bad start?

[usmcwife]

Hey all.. As clearly you can tell, I'm brand new here though I have lurked from time to time when relevant issues were posted.. I'm in a new chapter of my life though, and quite frankly, I don't know where to turn.

 

Background in this case, I suppose is important: I'm 21 years old, and my husband as of 8/26/09 is 23. We've been friends since teenage years, though lost contact for a couple years before becoming friends, and eventually having it progress. He's part of the USMC, and while it's been hard, we're now living together and finally dealing without long-distance.. I thought it would make it easier, it seems not. I moved over 900 miles to a state I've never been to before in order to be with him while he served. I literally have no one, but him, here. We are in the process of buying a house, but for now stay with 2 of his friends whom I barely know, while i sit home all day trying to find work as I haven't yet.

 

This leads to the problem beginning ... I have issues, in that lately, I've taken to snooping. I understand this is wrong, and at first it was on a whim because I believe I was bored and wondered what he was involved in while I was 900 miles away. I found he had a networking site, and in it was an email to a girl he had never mentioned. She apparently tried to add him, and he responded telling her he's in a happy relationship and he didn't want to mess that up. She said anyone who would leave a bar in order to stay faithful is a good guy, and she wants to be friends with a good guy. Immediately I was hurt, but glad he clearly did the right thing.. Until he responded to this email saying that he was ok being friends, so long as it was kept secret from me, and that she is very attractive and he disliked how tempting it was with her, and he was going to call her to talk about it.

 

I confronted him, mainly because it upset me he obviously took her number and felt it necessary to keep a "friend" secret. He assured me it was just that we were in a rough patch, this was before we were married, and he has never cheated nor would he. He apologized for letting it get that far. Later that night, we went out to the kareoke joint he goes to every weekend, and she showed up.. It seemed odd to me that if he hadn't seen her again, she would randomly show up back at the bar the same night - turns out this is where the first encounter was, and he still maintains it was the first time he had seen her there since. I tried to let it go.

 

Until today. When we were married, it was actually one of his ex girlfriends that served as the witness and even photographed for us. I have asked him a few times since if he had talked to her, as I wanted to have the photos. He maintained that he hadn't, but he would get around to it - he just didnt want to initiate contact as the past is the past and he wanted to focus on us. Finally, I emailed her myself thanking her for coming on such short notice and wondering what was going on, as he hadn't gotten a hold of her. I then told him I emailed her, and we went about our day as normal. I woke up this morning, and he had left his email account open. It was on an email he had sent her, last night at 11:30 pm, saying " I guess she emailed you.. I told her we haven't talked, so hopefully you haven't replied yet. Guess we'll see..."

 

When I read it, I flipped. I called him at work asking him about it, and he again apologized and admitted he was wrong. He forgot he had talked to her, so he told me no, and then when he realized he had he didnt know how to bring it up to me without me being upset he lied. I dont understand how having her lie to me makes it easier than him admitting he did, and I know it seems so small.. but it makes me question the basis of everything. He now admits that her husband is also a marine, and she therefore found his usmc email address and has emailed him at work. He maintains he replied telling her he was keeping distance because it was disrespectful to me. He then told me he would forward me the emails - and immediately told me after that he deleted him, so he can't.

 

All in all, I know this is long and sounds pretty silly.. I'm just highly upset and I don't know what to take of it. Clearly, I feel as though he is more apt to lie/hide things than to deal with me about issues. Being so early on in the marriage, can it be saved? I do love him.. I wouldnt of moved here, married him, had I not saw forever with him. I don't like the idea of a divorce, but I certainly don't like how things have been headed in the few short weeks of our "holy matrimony.."

 

Any ideas? Advice? I'm seriously hurting..

[2sure]

He is having contact with old girlfriends and hiding it from you. upon discovery he lies about that. Then deletes the only possible thing that would confirm he was not cheating. He deleted his proof of innocence because it didnt exist. The email exchanged would have condemned him.

 

You arent being silly. Look up the term GASLIGHTING.

[usmcwife]

I don't think I'm being silly. I know I have reason to be angry - clearly, this is wrong behavior as I wouldn't dream of doing it to someone I was bound to by vows.

 

My question is, how can it be fixed?

 

As a quick update: we have been emailing back and forth as he is at work and unable to talk. The ex forwarded me a copy of the emails, and they do seem harmless.. I have known from the beginning they were friends - however, when he began to feel upset that I stayed friends with an ex, we both decided it was best to focus on us and not to keep contact. He changed his phone number and had no contact with her- until our wedding, because we needed a witness and she was the ONLY person in town. I knew he called her to ask her to come, she did on very short notice which I appreciated. Since then, I had said I didnt mind contact so long as I knew it was happening - which is why I find it stupid he lied. The emails appear harmless - she asked about us, why we seemed to have vanished since calling her for the pics, and invited us to dinner with her and her hubby. He declined saying he feels its hypocritical for me to go with her when he wouldn't want to dine with any of my exes.. She wrote back saying she understood but that I need to get over it as past is past and it needs to be dropped -- this is what bothers me, as I told him I was fine with them being friends so long as I got to know her as well..

