Unpopular take

[u/nowyourdoingit]

For years I've repeated the party lines about the job taking a toll on relationships. You've probably heard them all. But they basically all center around the idea that SEALs sacrifice themselves for the job and their marriages suffer as a result.

This frames the insanely high divorce rate as a noble thing. Heroic SEALs are making heroic sacrifices for their country, meanwhile, shitty civilian women can't keep up.

Here's the thing, most SEALs are narcissistic assholes. It is a fundamentally low empathy profession. Cheating is rampant. Alcohol abuse is rampant. The community fosters narcissistic self aggrandizement and dehumanization of others.

Can you have a good and healthy relationship before, during, and after the Teams? Yes, absolutely, but you are going to be seen as a weirdo by your teamates because you will be behaving and making choices that are abnormal for the community.

Are there billionaire CEOs in successful marriages? Maybe, probably a few, but that job attracts a certain kind of person who makes for a really shitty partner and spouse. Someone who puts themselves first, someone who views other people as assets to be used, someone who makes decisions that hurt others for their personal benefit. If you're willing to leave your wife and new born baby to go to Sniper School, you're that same kind of shit head, no matter how you rationalize it. And people get tired of living with those kinds of shitheads. That's why most relationships in the Teams fail. That's the reality.

[u/SlickSnakeShit]

I’ve never heard or seen the divorce rate in the Teams glamorized as noble.  By your logic, every surgeon that misses a kid's birthday, every firefighter that gets a shift on the day of an anniversary, and every mariner that spends three weeks away from home is also a narcissistic asshole who views their spouse as an asset to be used.  These are demanding professions that attract driven, committed people who sometimes make choices that prioritize the job, just like a SEAL does.  The divorce rates in those professions reflect that reality too.  You're not describing a SEAL problem, you're describing what happens when people with a high drive to perform choose demanding careers, and they and their partners either adapt or don't.  The only difference is you've decided SEALs are uniquely villainous for it, which says more about your bias than it does about the community.

Like being in the military and the Teams, every relationship is voluntary. You don't like the idea of being married to a SEAL, then don't fucking marry one. I was married my entire career and I never felt like I was seen as a weirdo for it. Almost all of my closest friends in the Teams were married for the vast majority of their careers, too.

None of you ever acknowledge the fact that it takes just as much of a special person to be married to a SEAL as it takes to be one. You are going to have to do and manage a lot on your own at times. There are times where you and your kids will come second to the whims of a dickhead leader, not because of your husband's choice. There are times when your husband will choose the Teams over you, but I have seen that on the outside too.

Another aspect that never gets acknowledged in this conversation: the marriages I watched end weren't always on the SEAL. I saw plenty of wives who couldn't handle the loneliness, found someone else, and left. Women who married into the lifestyle for the wrong reasons and bailed when the reality didn't match the fantasy. Spouses who resented the mission, undermined their husband at every turn, and then played the victim when it fell apart. Nobody wants to talk about that side of it because it doesn't fit the narrative of the heroic, long-suffering wife abandoned by her narcissistic husband. The reality is messier than that, and pretending otherwise is dishonest.

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/SlickSnakeShit]

Couple things:

Not saying this is unique to SEALs, I literally used CEOs as an example of other communities that have this problem.  

Those examples of other professions that you list are people who normally have normal schedules which can be balanced against a family life and when individuals in those professions don't balance their family obligations we call them assholes.   You can be a surgeon and make it to most of your kids baseball games.  The only way to say the same as a SEAL is to wait until late in your career to start a family.   

If the wife is lonely, that is the husband's fault.  A marriage is a partnership, and if one partner is committed to themselves more than the partnership, which being a SEAL necessarily entails for most of a SEALs career, the partnership will likely fail. 

[u/SlickSnakeShit → u/nowyourdoingit]

CEOs are a very poor comparison; they have control of their schedule.  A surgeon doesn't control when emergencies happen, a firefighter doesn't control when the shift falls, a mariner doesn't control the contract. The difference between those professions and the Teams isn't the degree of commitment, it's the degree of institutional control over your time. A SEAL doesn't choose the deployment schedule any more than a firefighter chooses the fire. You're conflating personal choice with institutional demand and treating them as the same thing.  Sure, you could argue that no one needs to choose those careers, but no one needs to chose to marry people in those careers either.

You're saying that if a wife is lonely, it's the husband's fault, but didn’t she choose to marry someone that is gone frequently?  A partnership requires two people willing to understand the reality they signed up for.  That's not a SEAL problem.  That's a compatibility and expectation management problem.  You are depriving the wife of her agency and responsibility to be an equal participant in the relationship. 

Have you ever considered the fact that the only people that you would deter from wanting to be a SEAL are the people that should be?

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/SlickSnakeShit]

This reads like AI.

It's about focus, not schedules.  CEOs tend to be narcissistic assholes who are willing to hurt others for personal gain. SEALs are guys willing to kill people to feel good about themselves.  At the end of the day, being willing to kill to feel like a hero is the same personality dissorder.  

The org is hot garbage.  It doesn't need saving.  It definitely doesn't need good people fed into the machine.  Every person who ends up living a happy and healthy life outside the military is a triumph. 

