Divorce.

[vim_fuego]

Been watching a thread on another Military orientated website about another marraige that has bit the dust attributable to military related reasons...I reckon the divorce rate is horrendous in the armed forces in general these days and wondered just how bad it was...

If nothing else if its happened to you it gives you somewhere in the public forum to 'get it off your chest' and maybe rant a little....

I'll start...I've had a practise marraige...Both of us were serving and spent an average of 6 months apart for our first 3 years...We didn't make it to the end of the 4th! Became strangers and that was that...

Have to add that new marraige is really good as is expanding family so there was light at the end of the tunnel (as everyone kept telling me...over and over and over....)..DT_Xtremez_25:

 

[gemarriott]

Iwas a mere child of 18 well ok only by for another 2 weeks when I wed mrs M. I was already in themob so we knew there was no excuses there if we fell apart. Almost immediately after marrying I was sent to Cyprus at 30 minutes notice. Wake up to RAF life Mrs MDT_Xtremez_42:Still 30+ years down the track we are still together.

You often hear you have to work at a marriage to make it right. That's bollox! if it is right it will survive if it is wrong no amount of work will fix it. sometimes you might have to learn compromise isn't a dirty word.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Interesting thread though.

 

[vim_fuego]

When somebody with more IT skills than me comes online fron the admin staff I'll try and change the options to be dual sex and maybe even include a 'single' option...

 

[AndyZ]

Been down the aisle twice so far #1 was when I was 18 in RAFG to a scaley brat...that lasted about as long as my tour/det to MPA, got divorced due to service less than a year after we wed.....#2 (mother to my 2 boys) married a year b4 I left the servce in 90, got divorced 2 years back. My current partner and I are engaged but no plans as yet to actually get married as these days it is sometimes easier not to rock the boat and jump into total commitment...we are happy now that is what counts!DT_Xtremez_28:

 

[monobrow]

Got wed to Mrs_M in 2001 when I was 19.

5 years (well 5th anniversary in Oct and I'm in the sandpit HURRAH!!!) and 2 kids later we're still going strong!

One guy at her old workplace started a sweepstakes in how long it would last backstop being a year, CNUT!

 

[wobbly]

I think certain women are not cut out to be service wives. Iv'e been all over the shop during my marriage and my wife hasn't battered an eyelid and fully understands that I'm a serviceman and knows what the job entails. What really grips my **** is people who get married to women who cant let go of their mothers apron strings and need to boomerang back to their families at every available opportunity. I've seen lads have to leave the job they loved because of their wives, lads have to short tour from Germany because of their wives and lads that have their lives made a living hell because they have to go away on detachment.

The divorce rate in the forces is a problem because of the constant moving (both home and abroad), increased OOA's and many other factors. Germany used to be bad because of the booze related problems (Infidelity) and the fact that the women were left, often with newborns, on their own in a foreign land while the lads were away on never ending dets. In Germany there was even a lad who was locked in his cellar by his wife because he had to go away on yet another det. He didn't turn up for the jet at the terminal and was classed as missing.


Im happily married to my first wife (16 years) and I married at 20 by the way but I made sure that she knew what life in the service was like before we got wed. 16 years later and 2 great kids we are even happier together now than we were when we first got wed.

 

[enginesuck]

Its a tough one, been married two years and a kiddy on the way, mrs enginesuck is really good about my jaunts to foreign lands though i know its not easy for her, shes not one to go back to mum when im away, i still find it hard to tell her im away again - though i have to say if my marriage was going to end because of my job id be out in a flash. There are more important things in life than the RAF.

 

[wgaf]

I was married for 14 yrs, she was in the as well and in the end it just sort of fell apart, there's no malice or hatred and we speak on a regular basis. She was a bit pi**ed off at first 'cos the kids decided they wanted to live with me.
Was it down to service reasons..... Partly, I am one of those souls who seems to get shafted for every det going,but in the end it was just a case of, this isn't working anymore lets see if we can both be happy elsewhere.
Dunno if that makes any sense!

 

[Mrs_Monobrow]

I wonder do forces couples marry to quickly is there more pressure to marry too quick???

I was 18 (just) when i married Monobrow, over the years (particulary when i first arrived at swampyland) a lot of the other wives i met asked why we married so young, and in truth it was because we wanted to live together. In civvy street we could have got our own place and probably, by now at most, we would be engaged, but because he was in the mob, we had to be married to be together. Some of you may ask why i didnt just move up here anyway and we lived off camp, well in truth i was scared. I had never lived away from home, couldnt drive and i didnt want live 90 miles away from anyone i knew without some kind of security (for want of a better word).

So yes, i think forces couples do marry too quickly. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, and before we wed, that was weekends only.

I do not regret getting married young, i was in love and happy to do what ever it took for us to be together, now 5 years later i am still very happy and in love (probably more so).

DT_Xtremez_28:

 

[wgaf]

I was 18 (just) when i married Monobrow, over the years (particulary when i first arrived at swampyland) a lot of the other wives i met asked why we married so young, and in truth it was because we wanted to live together. In civvy street we could have got our own place and probably, by now at most, we would be engaged, but because he was in the mob, we had to be married to be together. Some of you may ask why i didnt just move up here anyway and we lived off camp, well in truth i was scared. I had never lived away from home, couldnt drive and i didnt want live 90 miles away from anyone i knew without some kind of security (for want of a better word).

So yes, i think forces couples do marry too quickly. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, and before we wed, that was weekends only.

I do not regret getting married young, i was in love and happy to do what ever it took for us to be together, now 5 years later i am still very happy and in love (probably more so).

DT_Xtremez_28:

V honest answer Mrs M and absolutely spot on.

 

[Mrs_Monobrow]

V honest answer Mrs M and absolutely spot on.

