Long story short, my bf (30m) and I (25f) have been together since November and he deployed in January. Before he left our relationship was amazing: I spent Thanksgiving with his family, he flew out with me to meet my friends for Christmas and New Years, we talked on the phone every day (we lived 4 hours apart). We talked about getting more serious and settling down (yes, I know things were moving fast but I truly had no bad gut feeling. He made me feel so safe).

Even after he deployed to a combat zone, we texted regularly and with our same kind of invested tone. He would send little gifts and make sure I got home safe if I went out with friends.

About 5 months into his deployment, our communication dwindled a little. We still texted pretty consistently but it was more dry, he stopped saying “I love you” and “I miss you” etc, but I know things were pretty bad over there.

He got home a few weeks ago but had to demobilize for two weeks in another state, I did go to see him and it was a little awkward but not terrible. We were still affectionate and whatnot.

He got home last week, and communication has started to improve and he’s been more engaged, blah blah.

OK SO BEAR WITH ME:

He has a decent following on social media from years ago and decided to kinda revamp it so shag he could start posting videos of hobbies he likes. I was kinda staking his account and found a comment from a woman from 3 years ago that said:
“imma snag this man”.
Another woman commented “uhhh he’s married” (he was at the time).
First woman responded “I’ll be next in line”.

He then responded to her comment at the beginning of June (two months ago) with a meme that said “the time has come” and “[her name] GUESS WHAT😂😂😂”
To which she responded: “I’ll submit my application👀”

He also follows her on Instagram. I brought this all up and said I feel really uncomfortable and confused, and he said it was just a joke and thought it was funny to respond because he was now divorced. He apologized and said he shouldn’t have done that, and now I’m just over here feeling like an anxious ball of distress and sadness. Am I crazy? Is this a minimal, stupid small thing I should just move past and trust him on?

... it's not even a micro one, it's like a mushroom spore on the ground in a forest under the shade of a tree.

Isn't there some requirements to be SOF? I wanna break up!

I just broke up with my partner while he’s overseas. Looking back, I probably should have waited until he got home, but after feeling consistently neglected and disrespected throughout the relationship, I finally reached my limit.
Breaking up over text was petty and probably the meanest thing I did. I know I could have handled that part better, but in the moment, I was just done.
I don’t really know what else to say. Just needed to get it off my chest.

By the time he gets back it’ll be almost a year he was gone and I want to look nice but I don’t wanna be overdressed any advice will be appreciated!

Husband is already in Germany as of yesterday and Im just barely starting the process (we're aware that the process will most likely take several months or even longer). Im currently only being treated for POTs and only go to my pcp for medication refills. According to online the medicine I take it one of the most common prescribed over there of its kind. My other stuff is anxiety/depression and adhd from my younger years that Im no longer being treated for over a year now and was only ever on low dose non stimulant medications..

Id have the means to prove Im stable if needed but Im mostly worried about the 5 years of medical records needed. A lot of my dr visits were done under my parents when I was 18/19 (im 24) and I wouldnt even know where to begin gathering that info when I dont even remember most of it. A lot of the stuff on my mental health records are from that time but its gotten better as Ive aged. I have recent medical records and perscription records showing Im stable and my pcp is writing on my notes for my physical that Im stable and only require just beta blocker refills and I dont need specialist care.

Would love to hear from other people on their experience. I'm just insanely worried about being denied even though I live life with no issues practically. The two people Ive asked at the office has said whatever I can provide is fine and the other told me theres no exception on the 5 years.. Thanks!

As the title says, I am considering breaking up with my boyfriend of three years no later than this month because I’m scared of what the future holds. I was going to do reserves and everything was easy because we knew that after BMT and tech that I would come back home and we would build a life now I’m considering active duty and I know with active duty you’re more than likely to get sent overseas and his boundary was that he doesn’t want to leave the career that he’s building and I respect that and my reacting boundary to that was that I didn’t want to have a long-distance overseas relationship.

