Husband cheated while deployed..

[militarywife]

I never saw this coming..I guess that is why we should never say never. My husband and I have grown up together and obviously one of us still has alot of growing up to do. I am 24 and he is 23. We have been together for as long as I can remember and have spent the past 5 years with him in the military. This October will be our 3rd wedding anniversary and we do not have any children yet. We have survived a 13 month unacommpanied tour and 3 deployents..we now have 2 months left of this our final deployment. One month ago I found out he was having an affair with a bartender. It went on for about a month and it was ending when I found out. I was completely shocked and physically sick to discover what was going on..though now I know it is much more common than I thought while they are deployed. Maybe I was just naive..I don't know. What makes this so much harder is that I am not going to have any physical contact with him for another 2 months. We spent the first two weeks talking it out..though I was in such shock I really can't remember all that was said. For my own well being and emotional health I decided to forgive him and do my best to get through the rest of the deployment..I did not tell him this. Now whenever we talk..I do not bring up what happened and we are talking as if nothing is wrong. This has worked out for me and for us (for the time being) because it is too hard to have that conversation with a 2 minute delay with the phone. I have talked to our chaplain and I know what my options are but I LOVE my husband and I know that he is a good guy who just got caught up in the worst thing he could ever do. I do not want to make excuses for him because what he did..there is not an excuse for. I am just trying to handle this the best way that I can. What get's me the most is that I have never been insecure with our relationship and now it seems I am always second guessing us. Divorce is huge and I am not ready to jump to that conclusion yet. We will be getting out of the military this new year and our years of deploying will soon be over. I just needed to get this off my chest..it has been an emotionally draining month. I am hoping to get some words of wisdom and some advice for when we reunite in the next couple of months.

 

Thank you for listening.

[uriel]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I do believe these sort of deployment affairs are common enough -- maybe more than the usual scenario. They have to do with loneliness and unmet needs, of course.

 

What concerns me most is how your husband was not considering your unmet needs, either. You are making a significant sacrifice by being a military wife. How would he feel if you had sought comfort in someone else's arms and company? Why didn't he turn to you for consolation -- through erotic letters or whatever means he had?

 

You have a lot to discuss when he gets home. I'd suggest you do that in the context of counseling. Above all, don't let him even hint that you've given up your right to bring all this back up and work through it because your holding back on that now. He will very likely want it all to disappear. No dice.

 

-- uriel

[RowanRavyn]

Your story sounds really similar to one a guy posted on here recently. I can't find the link.

 

I used to be a military wife. He was a US Army Ranger.

 

There is an old joke that goes something like this:

 

If the military wanted its personnel to have Dependants, it would have issued them.

 

I followed my ex to Korea, and was shocked to find that many of the wives that were living in one room shacks off base in horrible circumstances supposedly to support their husbands, would wave and blow kisses and as soon as the guys were out of sight they would be plotting how to get to the air-force base to meet their lovers.

 

I volunteered in the Chaplains office and I can tell you from the number of appointments I set up for counseling, its a very common occurrence. It happens about as often with the spouses as it does with the enlisted. Men would go home to visit their family halfway through their tour to find another man living in their home.

 

By the same token, I watched men that I knew to be married frequent the local brothel. I heard a few of them (My little one room was across the street from what we affectionately called the parasite club.)

 

Keep talking to your Chaplain hun. Let him get through his deployment, and IF you are sure you want to work on this, do it. But remember that trust lost is hard to regain.

 

You are in my thoughts, and you are not alone.

[dolcegal2002]

look i dont want to excuse your hubby. but sometimes military life can be a real B(*&%#. i think counceling is the thing to do. i heard that when people are married and/ or have children, separation is the worst thing you can do. that a discovery of an affair may ctually make the relationship stronger. i want to believe that is true.

 

if you love your husband, set him up straight and let him earn your trust again by working at it. if you arent convinced after a few months then kick him to the curb in the end your heart will tell you what to do.

[uriel]

You mean "Hang in there military wife," dolcegirl. My husband's faithful, thank the stars. I wouldn't trade him for anything. I don't think he'd trade me either, but I did stray -- years ago now-- from him emotionally (not physically) during a long absence. It took us a long time to work through it and rebuild trust. I know it can be done -- but it takes a real commitment to the process.

 

-- uriel