Military Men and Relationships

You made some very good points here.

great advice islandgirl..

well most need to realize that most are not deployed or in a foreign country on their own.. they are placed there and they have to try and make the best of it. i recently had a GF here in japan and well lets just say that trying to convince someone they love them and have feelings to them, well they tend to think he or they are trying to get into my pants and leave me when he comes down on orders. Funny thing is, they are partly true but if that person cant leave well enough alone when you split they 9 outta 10 times really mean what they say. sure they can forget and get something new but thats not their outlook of it.

i must say, this gave me some insight on how to begin to resolve some of my own issues surrounding military relationships and begin to not be so hard on myself, taking the blame for a failed relationship any longer. i was with someone and had known them since i was 14yrs old. highschool and college together. we were with one another through the most toughest times in our lives. like all relationships (since each one is unique), had highs and lows, real good times and some really bad times too. infidelity, religion differences, both families (at first) didn’t agree nor support our relationship then. you name it, we went through it at a very young age together. its taking me a hell of alot of time to get over this person because i grew in love with them. the reason i use the term “grew” is because i was too young to know what real love meant. we shared almost our entire childhood together so i’ll never forget this person as long as i live. it breaks my heart that he’s forgotten about me altogether. unfortunately, i was molested and raped many times, for years, by many different men including my own father. for many years even while being with this person, i tried to keep ‘it’ together. graduating highschool with good grades, and following my highschool sweetheart to college. around this time my mother had passed away. but i tried my best to remain strong. he came from an Islamc background, while i came from a Christian background. his family arranged many attempts to get him hitched even while back in highschool for religious purposes but he didn’t because he was, then, in love with me. i thought that he would love me forever like he’d promise. i thought he was meant to be my rock, the father of my children forever. that all changed after he joined the US Navy. i tried my best to support every change every process that came with him serving. i felt so bad for putting him through so much while we were younger, around the time i was being abused. that i never made any quarrel about him joining, in fact, i encouraged him to. i didn’t want to stop him from doing something he wanted to do nor feel that i was holding him back from making something out of himself. i called myself being “self-less” by being okay with him joining. heart of hearts i didn’t know what i wanted. i had so many issues surrounding my molestation and sexual abuse, that i am still to this day trying to get in touch with. including the grief over losing the person i would refer to as my first true love, my highschool sweetheart. we wrote, i visited, he came back home a few times and the xmas holiday of 2007. i was alone and sad because i missed him. i was scared that we wouldn’t make it through the long distance. but i neglected to say anything about it because once again i felt bad for “feeling” bad. to tell him that i wasn’t happy. that i was unsure where all this would lead us in the end. he mentioned marriage and i was afraid to take that step especially not knowing what its like marrying someone in the armed forces. the fear of the unknown is what caused me to retreat. not believing that i was strong enough for that kind of life, afraid that i would be a bad wife, or he’ll end up being a bad husband. paying me back for all the hell i put him through. suddenly feeling totally out of control and being controlled because he was controlled. he had become government property. and i was afraid that i would be too. each time he came back home, he was different. some good. and some slightly unrecognizable. he wasn’t the boy i had grew to love. yet i tried to adapt. we’d make love and re-connect and it was somewhat strange at times. especially when he would have to leave and go back to base. would we be like this forever? departed most of the time? i asked myself. i started to grieve that i wasn’t strong enough to take the pressure. so i began to self-destruct. sabotaging the relationship soon after he proposed in front of his sister, then my family. he wanted to get married within the week he was on aloof. and i felt the pressure of it all. sending him back to base with an open-ended notion… scared out of my mind , i was. not sure what to do. embarrassed. confused, humiliated in front of my family because they, particularly, my grandmother, wanted me to marry him so badly. i was sorry for hurting the love of my life, causing him to feel rejected. i was crushed. so i sank into the deepest depression i ever went through. having a nervous breakdown, drinking heavily, and having sex with men who i didn’t care about. wanting to not feel numb and confused about the whole ordeal was why i did these things. confused about my decision to stay in this relationship with the person i’ve known for so long who had joined the military or letting go afraid that i would regret it forever. feeling obligated to do so, i was unable to make clear of my emotions and what i was going through. to him or to my family. my family thought i just wanted attention, he was upset and hurt. and i was crushed. i hated myself. fast forward, i started therapy finding out that i had been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, bi-polar disorder and borderline personality disorder due to being sexually abused all those years. this too brought me into mere devastation making me feel even more confused about life and myself. i started to go to church receiving spiritual counseling regarding marriage and seeking out pre-marital counseling for myself, with the hopes to include him in sessions. this was impossible because of his devotion to the Navy. he could not be there for “us”. for marital counseling. nor could he be here when i was hospitalized neither. i’d read pamphlets he left behind about how to survive in a military relationship. because i was willing to fight for “us” no matter how difficult and crazy things had gotten. he did not. i guess he was way too devastated to salvage our relationship that he left me with the conclusion that he had utterly gave up on me on us and all that we ever had. he moved to Italy and married a person he only knew for a short while getting this person pregnant all within the same month that they were wed. only after being separated from me a 1yr and a couple of months. this site helps me put that situation in some sort of prospective so i can begin to move on with my life. thank you.

i must say, this gave me some insight on how to begin to resolve some of my own issues surrounding military relationships and begin to not be so hard on myself, taking the blame for a failed relationship any longer. i was with someone and had known them since i was 14yrs old. highschool and college together. we were with one another through the most toughest times in our lives. like all relationships (since each one is unique), had highs and lows, real good times and some really bad times too. infidelity, religion differences, both families (at first) didn\’t agree nor support our relationship then. you name it, we went through it at a very young age together. its taking me a hell of alot of time to get over this person because i grew in love with them. the reason i use the term \”grew\” is because i was too young to know what real love meant. we shared almost our entire childhood together so i\’ll never forget this person as long as i live. it breaks my heart that he\’s forgotten about me altogether. unfortunately, i was molested and raped many times, for years, by many different men including my own father. for many years even while being with this person, i tried to keep \’it\’ together. graduating highschool with good grades, and following my highschool sweetheart to college. around this time my mother had passed away. but i tried my best to remain strong. he came from an Islamc background, while i came from a Christian background. his family arranged many attempts to get him hitched even while back in highschool for religious purposes but he didn\’t because he was, then, in love with me. i thought that he would love me forever like he\’d promise. i thought he was meant to be my rock, the father of my children forever. that all changed after he joined the US Navy.