Cheers wgaf! Im not ashamed to admit that what the RAF offer in terms of housing is a lot better (and cheaper) than in civvy life and that played a very big part in our decision.

DT_Xtremez_28:

 

[Mrsmerv]

i ended up marrying the gimp after only knowing him for 13 months because i was told i would be posted and a relationship doesn't go towards co-location, the RAF made it so that we could only be together if we got married. I was 21 at the time and it hasn't been easy, but after 6 years of marrage and now two children it doesn't seem so bad. The hardest thing for us is that when i let the mob to have our first daughter the station he works at went into short staff overdrive and he was working or away constantly. This has been the main reason for most of our arguments, you just need to remember whats important to you and try to get on with your life the best you can.

I know that we would not have got married so quickly if not forced to, as we were already living together (at great expense), but don't regret it one bit, just got to remember to marry your best friend as the love and lust tend to wear off after the first few years and you still need to be able to tollerate them after that.DT_Xtremez_28:

 

[Mrs_Monobrow]

Ohhh Mrs M. I am nodding along and understand totally what you have to say but I am smiling about the romance in the decision *wink*

My hubby and I had good digs and I can't explain why we got married all I can say is I always get what I want oppps.DT_Xtremez_42: even if I don't actually know what I want.

Oh there was romance. We had spoken about it several times but always came to the conclusion that we were too young and my parents would never go for it or think we were serious. Eventually we decided that regardless of age, we wanted to be together always. Apologies to monobrow as this may cause embarrassment, but he proposed the old fashioned way. He asked my dads permission first, then took me for a lovely meal. On the walk home we had to pass the church where i have always wanted to get married in, outside the doors he knelt down and proposed!!!!! Hows that for romantic!!

And yes Mrsmery, he is my best friend, but at the mo we still have the love and lust, lol
DT_Xtremez_30:

 

[Get Tae]

Can you add another option of 'divorced and re-married' cause plenty of people I know have done that several times over!!!!!!DT_Xtremez_08:

 

[gemarriott]

Me and MrsM were always asked why we married so young, well basically we wanted to be together, it is hard getting one's end away or the washing and ironing done when the lasy is 50 miles from where you are and all you've got is a RAF bike.

we met, courted got engaged and married within 10 months. And all Mrs Monobrows comments ring a very loud bell with us. I hope you are as happy as we have been and still are.

The real big plus is we are still young enough to travel, get p1ssed, act stupid and the kids are off our hands because we had them young. Now my sons are the ones giving me the parental bollokings and telling me to act my age and not my shoe size.DT_Xtremez_28:

 

[The Fact Hunter]

.....Or better still, another category for multiple divorced due to service reasons who've now got a big telly instead !! I know quite a few cases of people on their 3rd marriage now.

 

[skevans]

I was 18 (just) when i married Monobrow, over the years (particulary when i first arrived at swampyland) a lot of the other wives i met asked why we married so young, and in truth it was because we wanted to live together. In civvy street we could have got our own place and probably, by now at most, we would be engaged, but because he was in the mob, we had to be married to be together. Some of you may ask why i didnt just move up here anyway and we lived off camp, well in truth i was scared. I had never lived away from home, couldnt drive and i didnt want live 90 miles away from anyone i knew without some kind of security (for want of a better word).

So yes, i think forces couples do marry too quickly. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, and before we wed, that was weekends only.

I do not regret getting married young, i was in love and happy to do what ever it took for us to be together, now 5 years later i am still very happy and in love (probably more so).

DT_Xtremez_28:

I can empathise completely with the sentiment you have expressed. Myself and Mrs Skevans met in October 96 at the still tender age of 22/23 respectively. We married in May 97. Why the rush?

We were, as most couples are at this stage, very much in love. We spent every minute we could doing things together and became totally inseperable. Then i recieved my posting notice. We knew the options;
1. Commute during days off.
2. rent a flat at £stupid.
3. Marry, live in MQ's and start putting our life into some sort of order.

the answer seemed obvious.
1. I had done this before and didn't want to go through it again. Some people find it easy, I don't.
2. I didn't earn a great deal, and at first she wouldn't have a job. So this would have been expensive.
3. The only answer that seemed to fit the problem.

She proposed to me in March and we married in May. everyone kept saying 'it won't last', ' are you sure' etc but we had made up our minds and that is what we did.

10 years later and we are still toghether and just as much in love as we were then. Yes we did marry very quickly and we didn't know each other as well as we thought we did at the time. However, she has been fully supportive in all my endeavours and we are a very well matched couple.

I am fortunate. I have seen so many others who's relationships haven't been so strong. service induced circumstances can cause struggle for any couple no matter how well matched you are. And I won't pretend that we don't argue, we do, making up again is fun though

I have been so lucky to marry my best friend.

 

[Mrsmerv]

it does get a bit difficult to keep the lust and love alive when you have two children under 4 one of which is a baby you really need to be feeling good and not totally shattered all the time, but then again there must be something there if one of them is a baby

 

[katinthehat]

I married my Ex in 1999, after 8 and a half yrs together, and a baby. It lasted 3years after that! He didnt marry me sooner as he was still in love with his ex wife and I was stupid enough to think he would change from the abusive idiot he was.

I left in Feb 2002, did a moonlight Im afraid to say, as he scared me enough to warrant it.

Met my now hubby in April of 2002, got engaged on New Years Eve and married the following June. Then spent 3yrs living apart cos of my Ex.... long story.

Have had a baby, and now lie happilly together, although he is away at the mo.
He is my soul mate, two halves of the same coin me & him. And when hes not here its like having my right arm cut off..... soppy git aint i!!

 

[B's_gal]

He is my soul mate. And when hes not here its like having my right arm cut off.....

Not married to him, but I know how you feel...