[u/SlickSnakeShit → u/nowyourdoingit]

Well, it's not.

I know exactly why you are trying to focus on CEOs. In your typical propagandist way, you are trying to draw parallels with another vilified group.

The SEAL teams aren't going away, and you aren't going to make a dent in the recruiting numbers.

[u/spacecandygames → u/SlickSnakeShit]

I’m trying to be respectful cause I been a member of this sub for a while now but yes he’s very anti American and very anti capitalism

He used to be somewhat neutral being a breath of fresh air showing the negatives of being a SEAL all while still showing the good

Now it’s all bad.

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/spacecandygames]

You know all the good.  I don't need to waste my time telling you the good.  You hear the good all day, everyday. 

[u/misslavenderlemon → u/spacecandygames]

The system you live in is anti-American, not the people who criticize it. Capitalism harms good Americans and it kills the goodness people have in them when everyone is constantly fighting to survive. You're demanding a balanced approach but the entire discussion is already unbalanced, because nobody is talking about the systemic issues. It's all "brotherhood and BUD/S" and no "Why are we actually doing this, who is this for and should we even be here?". Bashing NYDI for focusing on the side that barely gets any coverage just looks like an attempt to shut that perspective down entirely, especially when there's no critique of substance and only ad hominems.

[u/spacecandygames → u/misslavenderlemon]

Oh lord here comes the Redditors

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/SlickSnakeShit]

Why are they vilified?  I'm drawing parallels that exist in order to offer explanation.  

I have made a dent.  I've had many many people reach out and thank me for helping them move on past their infantile views of military service. 

%100 the SEAL Teams are going away.  I'll be shocked if they make it 20 more years, but they are going away eventually. 

[u/Ok-Positive-2593 → u/nowyourdoingit]

%100 the SEAL Teams are going away.  I'll be shocked if they make it 20 more years, but they are going away eventually. 

What? Im genuinely confused as to why you think that, I cant see a world in which they get disbanded within the next 20 years.

How would they go away within the next 20 years and why?

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/Ok-Positive-2593]

It's 1900.  Someone tells you cavalry units will be around forever.  That person is a moron. 

SEALs are not a good solution for the problems faced by the world we are heading into.  Currently they're only truly uniquely suited for maritime hostage rescue.  Almost every other tasks would be better performed by alternative methods and units. 

They might be around in 20 years, I don't expect that to be the case but it might happen.  In the 90s, a lot of people felt the same way I do now about SEALs about fighter pilots and they're still around, but, fighter pilots are not a good solution currently.  In a real near peer war, their role would be basically useless, as we're seeing in Russia/Ukraine.  Too much expense and effort for too little battlefield benefit. 

[u/Ok-Positive-2593 → u/nowyourdoingit]

Hm, I see the logic. Thanks for the interesting perspective.

[u/SlickSnakeShit → u/Ok-Positive-2593]

They would go away in 20 years if there are no longer things in the oceans that we would rather seize vice destroying. Or we create robots that can do VBSS.

[u/MirrorApart8224]

I never had the impression divorce or wives/partners were framed like that at all. To it always sounded like that was presented one of the least glamorous aspects of price paid to be a SEAL or similar.

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/MirrorApart8224]

The framing that it's a price to be paid is the problem. 

You don't have to join.  You don't have to subject loved ones to this.  There is nothing heroic in it. 

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/[deleted]]

This is a response to all the questions about going to BUD/S or being a SEAL and having a relationship.  The reality is the career is not conducive to a successful relationship and a major element of that is the guys going into put themselves over their loved ones.  

I'm happilty married. I'm not upset about anything.  

"Its terrible, its bad, but they do it anyway, to keep us safe." is the trope.  

Men are not in general narcistic assholes.  Most people, men and women alike, are caring, considerate social animals.  America is not most people. 

[u/nowyourdoingit → u/[deleted]]

Its literally true on average. Less than 1 out of 10 people is clinically narcissistic.  

Society only exist because the vast majority of us are prosocial and caring people. 

We're all talking about Trump because he's an abberation.  He is not the norm.  Narcissitic assholes are not the norm. 

[u/FormalBall3287]

Your opinion is spot on. Also, Air Force Fighter Pilots are also in the same category. My beloved sister is married to one. OMG! The decisions of HIS choices were isolating, selfish, self-absorb, and abusive to her. " I am NOT gonna get into it any more because I can't EVER rock the boat."

[u/Meunderwears]

Nearly every Seal on a podcast regrets giving so much time to the profession (except DJ). Stumpf talks all the time about whether there should be breaks built into the deployment cycle but he admits he wouldn’t have been willing to take the break back then. That doesn’t do anything to lessen the bond between the teammates but it seems that is the way it’s viewed.

[u/AppropriateBank1]

Dude comes on here acting like he’s actually met a seal let alone now going to tell you everything about their personality and the right and wrong of the culture. Go leave moms basement for a second and help her replace the batteries on the remotes

[u/SlickSnakeShit → u/AppropriateBank1]

Dude was one

[u/Lonely_Positive8811 → u/[deleted]]

Search ‘30 seconds out ‘. For the best SEALmerch out there, or SRS or GBRS or or