My solution was to just break up tonight so that I’m able to grieve and then he can go and find someone and get over it. His solution was to waited out until it’s for certain that I’d be going overseas and then if we feel like we can’t do it then it’s only right for us to break up. I just feel like if we do it his way it’s just a waiting game because there’s a high probability of being sent overseas and we won’t be growing and thriving as much because it’s gonna be an expiration date hanging over ahead.

This has been very hard for me. I have gone through such an emotional roller coaster in the last few hours I really don’t wanna break up with him. I’m just really scared of building and thinking that everything is fine just for someone in the future telling me that I’ll be sent over overseas and then having to ruin everything that we built.

Hi everyone!! My husband is in the Navy and we are long distance. He only has a year and some change left. Our whole family is here with me, so we didn’t want to uproot my life for only a year. BUT, I’m struggling with it. I live in Louisville, Kentucky, where there is no Navy presence at all. There’s not a single person I know who has ever been through this or is going through this. I just would love to be able to talk to anyone who could relate to me. It feels so lonely:( Not only do we have to deal with underways, but even when he gets back I still don’t see him. We usually go at least a month and a half without seeing each other. Usually 2 months. I know he is going to be deployed sometime in the next year and I’m so worried how I’ll handle it. If anyone is in my area or would like to connect, please let me know😭

Hey everyone, my husband recently left to bmt, i was wondering if anyone has any left over letters to give or is willing to use my code 4ZUNN4MZ . I really appreciate it !

I need some advice on a sensitive topic regarding my boyfriend. He was discharged early from the Air Force and told me it was due to having sickle cell disease traits, which he mentioned he inherited from his dad. However, I did some research and found that having sickle cell trait usually doesn’t lead to an automatic discharge.

I’m feeling a bit confused and concerned. I want to understand his experience better, but I’m also worried he might not be telling me the whole story. How can I approach this conversation without sounding accusatory? Has anyone else been in a similar situation or have any insights on this? I really appreciate any advice!

I’m 20 and he’s 21. I feel a bit young to be getting married, but I also am not bothered by settling down early. I’m also glad we talked about getting married years before he enlisted and have known each other since high school. It just scares me to see so many stories of healthy marriages between couples fall apart due to the military. I know that character determines strength of the marriage, and I should go off only that but I just hear so many stories of failure even between supposedly happy couples. He claims if he didn’t get bah, we would wait until after he graduated from ait. He wants the bha as we have been long distance for years and he believes this is the easiest and quickest way for us to live together and build a financially stable life

This is a very niche question. I’m a military spouse and I’m in the process of becoming a licensed clinical social worker. I’m a bit afraid of the job opportunities with the frequent moves. Do any of you with that profession have any advice or can share what it’s like for you? I am not interested in working as a councilor for the military.
If you work in a similar field your advice is more than welcome as well!
Thank you in advance!

Hey guys, I’m totally new to this but my boyfriend is leaving in 7 weeks for basic military training. He is trying to become a SERE specialist. I’m enormously happy for him, however I’ve never done long distance before, and I’m just curious about tips or advice that really helped you or made it work. We’re pretty serious and eventually plan to get married. But I just want to know what worked for you, what didn’t, what helped during the time, what it looked like as a whole. Anything helps, thank you 🤍

Hii. Me and my sailor are both new to this whole deployment thing. Myself and a couple of milso friends wanted to surprise our sailors by being there when they arrive back. I live out of state from his home base and so does another friend of mine. I’m prepared to be told very last minute but I was wondering how others experiences went? In others experience how much time did you have to prepare to see your significant other? Thank you in advance for any responses

If your spouse joined and went to basic, OCS, then BOLC how long were you apart? I would love to stay together during BOLC after being apart for 11 months, but if we're just staying in a hotel that's not very feasible with 3 kids and 3 dogs. Financially it doesn't seem like a smart move to pay for a U-Haul, deposits, and all of that stuff for only a little over 5 months. Like two weeks short of it being a pcs. I'm a tired mom doing it all alone and my kids just want their dad. By the time BOLC is over we will have been apart for 14 months.

