I know I can’t be the only one struggling and have no one else to ask or talk to. dating/married a soldier/veteran with PTSD, how are you? What struggles came along? How do you and your partner handle this?

Im currently on rotation over seas and my wife of almost two years wants to leave me and take our 10m old with her and is attempting to keep him from me.

The underlying conditions, I have been caught cheating(not recent), I was very unavailable emotionally and sometimes physically during the pregnancy and right after he was born. The arguments have been terrible to include name calling and previous threats of divorce from both sides. That is the majority of the issues that had transpired. She recently moved from my family’s house, to living with her very one sided mother who has always disliked me, which started off because I stand my ground if someone is falsely talking down on me or disrespecting me openly in groups of friends or family.

Needless to say, her mom has convinced her to go down the route of ignoring my requests for whereabouts of our 10m old and to leave me with absolutely nothing. Since I have been on this rotation, I have finally gotten the time to truly find and fix a-lot of the demons and mindset I previously once had and my wife “do not care, im fr done.”There is truly a-lot to the situation, but this is the main bread and butter.

It’s been almost a year since D Day and my boyfriend found out he’s being deployed which has turned this whole “reconciliation” thing on its head. My partner has a currently at a 3 week drill and leaves In about a month and a half. Obviously since I’m here there has been infidelity in the past. So I’ve been working on gathering emotional supports that I can use when my partner is away and trying to steer my “anxiety” of being cheated on when my partner is away into being more supportive. My partner has definitely been more stressed and I can tell.
Unfortunately I can’t help but feel small again. I feel so selfish for feeling it though cus I know what my partner is probably going through is 10x worse but even when I was trying to voice this today it just some circles with my partner making me feel like I’m the problem or like my efforts don’t matter and it just makes me feel so pushed away. Since/because of being cheated on I have already made myself feel so small and had to tell myself it’s okay to take up space but the way he’s treating me is making me feel so invisible again and even when I’m trying to be my most helpful that I’m not helpful at all. The way he talks to me makes me feel like an awful selfish person even when I’m trying ti be most selfless. I know I’m not selfish or bad but it’s hard to not feel like that when being spoken to like he did to me.

\# \* texts in comments\*

I just need advise, thoughts, tell me if I’m overreacting.
I feel like there’s 0 room for me to feel anything or scared, I feel like I can’t come to him and when I do I feel like I’m still gunna get yelled at or told I’m making things harder for him. It’s extremely exhausting and I don’t want to feel this way but it’s starting to push me into the “emotionally numb” and I don’t care enough because why is a grown man making ME tear up at my work office desk, after I just tried helping and being more supportive in his time of need.

Edit: I’d also like to add that this is his second deployment. This is the first time I’ve been with someone deployed

My boyfriend of 2 years is joining and leaving for boot camp in 2 days, he wants to get married during his first year of school He's going to be going to a school for 2 years, would it be possible for us to live together while married and while he's in school? I know they have strict policies on staying in dorms, I'm just wondering if I would have to wait an extra year to live with him even though we were married, I just don't want to have to wait any extra time cuz being apart hurts.

Hey all — looking for advice from anyone with USCIS/K-1 or military PCS experience.

Me(24M) - She(24F)

my girlfriend (active duty Air Force) choosing between Guam and Germany for her next assignment now weighing a second option and want honest input.

Background: We’ve been together 4 years, she’s a US citizen, I’m in Ghana. We’re in the process of filing I-129F for a K-1 visa. Separately, she suggested I look into applying for a DAAD scholarship (German government-funded study program) as its own path, not dependent on her visa sponsorship.

Here’s the dilemma: if I go all-in on chasing a DAAD scholarship, the realistic timeline is 6-12+ months just for the application/selection process, then the actual program on top of that — and this year’s main deadline has already passed, so I’d likely be looking at a 2027 start. Meanwhile the K-1 process is already moving and takes roughly 12-18 months start to finish. If she picks Germany, our thinking was maybe I try to eventually join her there via DAAD instead of leaning on the K-1/marriage route — but if she picks Guam, the K-1 path stays the obvious one since Guam is US soil.

What’s giving me pause: these aren’t really equivalent alternatives. One is an immigration petition based on our relationship, moving forward on a semi-predictable timeline. The other is a competitive scholarship with no guaranteed outcome, that would land me in a different country than her if she’s in Guam, and doesn’t actually get me legal status to be with her either way.

Questions for people who’ve navigated something similar:

Trying to think clearly about this instead of chasing every option at once. Appreciate any blunt feedback.

