My boyfriend and I have been dating for quite a while now. He is currently deployed in Afghanistan for 14 months. He has been there almost two months now.We plan on getting married when he gets back. I made the mistake of checking his email to get his mothers address. I saw a girls name that I did not know so I opened the message and read it. He was kiddingly requesting naked pictures from an old high school friend. I ask him about the request and he explained that some of the guys are making a naked picture wall and he just wanted to make a contribution. He said he was very sorry and admitted that he made a mistake over and over. I love him very much and I don't want to overreact about the whole thing. Help me shold I marry him and just chill out about the naked picture thing???

Hi Sabnomia,
Welcome to MB. Can you provide more information about you two? How old are you? How long have you been together? Have you had any premarital counseling, yet? Have you lived together? Anything else that will help us understand your situation better?

Basically, I don't think this one incident should determine whether or not you get married; however, that does not mean I think you should just get married.
You definitely need to work through your feelings on this before getting married and make sure that you are working with radical honesty.

Read through this web site's basic concepts first off. See if your fiance is willing to do the various questionnaires with you. If not, do them yourself so you have a better idea what you have going for you and what you'd like to see improved. Do not expect things to improve after marriage from where they are now--address those improvements beforehand. Do not expect your guy to change his behaviors for thebetter once you get married. Make sure he knows all of your expectations and make yourself approachable for his honest expectations of you and of marriage. Honesty takes both people. If someone does not feel comfortable being honest because they fear the other person will become angry, hurt, violent, give them the silent treatment, etc., they will likely take what they think is the easy way out and lie. It is your job to be a good recipient for his honesty if you want him to be radically honest. Read about radical honesty on this web site, too.

BP22, a poster in these forums, once posted a great list of questions and I think those would be wonderful for you to go through right now. I'll see if I can find that for you and then post, again.

Smile

Here's that thread

The questions are about halfway down the first page.

Smile

Smile, thank you for the questions. I found them very interesting. As for a little more information. I am 20 and so is my boyfriend. We have been dating for a little over 6 months. He gets to come home for R&R in September and that will be the first time we have seen each other for 5 months. When we first met it was just like in the story books. I was in a sand box playing with the kids I live with, I am a nanny, and he came down and started to play with them. He was so flattering that I was overwhelemed by his inteligence, good looks, culture experience, being from Europe(Germany) and position in the ARMY. He was and still is too good to be true. We have an awesome relationship with only one flaw. I am LDS (Mormon) and he is Jewish (Reform/Semi-Orthodox)!! We get along very well and up until now with the naked pictures, religion has been our only problem.Well, not even a problem. we both want to get married and the LDS faith does't believe in marring out side of our religion and LDS Temples. But I am willing to put that aside for our happiness of being a married couple in this life.Never ever before has other girlfriends, porno, unfaithfulness, or anything like that been a problem. As far as our living situation, he lived in the Army barracks and I live 20 miles away with the family I work for.

I try not to be rude on these boards and I'm no mathematician, but are you saying that you are 20 years old and have spent only one month together with the man you intend to marry? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

I don't even know where to start. If you are looking for information that will help you make the best decision, I recommend posting in a more active forum (Emotional Needs would be best). Some people will sugarcoat the answers so as to not scare you away and others will be honest and tell you exactly what you probably do not want to hear.

Sab, the divorce rate for first time marriages is around 60-65%. Please start making some intelligent decisions. It takes probably close to a year for the infatuation phase to wear off for most people, and I would have to say much longer for someone your age with probably so much less serious relationship experience.
Please, what is your rush?
Slow down! You should be enjoying your youth and discovering who you are and what you really want in life right now, not picking a husband. Even if you had known him for several years, at your age, it is still too soon to abandon these wonderful years of development. You will change so much in the next 5+ years. There is no way for you to truly know how compatible the two of you will be even two years from now when you have known each other for such a short period of time. Honeslty I was shocked when I read that information. I'm sorry if this is offensive. Please be smart about this. Do not marry based on emotions. Love will fluctuate and the butterflies will depart...your tummy is still filled with this incredible glee. It is way too soon for you to see him for who he really is nor for him to see you.

I'll stop now. I hope you'll stick around and gather more information.

Take care. Have a good weekend.
Smile

Smile, I am sorry I must not have explained my self very well. We had been dating for a little better than 6 months befor he was deployed for Afghanistan. So when I see him in September we will have been dating for almost a year. Still, I do see your point and I understand were you are coming from. Thanks for the reply and I don't take any information or help as offinsive only helpful in its own strange way.