 

Long story short - we clearly have issues. He feels he cant talk to me without me blowing up, so he hides things. I snoop, making him feel as though I never had faith in this.

 

I believe my snooping is what is pushing him away.. but when it seems so validated, it's hard to stop.

[2sure]

Ok, well for the record I still dont like it. BUT I am a BS, newly betrayed, and on medication so take my advice for what its worth.

 

As to what you can do to fix this.

 

He feels you violate his privacy by snooping.

The snooping probably makes you feel like crap both because you feel the need to do it and because you do it without his knowledge.

But, the mistrust is for good reason because he has lied and hidden things from you. Being newly married this is a major part of your short history.

 

SO: What you both need is complete transparency. As in you have access to all of his communications , not only with his permission but with his approval and knowledge that you ARE going to look. Same goes for him.

 

Many marriages need this complete transparency. When you do it together its a tool to improve your marriage, not violate it. Its nothing to be ashamed of and eventually with this in place you will likely develop the "blind" trust required for the long haul.

 

There you have it, not that I believe a word of it.

[usmcwife]

lol, I find it hard to believe a word of it myself.. but I also know theres more to this, because until recently we had no issues.

 

Hes never lived with anyone, let alone me, let alone 3 other roommates.. Were both new to marriage.. its a transitional period, I know it is, and while I dont necessarily think it'll get better, I want to be sure that it wont before I walk away.

 

I tried complete transparancy.. Months before we had issues, I gave him the passwords to all my accounts [while we were still LD] and he said it was stupid and he wouldnt use them. His answer now is to delete everything of his..

[2sure]

You know, I'm 40ish and this is not my first marriage and I am admittedly not feeling all sunshine and roses right now, but...

 

Marriage takes skills that a lot of us take for granted. I mean, I have common sense , I am by nature nurturing and loving, I am a fairly good parent...but you know, in spite of my H's breathtaking lack of human decency...I have to admit that there really is nothing in my previous relationships that point to a woman with Great Marriage Skills. We arent born with them. They are learned skills, obviously.

 

In hindsight what I think would have benefited me and might you...

Sure, relationship skills will be learned from life experience but they can also be learned, like anything else ...from a teacher or a book. If you do this together, you might learn something about coping with the crisis that WILL happen before you are navigating it.

 

But thats hindsight, no one uses it.

[Island Girl]

I tried complete transparancy.. Months before we had issues, I gave him the passwords to all my accounts [while we were still LD] and he said it was stupid and he wouldnt use them. His answer now is to delete everything of his..

 

Complete transparency would be transparent on BOTH sides.

 

Get that clear and agreed to. Let him know you need to know nothing is being hidden and that if he did receive any e-mails, etc. it is much better to have open communication than you finding out about it some other way.

 

Then do your due diligence.

 

If you really want information you can possibly contact a computer recovery shop who can quite possibly recover those deleted e-mails.

[usmcwife]

 

If you really want information you can possibly contact a computer recovery shop who can quite possibly recover those deleted e-mails.

 

You know, at first, I did. We both deleted our myspace/facebook when we got married, because of drama that goes along with young people getting married, people who didnt approve, etc - and we wanted to start over, fresh.

 

I truly thought about doing such a thing to find out what was missing.. at this point in time, I want to move on though.

 

I recognize we both made mistakes. I feel we feed off of eachother, clearly pushing the other to a point that before wasn't reached or else we wouldnt have made it this far - we're both the type to walk away when relationships start to feel like they aren't worth it. I don't want to feed off the past anymore. I want to change it, certainly, and I want to appreciate it for what it has taught me.. if we can work with it, and learn, I'd like to. Obviously, I'm not sticking around if this is whats in store for me for life - I'm still young and I'm pretty agile, I think

 

 

2sure - I completely appreciate your advice and hindsight, even if you're feeling jaded about it I'm certainly feeling a little bit of it myself.. I'd like to think we can navigate it, and he's a big believer in reading and learning from others.. if we knew where to learn from.. ha. That's my problem - we don't know where to learn..

[mem11363]

There are men who are capable of deeply loving one woman, while they play the field. This is incredibly confusing and sometimes dangerous (in terms of disease) for the woman because she KNOWS he loves her and she cannot grasp why he is flirting/cheating so much.

