to that point had mainly revolved around going to graduate school together and staying in Dallas. I had been feeling restless in school for a while, and had sort of fancifully thought of joining the Army. But when she broke up with me, I started really looking into it, I liked what I saw, and I decided to go for it. In the next 3 weeks we saw each other a lot, being neighbors and having a dog together. We started talking, I found out about Germany, we talked about a lot of things, including my decision to join the Army. Over the next month or so we realized that going in separate directions for a few months was no reason to end the best relationship of our lives, and that we wanted to be together forever. We decided to get married, and I would be in basic training and OCS while she was in Germany. This worked out well as I was able to offer her some financial support, as well as pay to keep a luxurious apartment in Dallas with all of our things in it. When she came back from Germany that spring, she had a fabulous place to live and could just go to school without working due to my support. We communicated in letters, emails and phone calls as often as we could.

As she neared graduation, we discussed the various options. She had long planned to go to grad school, but the only ones she wanted to go to were far away from where I would be. So we decided that the best way for us to be together and stay together would be for her to join the Army (oh how little we knew.) So off she went to basic training while I was in Field Artillery school at Fort Sill. She wrote me often and I wrote back as often as I could (our class average was 72%, it was a tough course.) I saw her briefly between her basic training and OCS in Houston when her sister was very ill. I took her mother apartment shopping (just the two of us) and helped out as much as I could. My wife and got along well and really enjoyed each others company.

Then she went to OCS. We still talked for usually an hour a night, but she had her friends that she wanted to hang out with, so she was pretty busy. I was at Fort Polk and knew no one, so I was pretty lonely. I trained for a marathon with our dog every day, usually running 8 miles a day, and 16 miles on the weekends. I cooked meals for the dog and myself. My job was essentially nothing, and totally unfulfilling. When she found out her branch, and her school date, it was nearly 9 months out. We assumed that it wouldn't be a problem to have her come stay with me at Fort Polk while she waited for her school date, as there were commanders willing to take her on, and good, field relevant work for her to do, and I knew other people that had done the same. When her branch manager told me NO, NO WAY NO HOW I was devastated. I was in tears in public, in front of people I worked with. I rallied my strength and started to fight, getting my BN commander, and BDE commander involved. But the fight fizzled as the branch manager refused to budge. As a last resort, I wrote my senator back in Texas.

She finished OCS very near the top of her class and got her job of choice. I went to the formal, and the graduation, meeting all of her friends (including OM, who shook my hand, and OMW) and hanging out with them for a week. In retrospect she seemed a little different, less talkative, but I didn't really realize it then.

Then she came to Fort Polk with me for 2 weeks for recruiting duty. It was essentially 2 weeks off for her. We drove from Fort Benning to Fort Polk in 2 days, the last night pushing her to the limits of her endurance, and her breaking down in tears on the side of the highway screaming at me that she couldn't take any more. I felt terrible. I just assumed she wouldn't have a problem driving if I wasn't having a problem.

The next 2 weeks were tense. I assumed it was the friction of not having lived together in a while. I would try to talk, and get shut down. We spent some time together, but I was still going to work so she was on her own for most of the daytime. At night we struggled to watch the same things on TV, and when she would put on something I didn't want to watch, I would get up and go to the other room. There was a pretty big disconnect between us, and she seemed very quick to get very angry over little things. I was really, really depressed when she left to drive to Fort Huachuca.

A few weeks later I got the first BIG phone bill that made me do a double take with the amount of phone calls she was making to someone with a Fort Polk phone number. I remember her saying her friend was from Fort Polk, so I knew it was him. I immediately asked her she was talking to him so much when she could be talking to me and texting me. She said that he was just a friend from OCS that helped her out a lot and that they were still keeping in touch. She said she couldn't believe I snooped through the phone bill to see who I was talking to. Didn't I want her to have friends? I felt ashamed and stupid. I've never been a jealous, controlling type of person, so I dismissed all of those thoughts immediately, and didn't even consider it again.

Soon enough we were together at Christmas. I had PRK eye surgery in San Antonio and she drove in from Arizona to spend the time with me while I recovered, and drove me back to Dallas to be with my family. We had a great time at Christmas, the pictures turned out great of us around the house, we all had fun even though my eyes hurt, and it was wonderful. The day we were leaving my parents house to go down to Houston to see her family for New Years, something happened. She left her phone on the kitchen table and a text message flashed across the screen, from OM: "You make me feel like a love crazed teenager."

I didn't say anything until one night at our hotel room in Houston a couple days later. I asked again about the nature of their relationship and told her that I was not comfortable with it. She said they were just friends, nothing more. I asked if maybe just he felt they were more than friends, or wanted to be. She said no. I was in tears at this point, frustrated at having her lie to my face. I told her I didn't believe her. She attacked back hard, asking how I could not trust her, "that's just great, my husband doesn't even trust me!" She then said that if their friendship bothered me so much, she would end it. I felt like that was the answer I wanted. I realize now that if I would have just told her that I saw the text message, we might not be in the situation we're in right now. But I felt guilty somehow for seeing it on her phone. I felt like it must have been a misunderstanding and I didn't want to destroy her faith in me any more. At this point she was very angry, and begin saying that she didn't think that I found her attractive, that we didn't talk enough, that we didn't do things together. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. We both went to sleep.