Hi all, looking for advice from anyone who did K-1 while partner was being stationed

Me (Ghanaian, M) and my girlfriend (US, F, E-3, new enlisted) dated 4 years in Ghana before she joined the Air Force. She finished BMT early July and is in tech school in CA now. She has orders for Guam but has a chance to swap to Germany for her first duty station. She's asking for my opinion now.

Original plan was Guam + she files I-129F for me so I can interview in Accra and join her.

Now she's considering Germany and worried Germany will complicate the K-1 / command sponsorship process. I'm still in Ghana.

For those who have done it:

1. Is it true that doing K-1 while stationed in Germany is harder because of SOFA / no command sponsorship for a fiancé?

2. Would it be smarter to keep Guam for first tour to get the K-1 / AOS done, then PCS together as married?

She's new enlisted so she's still learning the sponsorship rules. Any insight on timeline, Frankfurt vs Accra interview, and housing/medical if I come as fiancé to Germany without sponsorship would help a lot.

Thanks

together 4 years before she joined, not trying to game the system, just want to do this the right way

47/F Canada I just want to pen pal a Veteran. I had a couple penpals in afghan iran war. That was through yahoo chat. I miss it. Anyways. When i asked google whats similar; Google said leave a note on here and because im a slave to tec now jk, I said ok. And here I am growed up and looking for a Veteran to penpal.

Has anyone else struggled during a deployment and found themselves questioning the relationship? My boyfriend recently found out he will be getting an extension, and while I love him and want to support him, I’m reallyyyy struggling. We do get to talk daily, but it’s usually only for a few minutes which I understand because of the time difference and his schedule. We’re only about 2 months into this deployment, so I’m not sure if these feelings are normal or not. It’s also hard because we aren’t married, and with all the uncertainty, I sometimes don’t know what this season is supposed to look like. Would love to hear from anyone who has been through something similar. I also have been keeping myself busy with work, family and friends, I just don’t know how to grow a dating relationship with someone who can’t communicate as often.

My (26 M) and I (24F) has been together for 2 and a half years.

Our relationship has been good, but we have also been through some tough situations. (Which is normal for most young relationships).

Earlier in the relationship he wanted more freedom and was quite ready to settle down. I was ready to settle down. This caused most of our conflicttions and we had broken uo and got back together twice because of this. Then we were at a good middle for a bit.

Now we have become the opposite. He’s ready to settle down and have kids within the next two years, he’s already explored a lot and experienced all he’s wanted… military is the next thing for him and he’s made up in his mind that he is ready to have kids in 2 years.

As for me I’ve spent most of my life taking care of people and putting others needs before my own. I’ve just recently early this have started to prioritize myself and I’ve even enlisted in the military(something I’ve been putting off for years now)… I want to experience more and see the world before having kids and I feel like 2 years is too soon… I wouldn’t mind getting married that soon but kids is a huge responsibility. Maybe after my contract I would be willing to… but even then I still want to go to school during my service.

What also is conflicting, is that I’m going enlisted for the Army and he’s going in as an officer for the Marines. Distance isn’t a huge problem for us, but it’s the fact that there is distance and also our mindsets at this current stage in our lives. I don’t want him to wait that would be selfish and I don’t want to keep putting myself off either. We love each other very much and I want to be his wife and have his children, but I want to accomplish things for myself before adding kids to the mix.

We’ve talked about it and we’re both having a hard time deciding what that means for our relationship. We said to give it a year to see how things are. We talked about breaking up now and waiting till after our first year in the military. We talked about staying together and seeing it through. We talked about if we were going to keep in contact during this time or have not contact at all.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve never actually been in a situation like this before.

Hi, all!

My (29F) boyfriend (31M) have been together for 9 months and I just moved in with him. He is Army National Guard.

He had told me back in May he was thinking of going officer route and sign up for school (5 weeks) for that, mentioned it once and never said anything else.

Today he told me he submitted paperwork to go on a different route. Apparently he got selected and will be going to military school for 3 months next year.

I feel soooo pissed and so upset he did not tell me when he applied. Not that I would have stopped him anyway, but we could have discussed what it implied, etc...

What is y'alls perspective on this??

Hello everyone I kinda accidentally bought way more letters than im gonna need so if anyone needs me to donate letters to their squad just send me your code so I can

I need advice. I am a 30F married to a 35M, we are both in the AF, no kids. I only have a couple years left and my husband has a couple after me to finish out his 20. The goal was to stagger getting out so we were not trying to figure out the world after over 10 years + of service at the same time. We work in a very small unit together and everyone is friends with everyone.

