I am getting Married . . SOON (a bit long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Ah, yes, I, 20 year old Army boy, am getting married relatively soon. On August 15th, my love and I will be wed. She is perhaps the most perfect woman I have ever met, and every time I see her, my heart still skips a beat.
Now for some background.
We will call my SO “L.”
My parents have been divorced for around three almost four years now.
The reasoning for their divorce was that my father had a relationship with L’s mother . . .(and the Jerry Springer Show begins.)
After the divorce, my father and L’s mother openly started dating. This is when I first met L. From the first moment I laid eyes upon her, I knew there was something special there. I had always been interested in her, but I knew it would be extremely awkward and a bit weird for us to date with our parents dating. Secretly, I had hoped our parent’s relationship would fail so we could get together.
During this time, however, I did date L’s best friend for roughly 2 wks, and I also dated her cousin. I know this probably wasn’t the best thing for me to do, as I had suspected that L had a bit of feelings for me.
Well, I left for basic training in July of 02, and the entire time I was in basic and AIT, L never failed to write me at least one letter a week. In multiple correspondences, we had talked about going to a movie or something when I returned from basic training.
Well, I returned from basic/AIT in late December of 02 with a report date of early Jan. to my duty station of Fort Campbell, KY. In the extremely short time that I had at home, L and I had planned on going on one date. This failed because I got into a car accident on my way to her house . . .twas a grand shame.
I left for Iraq in late Feb. of 03. L cried when I left and told me she would write me letters and e-mail as much as she could. This she did. Again, a week never went by when I did not receive a letter or an e-mail from her.
I found out I would be returning on R and R in October of 03. I told L that I would be home for a short time (2 wks), and I would love together with her.
During my time in Iraq our parents stopped dating, her mother started dating . .are you ready for this . .a great friend of my father’s. (The Springer show starts to thicken.) This finally allowed us a chance to date. I was torn between feeling grief for my father because he loved L’s Mother and feeling joy because now we had a chance to date.
After I returned from Iraq on R & R, L and I went on a date with a group of friends of mine. She didn’t think it was a date because I just asked her to go out with me and some friends. :rolleyes: By the end of the date, though, she realized it . .kind of funny . . I still tease her about that. We really hit it off. We went on three or four more dates before I had to return to Iraq, and I asked her to be my girlfriend. I told her that I did not want to keep her held down because I did not know how much longer I would be deployed, but she told me she didn’t care and she would wait for me.
Again, a week never went by that I did not receive a letter from her, and she e-mailed me almost daily.
I redeployed from Iraq in mid-January and L and I went on many dates and got to know each other very well.
About Mid-March we started talking about how serious we both were about our relationship. She told me that she loved me, and I already knew that I was madly in love with her. I told her that the thought of spending the rest of my life with her did not scare me, not at all, which sort of scared me :dubious: Near the end of March, I asked her what she would say if I asked her to marry me. She told me she would say yes. Well I bought her a ring and on April 18 I asked her to marry me. She said yes. After much deliberation, because my possible redeployment to Iraq late this year or early next year. We decided to get married in August before the next school year starts so that she can attend school down by Fort Campbell.
I had expressed to her that I do not want to rush her into something that she is not comfortable with, and she assured me this is what she wants.
Needless to say, her mother is not comfortable with this, nor is my father, nor is my mother. However, my mother is the only one helping us in any shape, form, or fashion with the wedding. L is constantly upset because her mother does not want her to get married. Her mother is extremely controlling. She still puts a curfew on L, and will not let her do anything without checking with her. . . This frustrates me beyond belief.
Well, this is my life story. On August 15th, I will wed the love of my life, and one the 17th we are going to Jamaica :cool:

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? I’m open to discussion. Any tips for some soon to be newlyweds?
Thanks for listening =)

2

You can’t put your love or your life on hold becuase others aren’t on board. If you feel this is the right thing for you two to do, then do it.

And love, love, love, love, love one another! Enjoy being each other’s best friend!

Oh - and when you are married, there are no curfews… :smiley:

3

I offer you hesitant congratulations. I hesitate because I fear for your future. While I do not doubt your love of your girl, you are still very young. There is no rush to get married. You have your whole life ahead of you. If she has waited for you through all this time, she can wait until she finishes school at least. You have several red flags going on here, and I am not even going to touch the Jerry Springer aspects of this.

  1. Statistically, armed forces marriages end in divorce more often than the general public.
  2. Again, marrying so young also leads to higher divorce stats.
  3. Your parents are divorced, again, leads to higher divorce rates.
  4. Her mother is controlling - I fear she may just be in a hurry to get out of her home life and you are the raft to take her there.
  5. Parents on both sides disapprove. They have been there, done that. Maybe they disapprove for real reasons - I suggest discussing it with them to understand why. If it is just the Springer business, discount their opinions as that part shouldn’t matter. But maybe they have more intelligent reasons for disapproving. Maybe they know enough about your personalities to know better. Parents want the best for their kids and maybe they can see potential pitfalls you don’t. Sometimes people choose to do things just because they are told not to. I hope that is not the case here - that you are not getting married just to prove your respective parents wrong.

I am not saying these things guarantee divorce, just that they put you in a statisical disadvantage long term. Having a successful marriage is not just about love, it is about communication, commitment, and compromise.

For what it is worth, I am a woman going through a separation, 32 years old, married at 24 to a man I loved then. Opposites may attract, but they make for lousy life partners.

Please, please, discuss your priorities in life, your hopes and dreams, and make sure you are on the same page with L at least before going forward. A successful marriage is about people who know themselves, who communicate the positives and negatives, and can compromise when the two don’t agree. Never let resentment build. If you can avoid resenting each other at all costs, on both sides, then you have a good chance at success.

I wish you the best.