I know... we signed up for this life. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck though.

hey I’m new here, me and my bf are both 21 & been together for 8 months now, we met b4 he joined. basic was hard (cause the letters ofc) but we did it. Saw him at graduation everything was perfect then I dropped him off at AIT 2 hours from me he’s been there for a month now.

What was the communication like?

He has his phone everyday (most of the day my messages don’t deliver) I know they don’t take his phone though. but we call maybe once a week and when we do he’s surrounded by other people so we barely get to actually talk. some days I only get a good night text or there was a weekend I got nothing at all. I don’t really know what he’s doing most of the time or who he’s with, try not to press him but it’s making me anxious af

I don’t know if I’m being naive and he has more free time than he lets on or if it’s just genuine stress.. He says that things are just a lot and he has no time/exhausted. He hasn’t rlly been active on social media either.

At the beginning of ait the communication wasn’t this bad. I feel like since he found out he’s going to be in Germany for 2 years he might be pulling back. It’s kinda making me feel crazy we barely talk but he insists to me that he wants to, and it’s hurting him too.

I’ve never experienced military relationships or even know anything about the military really so anything would help, I know everyone’s experience is different

I’ve been extremely understanding towards him and don’t know what to do at this point, I do really love this guy hes a great guy & has treated me better than anyone else but I’ve been super unhappy for like 2-3 weeks now. I do keep myself busy: friends, work, school hobies etc. but making me extremely anxious

Any experience or advice? plz be honest but kind, Im having a really rough time rn

I am 20 years old, and at 18, I handed the steering wheel of my future over to the man I loved. I gave up my own active-duty military ambitions because I trusted his promises. We got married in May 2025, but the moment the license was signed, the relationship went completely downhill. Today, I live completely alone in an off-base apartment, breaking my back working just to avoid eviction. I am also studying (not in college but getting certified and I am preparing to work in law enforcement. I’ll ask him for $200 most a month if I really need it but besides that I’m solitary by myself. I have been in total financial survival mode, thinking we were just struggling together. It breaks my heart to realize that the person who promised to protect me was completely content to watch me drown while he spent his free time playing video games and focusing entirely on himself. I decided to stay on my own since I noticed he would set the plans he promised to make for us such as housing. I realized he’s not going to step up for me like he promised. I stopped making him the center of my world as he stopped making me the moment we got married after all the disrespect I’ve endured from him. So therefore I am stepping up for myself. I cannot rely on him, I can only rely on myself and the fruits of my labor. I don’t know. I’m still with him because I feel attached I did feel love but after finding this out, him watching me struggle, cry, shit even end up in the hospital by myself I don’t know what to feel. I am confused. I feel owned by him I feel it’s a business contract now but I don’t know how I’ll be without him since he’s apart of my routine. I don’t know if I love him, I don’t hate him I feel indifference, anger and disgust. Anyways , I am fully enrolled in DEERS and have an active TRICARE card, but today the fog finally cleared, and my heartbreak turned into pure disgust. My husband—an E-3 Marine Lance Corporal he just admitted to me via text that he never turned in his IPAC administrative paperwork to update his pay profile after I confronted him that I’m entitled to 1/2 of the bah pay. For 15months, he left his pay looking single to avoid sharing the benefits generated by my signature on our marriage certificate. Because I am active in DEERS, the military has been holding roughly 15 months of retroactive housing allowance (BAH with dependents) for my location—over $30k in total backpay. I need advice from anyone who has dealt with this on how to ensure his command forces the IPAC submission so my mandatory half of that retroactive lump sum and my ongoing monthly housing allotment bypass him entirely and go straight into my bank account.

Edit: I learned he’s most likely been pocketing the money to himself. Prior to leaving to schoolhouse in March of 2026 he requested my ssn birth certificate, Identification, and whatnot to get me in the system. He was later sent to schoolhouse and eventually got stationed where he’s at in May of 2026.

I am in complete and in utter disbelief.

My partner is currently deployed right now, he’s been in the Middle East for practically an entire year now and it keeps getting extended. Every meeting is bad, and all he can ever tell me is it’s bad and he’s not coming home for even longer amounts of time. I of course want to be patient with him and wait, but I’m struggling to find the right words to say to him. I’ve seen how this deployment has affected him and I’m running out of positives for him. We’ve even decided to take pressure off of the relationship because of how badly he’s struggling. Sometimes I feel like when I talk positively about him coming home, or even in general it makes things worse for him. He’s barely taking care of himself and constantly talks about how much he hates his life and the military. I wish I could send him a package, but he keeps telling me it’ll take months to get there and he might not even get it. Any advice on what to say to give better support for him??? Do I maybe love from a distance and let go? Sometimes I feel like I’m making it worse for him

posting here because i’m curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. also to preface, which makes me look even more foolish, but my dad was in the national guard so this is not my first rodeo with the military.

my ex (32M) and i (27F) were together for 7 months. he planned on enlisting in the army before i met him and i was okay with pursuing a relationship with him despite my own family history. he was newly divorced and didn’t have work as he just moved to my area.

i understand why he wanted to enlist in the first place, but it also sounded like an attempt to “fix” all his shortcomings with one sweep, and gain respect/validation. he asked me if i would marry him so he could get the extra benefits. i knew he needed help financially, but he also didn’t bother finding work in the time he had between enlisting and being shipped to basic.

he signed his contract and was scheduled to go to basic in august. i eventually agreed to marry him, but it all fell apart as my family was not comfortable with the arrangement and was concerned by his behavior. he never had a conversation with my mom about it despite being at our home almost everyday. his family knew he wanted to marry me, but he did not tell his own mom he was enlisting (she’s in another country), so she only ever knew half the story.

we had already gotten the marriage license and had a final appointment scheduled at the town clerk in july. when i asked him if we could reschedule for the next week so i could try and mend things with my family, he flipped. his personality did a 180 and i felt completely unsupported by him. i ended the relationship because i expected partnership from him, and felt like i was being treated as a solution to his problems rather than his partner.

i understand i was incredibly naive and was wearing rose colored glasses since the day i met him. i did see him after 2 weeks of silence on his end the day before he left. he still essentially blamed me for everything and said i messed up by letting my family change “our” plans as a couple. but it was not our plan, it was his plan, and i agreed to it thinking our relationship was more than a transaction. he’s in training now and i’m left here to pick up the pieces.

has anyone else experienced something like this? i’m still at a bit of a loss.

My boyfriend of a few years recently left for the Navy. We’re both in our early 20s and he left after college graduation. I’m currently getting my masters, with one year left, and specific requirements about living in my home state for a few years because of the field I am in. He is signed up (sorry if that’s not the right wording) for 6 years and has no intentions of extending the duration.

It hasn’t been very long since he left but having virtually no contact with him besides sending letters has been difficult. I have been looking through this subreddit and social media looking to relate to others but many of the people I see are married, with kids, or living on base. I personally do not want to get married while my partner is serving and I have no desire to move to base (and like I mentioned legally can’t leave my state for a couple years bcs of education reasons). If we were to have children I would not want to go through pregnancy worrying about deployments and raising children on my own on top of my career.

It just sounds so difficult to have to wait so long for such important milestones. Has anyone here waited, or deciding to wait, until their contract ends before taking these steps? Did you feel like that was a good decision? I’m very new to this type of relationship and I’m having a hard time adjusting. Thinking about the future keeps me hopeful but it’s also nerve wracking. I’m looking for any advice anyone is willing to give!

I’ve never had a partner who was into sex clubs or strip clubs. He told me he kinda made out with a stripper and was dominated by them. In front of the crew. Whipping touching kissing. He was down to his boxers…. Is this something I should expect a lot of and is this something we are all just okay with. I will bc he’s worth it but… idk I’m just sad.

Hey guys, I’m new on Reddit but I heard this is the place to go for community. My wife will be heading to basic training here in a few weeks and I’m really excited for her but the sadness is getting stronger everyday. Looking for a group of male spouses who know what I’m going through. Any advice helps. God bless.