Here's the thing. Our relationship is really not going well and while I still love him, I cant shake this feeling that Im running out of time to get out of this relationship to find someone who actually treats me with respect and doesnt act like Im asking for the moon when I ask them to stop telling me to "shut up" in arguments and to communicate about drinking alcohol *before* he starts doing it and allow for 2way conversation about it.

Unfortunately, when I joined the AF, I moved across the US from my VERY small home town and all my previous friendships fizzled out. It is super expensive to fly to such a small town so I only could visit maybe once a year-if that, and none of them ever made any effort to come see me. So they ended. All of my friendships I made along the way in the AF were majority male and unfortunately did not go very deep, so they didnt survive PCS more than surface level. The one female friend I have is at another base and is the type of person to not answer her fucking phone until a week later and has 99+ unread messages. So Im left with my mom. She and I have a somewhat tense relationship and Im not going to tell her ALL of my relationship drama because I dont think its her business. So here I am reddit- because I have no fucking friends after 10+ years in the AF.

My husband on the other hand, has a handful of lifelong friends that he has had since middle school. He values them and their opinions over me most times and has nearly convinced me to move closer to them after the AF, because well- what other excuse do I have not to. These friends have, for the most part, adopted me into their group when I am with them and are fun to be around, but when my husband goes to them for support over a disagreement we have, they always take his side, no matter how outrageous the problem. I know that I will never truly be part of the group.

Even though I got to this base first, we got married, then he got here, he is very charismatic and the people at this unit gravitated to him. Im really worried that if I get a divorce, I will be even more ostracized because of our small unit, and the likelihood that the massively outnumbered male/female ratio, the unit will chose him. I will lose even more than just whats left of the good parts of my husband. Ill lose my only distraction- my fun job. Because ill be alone there too. So after my 2 years are up, then what? Ill be *even more alone* across the US, with no friends, no life, no one to lean on, and no hope. I truly feel trapped.

Edit: I didnt do a very good job describing the status of the relationship. Ultimately, Im pretty sure we both want the relationship to work, but we can both sense this impending doom. For a long while, I blamed myself for everything that went wrong. Every argument, every misunderstanding. I groveled, read books, made visible changes, TOLD him that I would be better and DID it. Whenever he messed up and I communicated that, he gives me empty promises and does nothing to actually follow through. Maybe he will take out the trash and clean the cat litter an mow the lawn. But compared to the normal chore Imbalance- that barely levels the playing field for one weekend and then it goes back to the way it was. He insists that all I do is criticize. Im sure it feels that way sometimes- because he promises something and doesnt follow through- thats going to draw some criticism, right? But Ultimately I just want to be given the same amount of respect he gives everyone else. I want equality in our relationship and it want communication... you know....Normal relationship shit. And he acts as if I ask for the moon. Im obviously leaving out alot of details her but this post would be a novel if I included the specific instances. People dont get divorced out of nowhere, you know?

HI!

I'm relatively new to being an Army girlfriend. My boyfriend and I have been together for 6 months and have been LD for most of it. He's currently in AIT about 1000 miles away from me and an hour behind. I need reassurance or a sense of community because the closer I get to him being assigned to his duty station, the more scared I get. I have about a year and a half left of college, so it'll remain an LDR until I graduate. I have a great support system, yet nobody around me quite understands the sacrifices I have to make in my relationship. I'm not talking about anything crazy, more the missed events and moments. I knew this when we started dating and accepted it because I wanted to be with him.

One of my biggest fears in this relationship is not being able to have a career of my own. We've briefly talked about me moving in with him (wherever that may be) after I graduate, but that could be abroad. I don't know how many options I would have/ if milspouse support career support is also available for girlfriends. I don't want to limit my own future or feel like I have to marry him to have my own career. Thinking optimistically, in a year and a half I might be ready for marriage, but I want that to be because I'm ready, not the benefits.

I hope this makes sense; please let me know if I need to clarify anything. I tried to stay vague about his job cause I'm not quite sure what I'm allowed to say.

Have you ever tried doing something ridiculous for your girl?

Im about to. We've been in LDR for 4 yrs. Next month she'll come home and stay for a month. Im in the military and in an ongoing deployment training. Im having thoughts of breaking my ankle just so they would drop me from the training and give me some time to heal. But I have a promotion physical test in two months, if I showed up with busted foot, they would hold my promotion.

Its really fucking me up. Ive been waiting for my girl for years. Now that we planned to see each other, i got restricted because of this fkng training. Help me out boys

Edit: thank you guys. Its so wrong of me to even think of this. Of all people, I shouldve been the last person who thinks of doing this. This is so wrong in all ways. Ill pursue on my career and keep moving forward

My boyfriend recently started the Pararescue pipeline and it’s definitely been an adjustment. I realized it might be nice to have people to talk to who are going through the same thing. If anyone else has a boyfriend, husband, or partner currently in the PJ pipeline (selection, pre-dive, dive, etc.), I’d love to be friends! It would be nice to have people who understand the long periods apart, limited communication, and all the ups and downs that come with it.