A religious difference is HUGE in marriage especially if you plan on having children.

My H and I are of the same faith and marriage is just TOUGH. Heck we grew up in the same neighborhood went to the same HS, even the same Parish. And it is still tough.

I know that when you have to be separated it is very tough. Your generation has email and phone calling is not that expensive. When DH was in Medical school (across the country) I was in college on the other side of the US. we communcated via snail mail and let me tell you
it took about 2 weeks to get a letter.

What is the hurry to get married?? you are so young why not get to know each other a little more? How do your families feel about the union?
family support is so important to the success of a marriage.

As far as the naked pic, I find it very strange that he would ask for a naked picture of a girl he had never seen naked. Is she an exGirlfriend?

Take care of yourself and take your time, Marriage is forever and should be entered into that way.

As for the girl he wanted naked pictures of...she was an old fling/rebound sex friend from high school. When ever him and his previous girlfriend would have a fight and call it quits, he would run to her and have sex with her. As for our families...his family does not really care. They live a long ways away and are not really involved in their sons life that much. My family is very worried but willing to support whatever makes me happy, even if it is just happiness here in this life. I am willing to put the religion thing aside but when something like this picture thing comes up it just brings out all this bottled up anger and frustration...even our difference in religion.Here he is on the other side of the world and when ever we get a chance to talk...I all I can do is <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> cry and wine and get mad and let out all my bottled up frustration when I should be asking about how is is doing and telling him that i miss him and love him. I AM DRIVING MYSELF CRAZY WORRING ABOUT HIM AND WHAT HE IS DOING!!!

Sab,
You still have not answered our question:
What is the rush to get married?

Smile

You started dating around September last year.
He left in March this year.
He will be back in May next year.
You will have only been dating him a total of 6 months out of 20 and you are planning on getting married when he gets back?
You’re gonna be giddy because you have not seen him in a long time.
Why not wait until he has been back awhile & you guys get used to each other again and see what each other is really like? Better to wait a bit rather than rushing into something.

I made the mistake of checking his email
You are planning on getting married to him and spending the rest of your life with him. Why would this be a mistake?

When we first met it was just like in the story books.
So wait and see what he's like in real life.

He was so flattering that I was overwhelemed by his inteligence, good looks, culture experience, being from Europe(Germany) and position in the ARMY. He was and still is too good to be true.
Again, wait until you are NOT overwhelmed.
Since this is the picture of him in your mind, you will only idealize this much more over the next year, even if it's not the "real" him.

We have an awesome relationship with only one flaw. I am LDS (Mormon) and he is Jewish (Reform/Semi-Orthodox)!! We get along very well and up until now with the naked pictures, religion has been our only problem.Well, not even a problem. we both want to get married and the LDS faith does't believe in marring out side of our religion and LDS Temples. But I am willing to put that aside for our happiness of being a married couple in this life.
So what faith are you going to raise your children in?
Are you gonna celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, Pesach? Are you gonna do it together or separate?
Religion is always a big point in relationships. It seems really “romantic” to give up a basic fundamental belief for someone else, but it’s almost never realistic.

So when I see him in September we will have been dating for almost a year.
Not really. You will have dated him for 6 months in the last year.

As for the girl he wanted naked pictures of...she was an old fling/rebound sex friend from high school. When ever him and his previous girlfriend would have a fight and call it quits, he would run to her and have sex with her.
Now he is dating (engaged?) to you and getting naked pix of her.

I am willing to put the religion thing aside but when something like this picture thing comes up it just brings out all this bottled up anger and frustration...even our difference in religion.
Then you are not really willing to put the religion thing aside.

I really believe you guys need to take it much slower than your plans seem to be.
Perhaps the pix were “innocent”. But if you plan on getting married, he needs to learn to start taking your feelings into account in everything he does (and vice-versa)

I would just like to repeat/revise what smile has already said

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I try not to be rude on these boards and I'm no mathematician, but are you saying that you are 20 years old and have spent only one month together with the man you intend to marry? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I try not to be rude on these boards and I'm no mathematician, but are you saying that you are 20 years old and have spent only SIX month together with the man you intend to marry?

Also there is one point of view that pops into my mind. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he is being completely honest about the pictures, at least he respected you enough to not be demeaning to you in that way.

WIWH