I really don't like airing my dirty laundry on the internet because its natural human instict to place judgement but I'm wondering if anyone has gone thru this and how you got thru it. About 6 months ago H and I decided it was time to just throw in the towel after 15 years. We have both been miserable for the last 5 or so years and just finally came to grips with it. I was very co-dependent and sheltered. He liked me that way. I wouldn't drive, go anywhere without him, have friends, nothing. My whole world was him, my kids and the four walls of my house. I was a stay-at-home mom to the point of being a reclusive shut-in. It got to the point where I would quite literally not see the light of day for weeks. I would lock myself away in my house and not come out. I gained 100 pounds in 6 years, had NO self esteem and if it were not for my babies I don't know what I would have done. It's taken me 3, six month and one 12 month deployments to realize that I'm a lot stronger then I ever thought I could be so when he asked for a divorce I was fine with it. I started driving durig his first Iraq stent just short distances then a little more each time he would go but the full year alone lit a fire under my butt. When he came back I started getting back into that same co-dependent routine but have now broken it once again when he asked to a divorce. He's going back for 15-18 months and while he does that I'll be going to school to become a systems engineer and then a Digital Forensic Analyst and when he gets back we will start the final process and finalize everything. Has anyone done a military divorce before? I sort of feel like I'm lost and alone right now. I keep getting contradicting stories to everything. I had someone tell me that I had to attend some classes or something. Nope. Doesn't sound right that -I- have to. I know HE has to but I'm just the spouse. I've also gotten two different stories from JAG, no doubt about his pay and child support. Same with housing. My school doesn't start till April 20th again so I have WAY to much damn idle time and you can only clean so much before you start hating your own house lol. I just have this horrible fear of failing my children even tho Im trying SO HARD to do my best for them. Sorry about the left field ramble but I woke up with a knot in my stomache and it wont go away. This has been eating at me all day and I do not know why. Usually I hold my head up when I start feeling this way and try to suck it up. (hehe I can hear my step dad in his Marine Drill Sgt voice going "SUCK IT UP PETUNIA! YOU AINT DYING! lol) It's just getting to me for some reason. 

I can feel for you. I was in a relationship where I was not allowed to see or talk to anyone, and was monitored 24 hours a day. That is abuse. I got out because things were escalating towards physical abuse. I was not going to allow it to get to that point. I ended up moving in with my mother. I have a baby and didn't know what else to do. That was the wrong decision. We drove each other crazy and it hurt our relationship. I did wrong again when I started going out with friends on the weekends and drinking- a lot. Since then I am in a relationship with my fiance and things are good. My mother and I are back to best freinds. I had to find activities to occupy my mind. I got a job and went to school. I do things like draw, garden, work out. I really wish that my horse was here because that is my true passion. Please keep your head up. There will be hard times. Do your best for your kids. My mother was a single mother and she worked her ass off and went to nursing school and surg tech school. We appreciate her and all she did for us. Hope something I said will help. Keep in contact. 

See, heres where it gets strange. He wasnt abusive in the normal sense. He would just completely ignore me and the kids. And he was like jeckel and hyde too sometimes. One minute he was talking to me the next minute he acted like I wasnt even in the same room. I would take care of everything around the house. Clean up all of his messes plus all the financial trouble he would get us into. If he got in trouble for his additude at work (he was a med tech so you cant be an a**hole if you are going to do that) I would call his FS and take blame. Tell them that I was causing problems at home and it was my fault he was in a bad mood. Or he would tell them that and I would agree if they asked. Then my mother-in-law of all people came up for a few days and finally opened her mouth about it after an incident at the dinner table. HOLY CRAP she went OFF on him. Then she dragged me outside and gave me a 4 hour lecture. I knew everything she said was true, in my heart. The reason I stayed so long is we went thru this vicious cycle where he would apologize, promise to get help then just never do it. Finally about 6 months ago, just before he went to NTC we had started talking about divorcing again and I told him that he needs to get help (on top of everything else he also has PTS. Mild but its there) if he wants to keep me and the kids and he flat out told me that he wasnt going to get help, that he was never going to get help and that he just telling me that to keep me around so I'll clean up his messes. "You're a great wife..I'm just not in love with you." So that was that. I dont have family..besides him I really have no one I can turn to which I think is where the panic of failing comes from. Whew..well now yall know all of my dirty secrets. I do photography, graphics, web design, all sorts of geeky stuff to keep my brain moving. 

Wow, don't be ashamed to show this side. We all go through things, most the same things, just some of us are afraid to let it out, afraid of what others might think. I applaud you in your efferts (sp?) to better yourself and make a career. Good for you. On a different note....I feel that this first deployment my husband is on is either going to make or break our relationship. We are coming up on only 4 years of marriage, but you have to understand, this is my 3rd marriage, now you know my dirt, ha-ha. Anyway, he hasn't been the most faithful person in our marriage, he just can't seem to close the door with his ex-wife. Being apart from him for this long really may open my eyes I think, like I said, it will either make or break us, only time will tell for sure. 