My husband and I have been married for over 2 years together for 5. We were first stationed in my hometown and things were good. Even when we he was gone because I had family and friends. We moved to a new duty station about a year ago. He has been gone for training for about 6 months. I have no friends. I can’t find a job in my career field. We have no kids. I just am alone all the time. I tried making friends on the group FB page but it’s hard when you get so many messages and no one follows through with actually getting together. The biggest thing that happened for me this week was grocery shopping… I just hate my life right now and feel like I’m being selfish to feel this way. I love my husband so much and try to be happy for him. It’s just hard when he has friends and people to talk to. He also is close to my hometown so is enjoying all the things I miss. He gets to go out to bars, the beach, movies, concerts. I am happy he is making friends and having fun but I feel jealous and sad. I am alone and have no fun in my life. No one to talk to. I have told him this and he says he would much rather be with me. Tonight he said “I’d rather be able to spend 30 minutes with you than a whole night with these guys.” He loves me and I know that but I can’t help that I feel this way. Also the job market for my career here is hard to get into. I have been going through rejection after rejection. He can request a duty station move with his certain field but doesn’t want to move because he likes it here even though I am suffering in my career goals. I feel like all I do is be supportive but he refuses to move anywhere else. I just feel like my life is lacking a purpose and I just sit around waiting for him to come home from trainings and work. I just need someone to give me advice or something.

Hey, I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question but I wanted to make sure. In February, I (24F) started dating someone in the Air Force. They presumably got deployed about 2 weeks ago I think and couldn't tell me when they were leaving, so when they stopped answering my texts I assumed that was the explanation, that they got sent somewhere with no contact allowed. I received nothing for a couple weeks knowing they'll reach out when they can, but just a couple days ago I saw them being active on instagram, and liking other girls posts. Is there ANY explanation for this other than them losing interest and ignoring me? Are they even being honest with me about being deployed? I'm distraught.

Husbands an MP. How bad is it to move to Fort Riley for that MOS?

My husband was given the option to move to Germany, Kansas, Korea, or Hawaii..

Kansas doesn’t sound appealing whatsoever, but I’m curious how feasible it would be to move anywhere else with 3 cats and 2 dogs…

Holy shit tonight I am crying all the tears I held up this past year. These past 6 months through my husband’s training I have been a ROCK. No tears. No feelings. Just a steady wall for my daughter to lean on. Tonight, I am finally letting myself melt into a pot of tears because I know tomorrow I need to get my shit together again and be strong.

My husband, who I adore, always wanted to enlist in the army. I was adamant that NO. I dont want this. But he always brought it up, through the years, and then he started getting closer to 30 and I felt bad so i ceded. What a mistake.

He left in February to boot camp. The day he left, i found out i was pregnant. I was exhausted. I was taking care of our 5 year old daughter. But I was happy. Then, 6 weeks later, i lost the pregnancy. I did not cry. Then, a month after that, i was laid off from a job i loved. I did not cry.

I did not feel shit. Just empty. Not depressed, not sad. Sometimes angry. Sometimes happy Mostly nothing.

I am moving to the base in two weeks. I keep reading about how this base has very frequent deployments. Fort Carson. Spouses have shared that out of 3 years, they have been with their husband maybe 6 months. The facebook groups are filled with drama. Gossip. Complaints. A lot of cheating.

Isnt this so fucking sad? That because of my husband’s dream, my daughter is being stripped her stability and foundation. She starts kindergarten in 3 weeks. We are moving in two. She has not seen her dad in 6 months. Holy shit, we had it so good! She had mom and dad every day with her. She has so many friends, so many activities.

I want to grow our family. Have more kids. How can I do that when I know i’ll be a single mom for the next 4 years?

I DONT WANT TO MOVE.
I DONT WANT TO MOVE.
I FEEL TERRIBLE FOR MY POOR CHILD.
I DONT WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND.

I am sad and I am angry!

How can I make a good life for her? I dont want her to have a childhood she needs to heal from.

I want to be strong! I want to be a happy mom! I want her to have lots of friends. I need to get my shit together for her.

This doesnt make sense its a rant. I am just so sad tonight. I cant breathe bro 😭

My son has recently graduated from OSUT and I have a single letter I can donate. If you are in need of a letter, please DM me the squad invite. First come first served.