# I think I want to divorce my deployed husband (long)



## thegirl

Alright. I apologize for this being so long but I am so confused on what to do. I met my husband a little over two years ago when we were both 21. I was in school and he's in the Navy. We fell in love instantly. I have never had the kind of attention he gave me. He knew all the right things to say and did the sweetest things for me. He's a wonderful guy with a great personality. Two months and one day later we were married with a lot of support from our family and barely any from our friends. In fact, I have gone from having so many friends to having one that lives 10 hours away. Things started to fall apart after we got married. I found out that all the sweet things he has done for me he did for all of his other ex girlfriends exactly the same way. I'm talking brought me to the same places for romantic getaways, saying all the same things. I found out he was also looking for a relationship the night we met. He told me he wasn't comfortable with me talking to any guys that I had any history with so I stopped. He lied to me about what girls he had history with so he could continue friendships. He ALWAYS bragged about people he had sex with and ALWAYS talked about other women even when I asked him to stop. We started to fight constantly. In fact, one night it got so bad he told me to leave his house because I didn't live there and go live with my parents. I obviously didn't leave because I was too embarrassed that this marriage could fall apart so fast and I was so set on the idea that it was perfect. A few months later we moved from NY to VA. The move was so hard on me because I left everything I knew and everyone I love. He ended up having to go out to school by Chicago and I went up to NY for those 3 weeks. One night he told me he was going to go into Chicago with a kid he met in his class. I BEGGED him not to go because something didn't seem right. He assured me that he wouldn't do anything and that he loved me. That night his phone died and he didn't call me until about 2AM when he was getting back to his room. Three weeks later when I was driving down to VA we talked on the phone a little bit but not too much. Fast forward one month. I decided to go through his phone. I come to find out that he went into Chicago to go a massage parlor that is known to offer sexual services for money. He paid full price for a massage and left a tip that cost just as much as the massage. He looked up the specific woman to go and everything. He even signed up for a message board about all of this. I lost it. I never felt so betrayed in my entire life. I then found out that he was also looking up craigslist ads for sexual services. I was so upset and confused and so lonely. I had never been so confused in my whole life... and he was deploying in two weeks. We went and talked to a counselor and she told him in order to be trusted he needed to be trustworthy. We came up with ways I could trust him on the deployment. I had all access to everything including email, the bank account, facebook, etc. There was also to be no drinking. Everything seemed like it would be okay. We knew everything there was to know about each other. Two weeks later I went online to check our account and found out he went into Chicago more than once and went to the same place each time. I was livid. Here I was ready to make a fresh start and he still couldn't be honest with me. I emailed him about it and he apologized. I was now 10 hours from my family who think I have the perfect marriage, feeling completely alone and heartbroken with no one to talk to. So, I went the 7 months trying to make the marriage work. Everything seemed to have been so different. He would spend a little extra money here and there but tell me he was buying me so many things that that's why he went over. I was so happy with how things were finally working out. When he came home things were great! We exchanged presents and I only had 2 things. Right away I asked him where all the presents were he bought me. He told me he lied to me about what he spent his money on and couldn't remember what he bought with it. That has never set right with me. I then looked through his friends facebook pages of the deployment and found pictures of him drinking. He still to do this day denies that he drank at all.

He was home for one year. In the year we had a daughter together. He deployed a month ago and I moved up to NY. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. I have been wanting to leave him since December. I don't want to move back down to VA. I don't want to see him ever again. He ruined a good marriage because he was selfish. I feel like if I left him while he is deployed serving for our country I will look like this heartless person. On top of that, I am unemployed and would have to find a place to live on my own supporting my daughter.To this day everybody thinks we have the PERFECT marriage. I don't know if I'm too stubborn to leave so I don't look bad to everyone who said this wouldn't work or if I want to stay and make this work. I want my daughter to have a good life. Reading this back it seems so obvious about what I need to do, but I'm honestly terrified of what the future holds. I just need some advice and someone to talk to. I don't know if I'm ready for a divorce and if this is something that can be worked out. How can I trust my husband again and save this?


