The failed marriage

Years ago while in the Army I got married. I got married way too soon. So I was station in Maryland and I started dating this girl. Things were good. We had fun and liked each other a lot. Then the military decided I needed to move to another base. Money was tight and they wouldn’t pay to move her too and I was a big decision. We decided that if we got married, they would pay for it. So we did that. We were kinda just married in name only but still dating. This however made me a step-dad as she had a son.

I don’t remember a whole ton from back then. Pretty sure my head being hit a few times has messed with my memory. Maybe I am suppressing things. Maybe it was just the mentality I was in. I’m not sure myself.

I was not the best husband. We spent time together but despite living together, I guess I just kept thinking of it as dating. We should have our own time to ourselves I thought. I don’t think it was that bad but she said it was. We had a dog at one point. It was a good dog. I liked it. She was also not the best wife. Money was always tight. She basically refused to get a job or really do much of anything. The house was always kind of a mess. Sure, there was a kid but not much of an excuse since she was always home. I think I felt a bit of resentment by that. It felt like it was up to me to do everything but she just got to sit at home all day.

When I deploy, I needed to mentally prepare myself. This was my third one after all, I thought I knew how. The problem was, this was the first one I had while married. Maybe I was too distant. I needed to kinda of distance myself or the thoughts of the deployment would come back and hurt things but I don’t think it was that bad. She said otherwise.

Then I deployed to Afghanistan. Our mission was to train the Afghan police.

While deployed I stayed in touch as much as possible. I had some access to internet as I was helping to run a private internet service. Shitty speeds but it was something at least. I notice on her facebook liking someones stuff first. It was mostly in spanish though. She mentioned while I was deployed that she wanted to learn spanish. This was a red flag. Later she mentioned wanting to “join a circus” while was strange. Obviously I wasnt going to agree with that. She was pretty upset about that. She went on a trip with her female friend. I don’t remember if they said what they were going to do. Later on, maybe a couple months? I am not sure. Time passes differently when deployed and my memory isn’t great either. She had a falling out with her friend and her friend messaged me that she had cheated on me. It was that spanish speaking guy from Facebook.

I didn’t want to believe it but I knew it was true. They did just have a falling out so it could be a lie I told myself. I had to shove it down and not think about it. Having something like that while deployed will get you killed. I found out 2 days after a suicide bomber incident. Happened right around a corner from where I was on the Afghan Police base attached to ours. I wasn’t even wearing protective gear. An arm fell from the sky in front of me. I went back to where I needed to be and did what I needed to do. Not my job to investigate it. It was my job to get to the radios and make sure I do my job. I wasn’t in a good place when I got the news is my point.

So, I get home and act like everything is ok. Nothing was ok. One night, I am at my computer investigating if I can find any communications and I find it. URLs in the browser history to Google translate. It shows the messages. I confront her and she admits to it. She blames me for not being around. I used to think she meant because I was deployed but I am sure thats not all of it. She said something like “its not like we are really married or anything” but I am sure she knew that was not true as soon as she said it and I said something along the lines of “you know thats not really true.” For whatever reason, we tried to make it work. Maybe for the kid or maybe because I didn’t want to be alone. Things fell apart. Try as I might, I could just never fully commit to it again. I am sure it showed. She left and eventually we were divorced.

I am not sure why I have thought about it a few times fairly recently. Am I comparing things to my current marriage? Am I just in a state of depression and my mind just wants to pile the shit on and make me compare them like there is a problem? I don’t really know. I probably wont ever know but I suspect its a bit of depression thats being brought on or made worse by the thoughts I have been having recently regarding my age and feeling so much older still.