The next day at her parents house, her phone rang in the other room, and her mother yelled, "It's OM!" She looked at me with terror in her eyes and said, "I'm sorry, I told him not to call, I'm so sorry." I didn't understand why she seemed so apologetic, I was like, "It's ok, it's not a big deal."

The rest of the time together seemed fine. She drove me back to Fort Polk (I was still pretty much blind) and we hardly talked at all. It seemed like every time I tried to talk she would just quickly kill the conversation. In retrospect I wish I had tried harder to get her to open up, because it was 3 hours of uninterrupted "us" time.

She dropped me off, we had sex before she left (our sex life has always been pretty healthy, aside from her issues with feeling that I'm not attracted to her.) I was again severely depressed to have her drive away, back to Arizona, not even knowing when I'd see her again.

We talked online, with the webcam, and over the phone for at least an hour a night for the next month. I planned to come see her in February. Things seemed good, we were talking a lot, being very loving and I felt good about everything, I was so excited to go and see her. And then, come the end of March, I'm told, with about 4 days notice, that I'll be deploying to Afghanistan. My parents drive out from Dallas to get the dog, I'm scrambling to get immunizations and gear issued to me and everything packed. Also my car starts having problems. I tell my wife as soon as I know, and as her to see if her commander will give her a 4 day pass to see her husband before he deploys. Her commander comes back and says only a 2 day pass, a regular weekend. We started looking for flights, but due to the isolation of Fort Polk and Fort Huachuca, the only way we could make it happen would be for her to fly all day saturday and arrive Sunday morning, and then fly out about 6 hours later. The cost was $1200. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea, with everything else going on, and that it was only 6 months. She said, "Ok" and hung up. I didn't hear from her again for 24 hours. When I did talk to her she was bawling. "I can't believe my husband didn't want to see me before he went off to war!" "Do you know what it's like, to go into the office and tell people that I'm not going to take the pass, because my husband doesn't want to see me?" I tried to reason with her and tell her that's not how I felt at all, that I desperately wanted to see her but it just didn't seem possible. She said, "even if we could have just seen each other at the airport, it would have been worth it to me!" I responded, "If you felt that way then why didn't you say so?" She said, "How could I argue with a husband who doesn't want to see his wife before he goes off to war?" I tried to apologize, explain, everything, but I really feel like she never got over this.

Also, I received a phone call from my senator the day before I left for Afghanistan. She was shocked at the travesty of separating us for no reason, and just needed us to sign a release of privacy statement so she could start working towards moving my wife to Fort Polk immediately. I explained to her that I appreciated her concern, but I was going to Afghanistan anyway.

So off I go to Afghanistan, and we're talking a lot, about an hour a day, exchanging emails, and I think things are good. I'm sending lots of little gifts to her in the mail to let her know I'm thinking about her. Like things she saw months ago and mentioned she liked, like a Snuggie (from tv) or a pajamagram when it got cold, or flowers and a card when she had her wisdom teeth out.

Then after 2 months here I see the phone bill with her talking to him again. I hadn't looked at it after she said she wouldn't talk to him anymore. But then I looked back another month and I could see where as soon as I deployed, he started texting, and calling. At first she didn't respond, but after a few days it looks like she gave in. Then there were 4 hour phone calls, tons of text messages, picture messages etc.

I feel like she may have been sincere about cutting off the affair after Christmas, and the phone bill from January says that she did, there was no contact. But the trauma caused by me leaving without seeing her seemed to put her back into the affair. And it's like a mantra in her head now, "you didn't want to see me before you left." It's just not true, I desperately wanted to see her before I left.

So that's kind of the history of our marriage. We had a very strong foundation of talking, and being best friends, and spending time together. But we've been apart for so long now, I feel like her memories of those good times have faded, and she just sees bad things now. She's said she isn't happy and hasn't been happy in a long time. She says she thinks getting married was a mistake. She says that she's been faking climaxes for a while in bed, but that she easily climaxed with the OM.

It's such a tragic situation because I feel like if we could have spent a little more time together, even at the point where I confronted her, that this all could have been worked out so much better. Being there in person to hold her hand and look into her eyes. She did the Marriage builder stuff for 3 days, and I really thought we were going to make it. But with no one to hold her accountable and without anyone there to support her, she relapsed into the OM.

And now I feel like she's going to be so angry and so betrayed over turning her in that there's no chance of her ever forgiving me.

I still really, truly love her, and I could forgive everything she's done. I feel like we're just a few months away from actually living together for years at time, and being really happy together again, and we're being cheated out of it by the terrible circumstances.