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno

Well, let me tell you something I realized about government contractors that do marriage counseling. They work on a basis called outcome-based. The outcome the government wants to see if numbers of divorces go down. So that has been accomplished and the number of domestic violence has gone up. I had one marriage counselor come who was not even qualified and said that because my husband wanted threesomes after lying to me about his girlfriend and creating havoc with my friends because of always suggesting 3somes or saying sexual things about sitters I used for my friends, that I should get a blow up doll and learn to decorate it with my sewing skills that I enjoyed (I made Halloween costumes for my kids to distract myself from knowing I had a cheating abusive husband in another country and couldn't even fight fair due to distance...just avoidance behind the uniform and deployment and hero-soldier sacrifice imagine, mocking those who were really living that kind of sacrifice for our freedoms...). No kidding. Then there are honest people who do not go by numbers or outcomes or performance meetings about holding together marriages for contracts that need to be fulfilled who will tell you flat out, your marriage is abusive. You can try these tactics to stop the abuse, if it does not stop then you can choose to stay until you can no longer choose not to leave.
Use your TRICARE benefits and go to individual therapy and for now don't try to fix any kind of marriage. Live your life as you feel it should be lived, I'm guessing you're not the cheating sort and neither was I so there should be no problem with that. Do get tested for std's, do figure out birth control that's reliable for when he is home on leave or for the long run. Get your own finances, day care, job in order for a life that can exist as a spouse or independently but that gives you viable healthy options either way. If he lied and did distrustful things you do not need to trust him, you have to right to question things that interfere with your ability to connect with him, and to do so respectfully. You will be able to tell if he has truly changed or has just changed his tactics, whatever, by the way he deals with what are very real concerns that he created in the first place. I gave my husband another chance when he came back from deployment but I was in my own place. Like you I felt that a wife has no chance when a deployed soldier has that uniform and the public sentiment of the big sacrifice of his life going for him he feels he can get away with a lot - speeding tickets, extra women, spousal rape, etc. And he did. But the truth is many people do see through that and the other people they don't matter much. Do you mind being thought a fool when those people are fools for buying into his image? Or would you rather cater to being a fool yourself, a jester in his court, going through the motions, for the sake of what people think of you or might say, stuff that would be wrong and would therefore make them fools, and you could say to yourself, wow, they are fooled by him, they're not very smart to jump to conclusions, in time they will see that his life will become what he makes of it, a big mess. By that time you will have even forgotten this liar. I have found that children are resilient. Often it is a big relief to them when one parent does pick up on what they already know about how their life is going in this kind of household. A child wants something basic. If they can get it from a true couple that is wonderful, if they can only get it from one honest parent who can relate to them through real trust and respect shown in a household no matter how small, then that is so much nicer for the child and he or she will adjust wonderfully. My children went through so much and yet they are at the top of their grades and even say they are happy with their life. It is not the material things but the substance of life that makes children secure. They do know the difference. I think you are doing the right thing. If he was to change and become sincere then he would do things to be more honest, even be willing to leave the military and move to where you are and agree to set up a separate household and figure out a way to connect with his daughter, including consulting with best practices on how to reunited with a child that young (i.e. not suddenly getting attorney and demanding joint custody and overnight visitation with stranger-daddy just because of some biological link where neglect is justifiable due to 'deployment' and he's neglected things like Skype or coloring or book recordings or photos, spending his leaves building a relationship with her, making sure guardianship is in place, etc.) Follow your gut. Don't just rely on history, but also how he responds to your PRUDENT and REASONABLE actions in response to what he does on an ongoing basis. You have every right to live a life without putting yourself out there unnecessarily for a person who has taken the time and energy and resources to identify himself so clearly as a poor risk. Certainly he is such a quality man and solider that he deserves a wife who is capable of making stellar and solid life choices that don't expose her and his children to unnecessary risks from shamsters while he's off defending the country from lying cheating enemies....sigh. BTDT. Seems to be an epidemic.


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## lordmayhem

It seems you BOTH aren't ready for marriage, dating for only a couple of months and marrying at age 21. What he really wants is a steady girl friend and still be able to hang out with the boys his age.


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## asylumspadez

And this is what happens when you are stupid and married young. You were star stuck with him at first and now you realize that what you thought he was is the exact opposite of what he really is. Stop trying to save what is already a broken marriage. Get a divorce and move on with your life.


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