Well if you need anyone to talk to Im here. Wow, how did you survive this 3 times! Im hoping to make it out once with my sanity in tact. Im seriously contemplating turning lezbo after this one. LOL (joking of course) I understand what you mean about making you or breaking your relationship. I think one thing I had to come to grips with while he was gone and the one thing that made me realize it just wasn't meant to be was this: There finally came a time when I had to realize two things. And this is just strictly speaking for myself, I dont want to offend anyone and Im not wanting to start a heated flame war because of what Im about to say, this was something I had to figure out for myself only. A) Do I truly want him, just how he is? Do I tolerate his BS because I want him in my life or because I need him in it. Or is my attachment to him more out of being co-dependent on him. Will I feel the same way when he comes home since I do all the things he once did, on my own? The answer was no. The only way I would want him in my life was if he changed and he refused. B) Was I IN love with him or did I just love him. That was a hard one for me and I had to really think about what it was like to be in love with someone. To me (again this is just for myself) I loved him, but for both of us, we were no longer in love. Unfortunately it came out much later that he had never been in love with me but knew I would be easy to control. Ah well..you live and learn right? 

Wow girls...I would like to say that it took guts to air your stuff like this, but i think it's great. you talking about yourself may help so many others. I can totally understand you both (not from experience, just as a wife). I think it takes a very strong marraige to survive the Army. Since the war started, military divorce has gone up. Mainly (my personal opinion) when you have to spend over a year apart, you change, you grow, you learn. That makes it very hard to live with that other person when they come home. Honestly, I think every military couple should go to some kind of marriage counseling after deployment, whether they think they need it or not. I think you are doing the right thing by going to school and learning to be independent. I think every wife should be independent to a certain point...we have to know how to take care of ourselves as we are single half the time. As for the divorce process. I think in Texas you do have to take a parenting class when you divorce. i think it's wierd, but i guess it's good to learn how to handle being a single parent and deal with the other parent. I'm not sure that being military will really impact the process itself. Good luck with everything. And seriously, thank you for airing your life, it just might help someone else out there. 

Thanks Nancy. I was really reluctant to do it and I probably ran a few folks in the opposite direction from me but I just needed to get that off my chest and HOPE that I wasnt alone. My only wish was that I would have done my schooling years ago. Ok so the classes are through Texas. Thats fine. Im going to JAG again when he starts block leave. I dont mind having to take a class for how to deal with the kids adjusting..its going to be a lot for them. 

hey i read all your stories and i think that its good you are not keeping it in and im proud of you (and all of you) for getting out of the bad relationship.. and i noticed nancy saying about the rates of divorce going up.. well my hubby and i are sitting down tonight and talking. i love him with all my heart, he is a wonderful husband and father, (we have 2 little girls) and just everything is perfect... kinnda. i think we are drifting apart. we have been married 1 1/2 years and we already dont sleep in the same bad... i am starting to forget what sex is. i dont get it. well ok i do.. i grew up so much durring the deployment that he just got home from and he is leaving in a few months for Korea. i cant take only being with him for 6 months then away for a year. i cant do it. i knew that i was getting myself in to this when we got together...but still i didnt know that our relaionship was going to get like this. we dont do anything together. he gets home from work, says hi to me, i make dinner, he eats, gets a shower and goes to bed. no time together. even if the girls are sleeping... i just dont knwo what to do. any advice? 

Breanna--I dont know if this will be much help to you but here goes. My husband and I always take the time to connect sometime during the day. When he would come in from work we'd set aside an hour with no phone, tv, radio etc.. and just talk about everything and nothing. Even when we had nothing to talk about we would still spend the hour just cuddling or doing a puzzle together or playing a game like scrabble or cards. It helped keep us intune with each other. I know it can be hard sometimes when your husband comes in really tired from work but even when my husband was too tired to do anything. I always had to get a little bit of us time. I'd help him shower or we'd eat dinner together and chat a bit. It wasn't much but I think it helped us alot. We've definitely had times where we felt completely out of touch with each other but we made the effort to reconnect and do things together. Once a month we'd have date night, just a night out at the movies, dinner, or a bar. Now that my husband's deployed it's hard to stay connected like we were but we do still make the effort. In phone calls we talk about the general stuff: "how was your day, what'd you do..." But in e-mails we connect in a deeper way by sharing our thoughts, feelings, fears, fantasies, things that are usually hard to talk about face to face, or that he doesn't want to say on the phone with people around him. I know this may sound corny but my hubby and I used to keep journals too. That helped b/c we were able to get out the things that we were too afraid to say to each other. We'd swap journals and talk about our problems, issues, or concerns. We haven't had the ideal or perfect marriage, not at all but those were some things that we did to stay connected and keep from drifting apart. Hope this helped you in some way.