Military Marriage

Or… "Putting the FUN in Dysfunctional!"

Disclaimer: Before proceeding, please be aware that this is neither an indictment of all military marriages or of all teen marriages. It is simply a series of observations based on the qualities that seem to be present in both, and particularly in the combination.

I am married to a soldier. The salient point is that I did not marry a soldier. Alan and I got married after dating for more than five years and we were married a year before he ever even thought about joining the Army. We have a good relationship.

My friends Charlee and Kelby just celebrated their first anniversary in March. They got married right before Kelby left for Basic, but they only partially fit the mold of the "military marriage." They had been together through most of high school and lived together before they got married and well before Kelby thought of enlisting. Marriage was the next logical step for them and it was merely hastened by Kelby’s imminent departure. The only difference the Army made was in how elaborately planned the wedding was.

The rule of the Army, however, seems to be that no matter how briefly you’ve been dating, marriage is the only option if you don’t want to break up. Enter couples like A & Z, N & E, and D & K. Classic military marriages. Barely dating and suddenly they’re married. And all well below the average age for marriage. What do you suppose the odds of divorce are in these situations? Considering the number of guys Alan has met out here who are divorced (some multiple times) and not even 25 yet, I’d have to say it’s pretty high.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m rooting for them. I hope it works out. But when you’re 18, you hardly know who you are. Add to that the very strange life a military family leads, and you have a recipe for disaster.

D & K are recently married. K has a daughter from a previous relationship, who D is now supporting financially since K had to leave her job to move here with D. And since it’s not his kid, that means she can’t be on his DEERS form, so her medical care is coming out of his pocket. They’ve been dating less than a year and got married without any kind of fanfare at the county clerk’s office about three weeks ago. I suspect that this has a chance, primarily because they knew one another growing up in Illinois. They’re also a little bit older (early 20’s) and she’s had to grow up quite a bit since her daughter is nearly two already. And D genuinely seems to care about them both, even though he seemed to be looking for any reason to get married.

N & E are another couple who married because of the Army. She’s a bit younger than him, but I think they dated for a little while before they actually got married. They even lived together briefly (very briefly) beforehand. They don’t have kids, which is a bit surprising. E seemed adamant that they weren’t ready and I believe her. It’s actually impressive since it’s a rule of military families that they’re younger than average and are made up of three kids: The post-Basic training baby, the pre-deployment baby, and the post-deployment baby. The problem is that they don’t really know how to live together. They were only married a few months before he deployed, and now she’s gone back to Iowa to live with her parents while he’s gone.

I’ve been saving the best for last. A & Z. A is from Hawaii and Z is from Arizona. They met while A was at AIT at Ft. Huachuca. Now, the instructors and NCO’s at Ft. Huachuca will happily tell soldiers to stay out of Sierra Vista and especially not to get involved with the residents there. Well, A got involved. Not only did he get involved, but he got Z pregnant. Oh! And she was 17 at the time. So they got married and moved out here. They barely knew each other and had never lived together. And now they have a 3-month-old. They’ve been together just over a year.

And now it seems they’ve broken up. And not amicably.

A showed up to PT this morning with a gash down one side of his face. The rest of the office was released from PT so that the NCO’s could have a counseling session with A. Clearly the cops weren’t involved because Colorado Springs has a zero-tolerance policy on domestic violence. If they get called someone’s getting arrested and usually both partners do. This is what happens when you marry someone you don’t know. You end up with a psychopath. Apparently Z has been violent before, but A played it off as pregnancy hormones. It could still be related to the pregnancy, especially if she’s dealing with postpartum depression or psychosis, but that just calls our attention to the fact that these people are 18. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into having a kid. They don’t even know how to be in a relationship. They don’t know how to support themselves or solve their own problems… And what does it lead to? Violence and complete breakdown.

I can’t help but wonder what the hell possessed either of these people to think marriage was a good idea. Child support… THAT is a good idea. If they had just waited a little while. Colorado and Arizona aren’t that far from each other. You’re telling me that jumping into marriage with someone who’s practically a stranger is easier than a long-distance relationship? She could have moved up here, gotten a job and a cheap apartment, kept dating A. Then they could have figured out if it was a good idea. But no. The military mindset somehow doesn’t work that way. So you end up with people who can’t even legally buy alcohol yet struggling to figure out how to be husbands and wives at the same time that they figure out how to be fathers and mothers. I don’t care if you have kids before you’re married, but for please just try to be one at a time. The public schools in this country haven’t prepared you for that kind of learning curve.

~Liz