Gerk,

You haven't had a marriage. What you just described is a train wreck. It also feeds into my idea that the military lifestyle can force bad relationships to stay together when they should have withered and died long ago. The key word there is "can". There's tons of good marriages in the military. There's many bad ones as well. I personally jumped into one that is similar to yours in circumstances.

You mentioned something which resonated. Your WW suffered sexual abuse as a child. Not to over generalize, since I know several normal women who were similar victims, but this has a massive impact on a woman as she gets older if she doesn't deal with it.

She has a massive scar in her psyche. This is going to be there for a loooooong time. She will have a constant craving for attention from men. She has a low self esteem to buck up her feeligns. When you're gone, she will seek that elsewhere. My exww, with similar issues to yours, sought friendships with men and turned away from friendships with women, who she didn't trust.

There are massive trust issues with victims of this crime. I didn't understand it in the person I knew who was a victim. I also didn't know about what happened to her as a child. I saw someone who was terrified of being alone.

You are married to a very broken woman with massive psych issues. This isn't one where standard tactics from MB will work. She will stay broken and the only way she can get better is for her to seek help for herself.

I was a hopeless romantic like you when I was your age. I'm 37 now. Just salty enough to know better. True love isn't like what you describe. True love has it's romance, but it isn't artificial, forced, or in spurts. It's a slow burn that is always there and doesn't fizzle out when distance is introduced.

Your WW will seek the attention of men every time she's alone and you deploy. She hates being alone and will always crave that attention. She does it because she's broken inside and is very insecure.

I'm the lone voice in the wilderness, but the best thing for you to do is walk away, count your blessings that you have no kids to deal with this woman with, and find a woman that doesn't need to be rescued or who craves attention. It's a wonderful thing to find that.

By no means do I think that this is easy or doesn't hurt. But you will be grateful this woman is out of your life someday.

Take it from a man who knows, has been in your shoes, and who relates to MUCH in your story. Been there, done that, got the scars.