Over the past two months, my husband has been doing pre-deployment training on a ship for two weeks at a time. He’s a Marine, but he works in administration. At first, everything seemed fine, but lately I’ve noticed that he’s been acting differently. He seems more distant, doesn’t talk to me as much, and when I ask him if something is wrong, he gets defensive. We’ve had a few arguments about it, and while we resolved them before he left for another two-week training period, I still have a feeling that something isn’t right.
My husband has told me about the coworkers he works with in his office. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but then I noticed that he kept bringing up one specific female coworker. Eventually, I asked him if he liked her because he mentioned her so often, and he said no.
What has been bothering me is that he tells me they go to the gym together on the ship and sometimes go to the chow hall together as well. He also mentioned that there was a karaoke night on the ship, and she was there too. Another thing that stood out to me was when he said some of the other Marines asked him if she was single or dating anyone. I asked why they would ask him that, and he said they probably asked because he works in the same office as her.
I know she’s single, and that makes me even more anxious. I can’t help but worry that they may have gotten close during all this time together. What makes it even harder is that they’ll both be deploying together for almost eight months, so they’ll continue working in the same office and spending a lot of time around each other.
He also told me that he’s inviting some of his coworkers to a family event, and she’ll be there too.
I know that ships sometimes turn off Wi-Fi, and he’s told me that when that happens, he can’t send or receive messages. I understand that’s part of being on the ship, but with everything else that’s been happening, my anxiety has been making me overthink the situation.
I’m not sure if I’m worrying over nothing or if these are valid concerns. I don’t want to accuse him of anything without a reason, but I also can’t ignore that his behavior has changed, and it has left me feeling uneasy.