 

Your man is just NOT ready to settle down. He likes/loves the attention from these other women and the way he responds to them means he WILL cheat, likely repeatedly.

 

This is NOT about you. I imagine you are terrific. My sisters first husband was a chronic cheater. Her second husband is totally faithful and has been for 20 years.

 

You cannot change this man. You can put yourself in a weak position by having kids with him. But you cannot change him. And he is not going to change for YOU. He is just going to try harder to hide things.

 

If you knowingly stay with him - you will eventually bring children into this very broken situation. That is not a nice thing to do.

 

 

 

 

Hey all.. As clearly you can tell, I'm brand new here though I have lurked from time to time when relevant issues were posted.. I'm in a new chapter of my life though, and quite frankly, I don't know where to turn.

 

Background in this case, I suppose is important: I'm 21 years old, and my husband as of 8/26/09 is 23. We've been friends since teenage years, though lost contact for a couple years before becoming friends, and eventually having it progress. He's part of the USMC, and while it's been hard, we're now living together and finally dealing without long-distance.. I thought it would make it easier, it seems not. I moved over 900 miles to a state I've never been to before in order to be with him while he served. I literally have no one, but him, here. We are in the process of buying a house, but for now stay with 2 of his friends whom I barely know, while i sit home all day trying to find work as I haven't yet.

 

This leads to the problem beginning ... I have issues, in that lately, I've taken to snooping. I understand this is wrong, and at first it was on a whim because I believe I was bored and wondered what he was involved in while I was 900 miles away. I found he had a networking site, and in it was an email to a girl he had never mentioned. She apparently tried to add him, and he responded telling her he's in a happy relationship and he didn't want to mess that up. She said anyone who would leave a bar in order to stay faithful is a good guy, and she wants to be friends with a good guy. Immediately I was hurt, but glad he clearly did the right thing.. Until he responded to this email saying that he was ok being friends, so long as it was kept secret from me, and that she is very attractive and he disliked how tempting it was with her, and he was going to call her to talk about it.

 

I confronted him, mainly because it upset me he obviously took her number and felt it necessary to keep a "friend" secret. He assured me it was just that we were in a rough patch, this was before we were married, and he has never cheated nor would he. He apologized for letting it get that far. Later that night, we went out to the kareoke joint he goes to every weekend, and she showed up.. It seemed odd to me that if he hadn't seen her again, she would randomly show up back at the bar the same night - turns out this is where the first encounter was, and he still maintains it was the first time he had seen her there since. I tried to let it go.

 

Until today. When we were married, it was actually one of his ex girlfriends that served as the witness and even photographed for us. I have asked him a few times since if he had talked to her, as I wanted to have the photos. He maintained that he hadn't, but he would get around to it - he just didnt want to initiate contact as the past is the past and he wanted to focus on us. Finally, I emailed her myself thanking her for coming on such short notice and wondering what was going on, as he hadn't gotten a hold of her. I then told him I emailed her, and we went about our day as normal. I woke up this morning, and he had left his email account open. It was on an email he had sent her, last night at 11:30 pm, saying " I guess she emailed you.. I told her we haven't talked, so hopefully you haven't replied yet. Guess we'll see..."

 

When I read it, I flipped. I called him at work asking him about it, and he again apologized and admitted he was wrong. He forgot he had talked to her, so he told me no, and then when he realized he had he didnt know how to bring it up to me without me being upset he lied. I dont understand how having her lie to me makes it easier than him admitting he did, and I know it seems so small.. but it makes me question the basis of everything. He now admits that her husband is also a marine, and she therefore found his usmc email address and has emailed him at work. He maintains he replied telling her he was keeping distance because it was disrespectful to me. He then told me he would forward me the emails - and immediately told me after that he deleted him, so he can't.

 

All in all, I know this is long and sounds pretty silly.. I'm just highly upset and I don't know what to take of it. Clearly, I feel as though he is more apt to lie/hide things than to deal with me about issues. Being so early on in the marriage, can it be saved? I do love him.. I wouldnt of moved here, married him, had I not saw forever with him. I don't like the idea of a divorce, but I certainly don't like how things have been headed in the few short weeks of our "holy matrimony.."

 

Any ideas? Advice? I'm seriously hurting..

[tinktronik]

You know, at first, I did. We both deleted our myspace/facebook when we got married, because of drama that goes along with young people getting married, people who didnt approve, etc - and we wanted to start over, fresh.

 

I truly thought about doing such a thing to find out what was missing.. at this point in time, I want to move on though.