4

What a great love story! It’s one you’ll be proud to tell your kids and grandkids over and over again. I can understand your parents being concerned about the two of you … that’s their job after all, but they’re going to have to realize that the two of you are adults, and you have to live your own lives now. I think they’ll come around when they see how happy you both are.
Best of luck to you and your bride-to-be, and (in the words of OutKast) remember, “You can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.”

5

L and I have discussed in depth every portion of our marriage and what we hope our future may hold. We both realize that we are extremely young and this presents some issues, but this is something we both want.
My father is hesitant because of the fact L is his ex’s daughter.
My mother is hesitant because of the L’s mother.
We believe L’s mother is hesitant because her oldest daughter is getting married and leaving and now L is getting married and leaving. She has attempted to shelter L in every way, shape, form, and fashion she could. She wants to keep her daughter under her controlling arm. Tis a shame.
We know that the statistics are against us, and we have talked about. This just motivates us to make sure things work out.

I am posting here because I want to see what some outside opinions are and hear some of your stories or what not.

Thank you

6

Military spouses have even worse statistics than civillians do…we are up in the 80% divorce range, not the 50% range civvies have…though army is a tad better than navy [our branch] in that you tend to get to a base and just do the occasional TDY. Navy Rob was in and out constantly, short cruises and long ones.

DO MAKE SURE!!! and I can NOT emphasize this enough that the governments whims outweigh her needs. She will have to run the household, paying all bills promptly [because if there are any complaints, they will hit YOU and have bad consequences, trust me!] SHe will have to maintain the house and its appliances, knowing when to worry and when to panic and call a repairman. She will have to maintain the vehicles, again knowing how to keep the routine maintenance up, and ALL services required in a timely fashion so the car doesnt die. If the kids get the sniffles, SHE has to deal with the medical system. Trust me, it is called Tricare because you TRY to get medical care. SHe cant pick up the phone and call you and have you deal with it, you have duty, you are on watch you are TDA…and believe me, that gets pretty damned stressful in a SHORT time if you are not accustomed to doing for yourself…and almost no civillian female is=\

SHe will have to deal with base housing nazis - they can and will com into your unit with no warning, and it will have to be kept spotless or you get bounced off base, and frequently it can be a pain getting BEQ/VHA in that situation. There will be other spouses playing mind games, and power trips. don’t ask me about commanding officer spouses, trust me on this.

I come from a traditional military family, and was prepared for all this and it was still almost too much to handle a few times=\ Nothing like trying desperately to get a ride to the base hospital when you live 30 miles away and nobody in the wives association can be bothered to help…and you are hallucinating too much to drive yourself. Heck, even when we lived less than a mile from his duty station getting someone to help by simply mowing a lawn almost took an act of congress, and I still said f*ck it and hired someone despite the squadron claiming to be willing to help while hubby was deployed…[broken back, I dont do lawns, lifting, heavy moving if items…you get the drift.] When I had a small tumor decide to triple its size, instead of letting him fly home from port everglades 3 days early, they gave me valium and told me ‘not to get depressed and try to get a friend to come stay with you so you aren’t alone’ and at the time he was pretty much extra as he was new to the boat and not qualified to stand a watch…and when I was hospitalized with a lovely collapsed lung, they refused to pass the message along in a family gram because the news wasnt to the ‘cheerful happy’ standards that they would send as a family gram. Took me having my retired army dad hopping on the phone and talking with red cross and the chaplain to get the message to him. They wouldnt let him send a message back.

Welcome to the dependent side of military life…mrAru retired in september and we are both thrilled…he is now actually making an income commensurate with the rest of the world…and he sleeps at home every night.

7

I am glad you have already thought of the things I mentioned and that you have taken steps to avoid falling into the statistics. :slight_smile: Not that my opinion matters at all, but I will give you my non-reserved congratulations if you have discussed and agreed on the following:

  1. You have discussed which of the following is most important in terms of how you spend your time and money: Building up financial security, work, fun, children, freedom, responsibilities. I ask because my marriage fell down here. I told him it was more important to me to have a good father and husband than provider. I would rather live in a cardboard box with a man I loved than “keep up with the Jones’” While he gave this lip service, when it came down to it, his pride in his job and a need for financial security were more important to him than our relationship. He became a workaholic and I never saw him.

  2. You understand and accept division of household chores. He said we would split things 50/50. It ended up being 90/10. I would have been ok with that if he had been honest about it in the first place. Although we both worked full time and I made more money than he did at all points of relationship, he always acted like his job was harder than mine and that gave him the right to do less housework. If you choose to ignore what you said you would do, you have no right to criticize the other person for not doing it your way. Avoid criticism entirely - pick your battles. Only get upset about significant stuff.

  3. You have a plan as far as when to have kids, how many, and how they will be cared for - and you are flexible enough to accept changes if they are forced on you. Unplanned children happen - or may end up not happening according to plan if fertility issues become involved. You may want her to stay at home with the kids, but financially it just isn’t feasible, etc. Just always stay on the same page and communicate your feelings, even when it is tough.

  4. You have an agreed upon arrangement for notifying each other of things: Everyone is different as far as how much they want and need to touch base and tend to assume the other is the same as themselves, even when they are not. Determine how much money you are allowed to spend on frivilous purchases without the others consent and how often you can spend time away from each other - how much notification you need to give prior to not being together. My ex needed a lot of freedom, and he needed to not feel like he was “checking in”. This was not so much an issue for me but other people couldn’t understand how I “let him get away” with all the time he spent with buddies and what not. I fear she may end up trying to control you as her mother controlled her if you don’t get this out in the open up front.

If you have discussed all of this and honestly agree - no one is just saying things to keep the peace, and you will always continue to discuss these issues openly, you have a better chance at success than most and I am envious. :slight_smile: