How do people manage relationships in the military?

The military pulls strong relationships even closer. There is a sense of the same mission with each partner.Strong people who love each other bound together even more tightly as a result of the military experiences that they share.

My cousin would Skype with her husband while he was in Iraq. It was tough, but they pulled through. He’s back now, his term of service is up.
In more stable areas, the social aspect works out to moving a lot.

Lots of couples get ruined by the separation. One or the other gets lonely after a year or more of time away and things can get ugly…

If the relationship is strong though, than as @plethora said, they can get stronger!

I just ETS’d out of the military. I can say through second hand experience that out of the more than 600 people I met, maybe somewhere lower than 20 of them had negative outcomes from being away from their other. Now, that’s not counting the foolish spouses that wasted their deployed soldiers money. Like @plethora said, communication is the key.

Some people like to move every few years. It is a dynamic that becomes your normal.

Many people have realtionships where the spouse is away for periods at a time. My husband lived in Colombia for 9 months for his job. The first 7 years of our marriage he travelled a lot with work, but I did not have the worry that comes with having a spouse in a war torn country.

Moving with the military is generally easier than when a regular old civilian moves. The military pays for the entire move. The couple does not have to do any of the tedious things like get a new drivers license, register to vote, new license plates, none of that.

Of course, it does still have some stress that goes with it. I am sure some marriages break up from the stress of military life, but also many are very happy living that life.

I’d say depends on the strength of the relationship and the duty served (as in how far from home, and how limited is communication where you are serving).

Personally I turned down possibilities for relationships because of the hours on base, limited communication etc. I would think it’s unfair to start a new relationship whilst in training or serving in a way that puts you away from home or having little time and restrictions in terms of communication. It would be unfair to the person to sit around and wait for you, unless there was a very promising level of compatibility so to say.

A few colleagues are married or engaged, for them it’s a different story. The strength of the relationship makes it easier to bare. Due to the official status of the relationship, there may be accommodations for communication or outings. But try asking from your Lieutenant license to leave base to just visit your girlfriend – not likely to go well.

@phoebusg I agree with you, it’s unfair to START a new relationship when your just starting in the military. But if a relationship that’s already there isn’t strong enough to handle a 3 to 16 week separation then there wasn’t that much of a relationship to start with ey? I like to think it is more of our evolving culture. We have come to an understanding that miscellaneous relationships are the norm. So most of the relationships that turn up bad were bad from before they started. If you plan on dating someone with a questionable past, there’s always a chance that past activity might pop back up up, this time with you as part of it.

You either work through it, or bounce in and out of relationship until you get out.

Q: How do people manage relationships in the military?
A: Badly.

Most of the people I knew who were in the military while they were married either divorced, or had to make major attitude adjustments once they left the service to save their marriages.
Of course I know a few that stayed strong throughout, but I think the kind of impulsiveness that makes you join up, mixed the the impulsiveness to marry young don’t bode well for the future of a relationship.

I believe it totally depends on the people involved in the relationship and where they are with their lives. I also believe where the military member is at in their career can have a roll in it as well.

As for personal experience, my husband is currently in the Army National Guard. He was in the reserves for the first 6 months or so of our relationship, then went to active duty. He was active duty for the rest of the time we were dating and the first 3 years of our marriage. We spent the second year of our marriage mostly apart because he was deployed overseas. He is now Army National Guard (has been for a little over 6 months now).

We were both older (me late 20s, him early 30s). I had been in the Army National Guard when I was younger, so I had a good bit of knowledge about the military and the military lifestyle. I knew the moment he went to active duty while we were dating that if things went well between us, I’d be moving. I have a career that is very portable, so that has never been an issue for me.

Communication is a huge thing in relationships when one spouse is away for any length of time (military or otherwise). Both people in the relationship have to understand that and come to a compromise about how much communication is needed for them to feel connected (this varies a lot from one person to the next).

As for all the moving, I love it! We’ve seen and done things we probably never would have done if we weren’t stationed in those areas. While we were stationed in Texas, we went to San Antonio and saw the Alamo and the Riverwalk. We also went to the Sea World down there. I don’t think we would’ve ever made a trip to San Antonio if we weren’t already in the area. When we were stationed in Kansas, we went to the Wizard of Oz museum. Another thing we probably never would have done if we weren’t already in the area.

Being away from friends and family can be hard sometimes, but meeting new people and making new friends has been fun for me. I keep in touch with people all across the country (and even other countries) now because of friendships I’ve made over the years. The friends I made in Texas and Kansas have now moved to other areas as well, so now when I go visit them, I’ll be getting to go to more new places!

Separation from my husband stinks, but we make the best of it. While he was deployed overseas, we talked when we could on the phone or on the computer. I sent care packages and cards every week. He sent a few letters in the mail to me as well. There were times when I didn’t hear from him for a week or so. Those times were very hard (and very scary), but getting that call from him to say he’s okay and that he loved me made it all okay again.

One of the best parts of all the separations is all the reunions! We have had so many first kisses, it’s amazing! We’ve had our first ever kiss, our first kiss in various states, first kiss goodbye, first kiss during R&R, first kiss after a year long deployment… I could go on and on. If the people in the relationship can look at those types of things and enjoy their time together, I think it provides a better overall outlook for their relationship.

@plethora has it right, it brings strong relationships closer. It also breaks up weak relationships faster.

I did 30 years in the military, the last 18 married. My first couple of married deployments were when the only communication we had was with snail mail. We just wrote lots of letters with the hopes they other would receive something at least every other day. Of course there were times when I wouldn’t receive anything for a couple of weeks, then receive two weeks of mail all at once.