 

I recognize we both made mistakes. I feel we feed off of eachother, clearly pushing the other to a point that before wasn't reached or else we wouldnt have made it this far - we're both the type to walk away when relationships start to feel like they aren't worth it. I don't want to feed off the past anymore. I want to change it, certainly, and I want to appreciate it for what it has taught me.. if we can work with it, and learn, I'd like to. Obviously, I'm not sticking around if this is whats in store for me for life - I'm still young and I'm pretty agile, I think

 

 

2sure - I completely appreciate your advice and hindsight, even if you're feeling jaded about it I'm certainly feeling a little bit of it myself.. I'd like to think we can navigate it, and he's a big believer in reading and learning from others.. if we knew where to learn from.. ha. That's my problem - we don't know where to learn..

 

If you really want to know where to learn...

 

You are a USMC wife, so you are either at Camp Lejeune or Cherry Point. There are free marriage counseling programs at both. If you are at Lejeune, I would recommend Ruth if she is available.

[usmcwife]

If you really want to know where to learn...

 

You are a USMC wife, so you are either at Camp Lejeune or Cherry Point. There are free marriage counseling programs at both. If you are at Lejeune, I would recommend Ruth if she is available.

 

lol, you already know too much!

 

I've thought about it already, though I didn't mention it to him nor did I know it could be free.. Financially, we're on shaky grounds right now. I guess we're on shaky grounds in all aspects, actually..

 

 

On another note: I can't thank you all enough for the insight. I've honestly been bottling it up for weeks, as I know nobody here but him, and he's biased.. I like having different viewpoints to take in..

 

If it's true about being a chronic cheater - guess its better to now know than later, hmm? I'd like to know a little more before I give it the boot though.. Kind of bad ju-ju to be married and divorced in less than a month ?

[tinktronik]

You seem very thankful. I feel I have not said enough. A big part of the USMC is young guys in a society where it is encouraged [manly] to chase skirt wether you are married or not. Infidelity is rampant on and around certain military bases. As well as drug use, alcoholism and STD's.

 

It would serve both yourself and your husband to involve yourself in family activities aimed at sustaining a M. In NC, in either of the areas I mentioned your options are .... church, church and church. I am not religious, but that's just the part of the country that you are in.

 

I also wanted to make you aware that there are many, many, many women in these areas married to Marines and not so many jobs. Your chances of finding a job may be fair, but not one that is going to pay you anywhere near the going wage for the job they are offering (unless it is a min wage job anyway). AND daycare is very high in comparison to the rest of the country. DO NOT HAVE KIDS ANYTIME SOON. So if you have a child before you aim your life in a direction you want to see it go, you will be at home raising it and financially dependent on your H.

 

Now, you do have on both bases college. I believe it is Maryland or something like that. Check this out as an option for school grants ect.

 

If you need anything at all, I know the system from the side you are on and can help. Just PM me or ask here on the thread.

[usmcwife]

You seem very thankful. I feel I have not said enough. A big part of the USMC is young guys in a society where it is encouraged [manly] to chase skirt wether you are married or not. Infidelity is rampant on and around certain military bases. As well as drug use, alcoholism and STD's.

 

It would serve both yourself and your husband to involve yourself in family activities aimed at sustaining a M. In NC, in either of the areas I mentioned your options are .... church, church and church. I am not religious, but that's just the part of the country that you are in.

 

I also wanted to make you aware that there are many, many, many women in these areas married to Marines and not so many jobs. Your chances of finding a job may be fair, but not one that is going to pay you anywhere near the going wage for the job they are offering (unless it is a min wage job anyway). AND daycare is very high in comparison to the rest of the country. DO NOT HAVE KIDS ANYTIME SOON. So if you have a child before you aim your life in a direction you want to see it go, you will be at home raising it and financially dependent on your H.

 

Now, you do have on both bases college. I believe it is Maryland or something like that. Check this out as an option for school grants ect.

 

If you need anything at all, I know the system from the side you are on and can help. Just PM me or ask here on the thread.

 

 

I do understand the culture, and we both realize how unhealthy it is.. The house we purchased is an hour away from base, as to minimize the culture, and so we can try to have some sanctity while we work through what needs to be dealt with. I understand I set myself up for some of it - and it bothers him that I identify him with the others in the corp. After out first arguement, I dismissed him by saying " I suppose thats what I get for marrying a marine" - and it did NOT go well, ha.

 

I'm also aware about the jobs.. I have 2 bachelors degrees, and I'm going for my masters next fall as I know its needed to get a competitive job around the area. Definitely no kids- this isn't an environment I would want to bring ANYONE into, let alone a innocent unsuspecting being. I want it to be fixed, he says he wants the same, so I'll certainly look into all the options.

 

It just seems so disheartening to only be a few weeks in and already feel this hopeless.